Diane hated prisons. They were drab, depressing, and they smelled bad. Prisons were places people wanted to leave. The last time she visited someone in prison was when she came to interview Clymene O’Riley, a black widow she had put away. It was more or less an official visit then and, although not pleasant, it was bearable. This time she almost decided to just forget about it and leave. She would have if Ross Kingsley hadn’t been with her.
She filled out the mandatory forms that, among other things, gave the guards permission to search her person and allow the drug dog to sniff her up and down. The papers must also have given them permission to be ill-mannered. The prison personnel probably didn’t like being there either. Once she passed the sniff test, she was allowed to go into the visiting room. Ross went to see the warden on his own mission.
The visiting area wasn’t a bad room. It was painted salmon pink, and she wondered whether the color meant anything-perhaps that it sapped your strength or something, kind of aroma therapy for the eyes. On the back wall was a row of cubicles with telephones. Each cubicle contained a stool screwed to the floor. The communication stalls resembled those small doorless phone booths you used to see everywhere, except for the window in the wall that separated visitors from the prisoner on the other side.
Diane sat down on the stool in cubicle three, as she had been instructed. In a few minutes Ryan Dance came into the room on the other side of the window, sat down, and picked up the phone.
He looked older than the young man in his mug shot. Of course, the photograph was taken nine years ago. He was thirty-one now. He looked older. His once gold-blond hair was now brown, dull, and stringy. His nose looked even more crooked. He had a front tooth missing and prison tats on his arms and fingers.
Diane picked up the phone, introduced herself, and told him she was sorry about his sister.
“Thanks,” he mumbled.
“Your father believes Stacy was murdered because she was getting close to discovering who framed you,” said Diane.
Ryan nodded his head and looked away for a moment. “She is a neat kid-was a neat kid” he said.
Diane saw his eyes sparkle with moisture.
“I told her not to do anything dangerous. Dad doesn’t have anybody now.”
“I’m working with someone your dad hired to find out what happened to her. The police ruled her death an accident,” said Diane.
Ryan’s face transformed into a cruel mask. “I know what they said and they’re full of shit. Stupid bastards. They were stupid then. They’re even stupider now.” He spat out the words as if they were bitter seeds. “She don’t deserve none of this. None of us do.”
More visitors came in and filled the cubicles, and the noise level rose. Most everyone spoke in low voices, but Diane could pick out sniffling, sobbing, whispered anger, and laughing among the low cacophony of sounds. She wanted to finish this, get the hell out, and go home.
“Would you mind telling me what you think put you here?” said Diane. “From your point of view.”
He was quiet for a moment and his face went back to the emotionless mask it had been before she’d mentioned the death of his sister.
“Don’t you think I’ve been laying awake at night for nine years trying to figure that out? I don’t know. I didn’t know that Carruthers girl. Never knew her. I was twenty-two years old, for Christ’s sake; she was in fucking high school. I never went driving by her house like they said I did. I never went into that neighborhood.”
“Start from the beginning and tell me what you do know,” said Diane.
“The beginning was me sitting watching the Atlanta Braves on TV and the police coming in with a search warrant. That’s the first I ever heard of that girl.”
“A witness reported seeing your car in the neighborhood, and took down your tag number,” said Diane. She tried keeping her voice even and calm.
“Don’t I know it. She was at my trial. I never saw that bitch before and I wasn’t in that neighborhood. A lot of rich folk live there. What would I be doing there?”
“She said she recognized you in your Atlanta Braves cap, your gold Chevrolet, and your license plates,” said Diane.
“Maybe my car was there, maybe my hat was there, but I wasn’t there. Somebody put the frame on me.”
“You have any idea who would do that?” asked Diane.
“No damn idea whatsoever. I’ve never hurt nobody bad enough to do this to me,” he said.
“Sometimes people overreact to something hurtful. Is there anyone you can think of who might have a small grudge, something that got blown out of proportion in their mind?”
“I’ve broke up with girlfriends, but none of them would do this. Like, they’d have to be crazy to kill somebody and blame it on me. What kind of maniac would do that? I never went with no girls that crazy… or that mean.”
Diane wasn’t getting anything useful out of Ryan. It was a wasted trip. He genuinely seemed clueless, or he was a really good actor. On the other hand, many criminals were really good actors.
“Did you have your car stolen or used by anyone else around that time?” asked Diane.
“No, not that I know,” he said.
“How would you not know?” she said.
“Well, I wasn’t in my car all the time. Somebody could’ve borrowed it and brought it back while I was working or watching TV or… sometimes I’d go out drinking and, well, somebody could’ve borrowed it then,” he said. “I might not know about it.”
“Did you always take your car keys with you?” said Diane.
“I left the keys shut up in the sun visor, you know, like in Terminator 2,” he said.
“I understand you were a truck driver at the time,” said Diane.
“Dad got me the job. He was a loading dock foreman at Walker Ace. They transport all over. But I only drove local,” said Ryan.
“Where was your car when you were working?” asked Diane.
“Sometimes at my apartment, when I rode to work with Dad. Sometimes in the lot at work. They keep the lot locked so nobody can steal stuff out of your car.”
“Did Stacy tell you what she was working on?” asked Diane.
“Just that she was going back and talking to witnesses and stuff. I told her to be careful. I told her to get a detective to do that, not do it herself. But she was stubborn.”
“Did she tell you any details about what she found?” asked Diane.
He shook his head. “She had a hard time getting people to talk to her, but…”
“But what?” prodded Diane.
“Last time we talked she seemed, well, happy. She never wanted to get my hopes up, but I know she felt good about something,” he said.
“When was that?” asked Diane.
“About a week before she… before she died,” he said. “She should have left it alone. Maybe she could’ve found some detective real cheap to do the legwork for her. She shouldn’t ’ave done it by herself. You find out who killed her. It’s not right for her to be dead and me stuck in here. None of us did nothing to deserve this.”
Diane saw movement of the guards in the background and looked at her watch. Time to go.
“Thank you for talking to me,” she said.
“Thanks for helping my sister and my dad.”
He spoke as if there was no hope for him. Diane watched him leave before she rose from the stool.
She didn’t wait for Ross inside the prison. Instead, she left and waited outside by the car for him to return. It didn’t take long. Within five minutes he came walking out of the gates and over to the car.
“How was it?” he asked.
“Waste of time,” said Diane. “Either he knows nothing or he’s a good liar. I don’t know which.”
They got into Kingsley’s Prius and he started the engine. Diane felt relief when they pulled out of the prison grounds and into traffic toward Rosewood.
“He did seem genuinely sad about his sister,” she said. “How did you do?”
“Interesting, in a way. No information, but he had some pinups under his mattress. All were more mature and voluptuous ladies than Miss Carruthers. Judging from that, his tastes don’t seem to run to high school girls.”
“He was closer to her age back then,” said Diane. “Besides, maybe those were the only kind of pictures he could get hold of.”
“I know the pictures don’t mean anything. But if he had pictures of younger girls hidden in his cell, that would have meant something,” said Kingsley.
“Anything else in his cell?” asked Diane.
“Books about sports, a Bible, hygiene stuff, letters from his father and sister,” he said.
“How did you get the warden to let you in his cell?”
“You’d be surprised at how many career employees would like to retire from criminal justice and take a job with a private firm-and take home two salaries, as it were. To that end, they can be awfully accommodating to firms such as the one I work for,” said Kingsley.
“Interesting,” said Diane. “Did you read the letters?”
Kingsley nodded. “Nothing there that contributes to our purposes. His sister didn’t keep him apprised of what she was doing.”
“That’s what he told me. He said she didn’t want to get his hopes up. But he did say that about a week before she died, she was optimistic about something. She didn’t tell him what.”
“Well, I’m glad we got the prison visit over with.” Kingsley grinned at her. “I’m sorry. I know you hated it.”
“It’s so depressing. Surely there must be a better model for a penal system,” she said.
“I’d like to go to Stacy’s apartment. Are you up for it?” he asked.
“I need to check in at the museum for a while, then the crime lab. I’ll pick up a crime scene kit and meet you there. We need to process her apartment the right way, even though it’s been trampled all over.”