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Authors: Patricia Cornwell
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past the glass windows on either side of the steel door again, making sure everything is okay, and while
Kathleen doesn’t look at him, I can tell he is on her radar.
“I’m glad you came and we had a chance to talk. I’m glad your lawyer and all the lawyers opened that door for us, and I appreciate
any pictures or anything else you’re kind enough to give me,” she adds, and it sounds strange, as if she means something other
than what she’s saying, something other than what I know, and she waits for Officer Macon to vanish from our view again.
Reaching inside the collar of her white uniform shirt, she withdraws something from her bra. She scoots a tightly folded piece
of paper across the table to me.
6
W ater drips from live oak trees and palmettos at the edge of the parking lot, and I smell rain and the sweet perfume of flowering
shrubs, their petals littering the earth like bright confetti. The air is thick and hot, and the sun glowers intermittently
through roiling dark clouds to the west, and I climb back into the cargo van, marveling that nobody stopped me.
As Officer Macon escorted me out of Bravo Pod and along a sidewalk still wet from the storm, he gave no indication that anything
was out of line or even out of the ordinary, but I didn’t believe him. I couldn’t imagine he or someone, perhaps the warden
herself, wasn’t aware that Kathleen Lawler had slipped me a communication I’m not supposed to have. Back at the checkpoint,
where my hand was scanned under a UV light, revealing the password
snow
stamped on my skin, nothing was said beyond Officer Macon’s thanking me for coming, as if my visiting the Georgia Prison
for Women was some sort of favor to the place. I told him Kathleen was afraid for her safety, and he smiled and said the inmates
love to tell “tall tales,” and that the very reason she’d been moved was to ensure her safety. I said good-bye and left.
I’m about to conclude that my original suspicion is correct. My conversation with Kathleen might have been audio-recorded,
but she and I were not captured by a video camera. Otherwise, when she silently flicked the kite across the table to me, it
would have been observed by corrections officers, at the very least. Most certainly I would have been marched back to the
warden’s ivy-infested office, where I would have been forced to surrender the folded piece of paper that I’m aware of in my
back pocket as if it is a rock or something hot. It also occurs to me that Kathleen wouldn’t have sneaked anything to me had
she worried about being caught, and I have the growing suspicion she is part of a manipulation more treacherous than anything
I might have imagined. Although I’m not ready to decide she just got the best of me, I realize she might have.
Cranking the engine, I remove what Kathleen gave to me as I scan the parking lot, making sure no one is nearby and watching. I’m aware of the mesh-covered narrow windows in the blue metal-roofed pods, of the columned red-brick administrative building
I just left. Steam rises from wet pavement and is carried on the heavy, warm air through my open window, and in a far corner
of the crowded lot I notice a black Mercedes wagon reminiscent of a hearse, and a woman sitting inside it with the engine
off, talking on a cell phone. It’s hot and muggy to be inside a car with no air-conditioning running, but her windows are cracked. She doesn’t seem to be paying
any attention to me. I’m uneasy and unsettled, and by this point I believe I have reason to be.
Ever since Benton dropped me off at Logan early this morning, I’ve had the sensation that I’m being monitored or tampered
with, yet I’m aware of no tangible evidence that might prove it. But the feeling has gotten stronger because of other odd
things. This ridiculous van I never reserved, dirty and smelly, its glove box crammed full of Bojangles’ napkins and charter-boat
Kathleen doesn’t look at him, I can tell he is on her radar.
“I’m glad you came and we had a chance to talk. I’m glad your lawyer and all the lawyers opened that door for us, and I appreciate
any pictures or anything else you’re kind enough to give me,” she adds, and it sounds strange, as if she means something other
than what she’s saying, something other than what I know, and she waits for Officer Macon to vanish from our view again.
Reaching inside the collar of her white uniform shirt, she withdraws something from her bra. She scoots a tightly folded piece
of paper across the table to me.
6
W ater drips from live oak trees and palmettos at the edge of the parking lot, and I smell rain and the sweet perfume of flowering
shrubs, their petals littering the earth like bright confetti. The air is thick and hot, and the sun glowers intermittently
through roiling dark clouds to the west, and I climb back into the cargo van, marveling that nobody stopped me.
As Officer Macon escorted me out of Bravo Pod and along a sidewalk still wet from the storm, he gave no indication that anything
was out of line or even out of the ordinary, but I didn’t believe him. I couldn’t imagine he or someone, perhaps the warden
herself, wasn’t aware that Kathleen Lawler had slipped me a communication I’m not supposed to have. Back at the checkpoint,
where my hand was scanned under a UV light, revealing the password
snow
stamped on my skin, nothing was said beyond Officer Macon’s thanking me for coming, as if my visiting the Georgia Prison
for Women was some sort of favor to the place. I told him Kathleen was afraid for her safety, and he smiled and said the inmates
love to tell “tall tales,” and that the very reason she’d been moved was to ensure her safety. I said good-bye and left.
I’m about to conclude that my original suspicion is correct. My conversation with Kathleen might have been audio-recorded,
but she and I were not captured by a video camera. Otherwise, when she silently flicked the kite across the table to me, it
would have been observed by corrections officers, at the very least. Most certainly I would have been marched back to the
warden’s ivy-infested office, where I would have been forced to surrender the folded piece of paper that I’m aware of in my
back pocket as if it is a rock or something hot. It also occurs to me that Kathleen wouldn’t have sneaked anything to me had
she worried about being caught, and I have the growing suspicion she is part of a manipulation more treacherous than anything
I might have imagined. Although I’m not ready to decide she just got the best of me, I realize she might have.
Cranking the engine, I remove what Kathleen gave to me as I scan the parking lot, making sure no one is nearby and watching. I’m aware of the mesh-covered narrow windows in the blue metal-roofed pods, of the columned red-brick administrative building
I just left. Steam rises from wet pavement and is carried on the heavy, warm air through my open window, and in a far corner
of the crowded lot I notice a black Mercedes wagon reminiscent of a hearse, and a woman sitting inside it with the engine
off, talking on a cell phone. It’s hot and muggy to be inside a car with no air-conditioning running, but her windows are cracked. She doesn’t seem to be paying
any attention to me. I’m uneasy and unsettled, and by this point I believe I have reason to be.
Ever since Benton dropped me off at Logan early this morning, I’ve had the sensation that I’m being monitored or tampered
with, yet I’m aware of no tangible evidence that might prove it. But the feeling has gotten stronger because of other odd
things. This ridiculous van I never reserved, dirty and smelly, its glove box crammed full of Bojangles’ napkins and charter-boat
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