Taking the Heat

Those who didn’t join a gang and wouldn’t or couldn’t fight got shoved so far down the ladder they couldn’t take a piss without permission from someone. And Tucker wasn’t about to ask a fellow inmate’s leave to do anything. Too many things had happened to him that he couldn’t control—the disappearance of his wife, the accusations that followed, the single-minded determination of the district attorney to see him behind bars. At least he could defend himself with his fists. At least he could retain control of that.

His neighbor started to snore again. “Shut up, man,” Tucker hollered. “I can’t sleep.”

His outburst brought no change, except a few curses from those he’d disturbed.

God, he wanted it to be morning. Then, if he was still able to function with his injuries, he could focus on his job making thirty cents an hour as a “skilled laborer”—an electrician. It was a trade he’d basically taught himself since coming to prison. His other alternatives, come daybreak, were to take a walk in the yard, lift weights, read—anything to distract himself from the same subjects he dwelled on every night. Landon. His freedom. His dead wife.

He and Andrea certainly hadn’t been the happiest of couples. They’d split several times, talked about divorce. They’d been going through a rough period right before the police had found her blood spattered on the cement floor of the garage. But Tucker had cared about her and he’d been trying to hold their marriage together for Landon’s sake. They might not have been as much in love as they were at first, but a lot of couples drifted apart during a marriage. The fact that he wasn’t a particularly doting husband certainly didn’t make him a killer. He couldn’t prove his innocence, though, because he’d never dreamed he’d need an alibi.

His thoughts strayed to the strange way his wife had been acting before the night that had changed everything. He was sure she’d been seeing someone else—again. She wouldn’t admit it, of course. But Tucker had known something was different. He’d felt it. The private investigator had proved that she’d cheated on him more than once. But even that evidence had worked against him. The more suspicious of Andrea he appeared, the stronger his motive to kill her. The police hadn’t even considered that one of the men she was sleeping with might have done it. Or they hadn’t cared. They’d had their scapegoat.

He sifted through Andrea’s friends and acquaintances but, as always, drew a blank. He didn’t know anyone who’d want to kill her. She was beautiful, successful, admired by all. If she was also a little selfish, overly ambitious and egotistical, most people didn’t know that. She had no real enemies. Even his friends quickly became her friends.

His eyelids were finally growing heavy, his thoughts slowing. Closing his eyes, Tucker released the tension in his body and started to relax. The pain in his hand ebbed and his neighbor’s snores seemed to fade, along with the other background noise that never ceased in prison. Blessed sleep approached, promising oblivion at last—

Wood clattered on the bars of his cell, jolting Tucker into wakefulness. He opened his eyes to see a guard walking down the corridor, his baton scraping against the cages for no apparent reason. For a moment Tucker wished for five minutes alone with that guard and his baton. But the fact that he’d even think such a thing told him he’d been locked up too long already. Violence was becoming more and more natural to him. The guards were sometimes worse than the inmates, or at least no better. Many of them were cruel, small-minded and shortsighted. It was little wonder Tucker had no respect for them—although Officer Hadley didn’t fit that mold.

Only five feet six or so, maybe one hundred and twenty pounds, she’d jumped into the middle of the fight and started clubbing people. The memory of it made Tucker smile, despite everything. It was quite a sight—something he certainly hadn’t expected to see. The other female guards stood behind their male counterparts, happy, even grateful, to be somewhat removed and protected.

Hadley had more spunk in her than that. She’d stuck to her principles even though she stood alone. Which didn’t mean she wasn’t frightened, Tucker thought. She’d been terrified when she came to his cell. But she hadn’t let her fear, or him, get the best of her. She’d cleaned his cuts and checked his injuries, then bent the rules just enough to let him know that some people still understood the meaning of compassion.

Tucker knew he was stupid to let himself dwell on a woman, on a guard, no less. He’d ultimately only frustrate himself that much more. But he was so sick of the mystery surrounding Andrea’s death and the unfairness of it all, so tired of hating and being angry. What he wanted was to feel a woman smooth the hair off his forehead or to throw her arms around his neck. More than anything he longed to be in love with someone, to be loved in return, and to hear her soft breathing as she slept curled up next to him. Such simple things…things he’d probably never know again. Except in his dreams. When he finally drifted off to sleep, Officer Hadley smiled at him, pressed her lips to his forehead and told him everything was going to be all right.

HE WASN’T GOING TO LOOK at her.

Tucker kept his eyes on his Scrabble tiles and away from Officer Hadley, who was slowly circling the common area. She’d come on duty two hours and eighteen minutes ago, and he’d spent the whole of that time trying to ignore her. But certain things filtered through. Such as her perfume. Or maybe it was her shampoo or even her deodorant. He only knew that she smelled like heaven. After being imprisoned with a bunch of crude, sweaty men for more than two years, including the months he’d spent in the county jail throughout his trial, the scent of Officer Hadley drove him almost as crazy as the memory of her cool fingers on his face.

At least Rodriguez and his gang were still in their cells. He wouldn’t have to defend himself today.

Using his left hand because he couldn’t move his right, he formed the word “parley” on the game board and started counting up his points. Double letter score for the p makes eight—

“Parley! What the hell is that?” his opponent demanded. “That’s no word! You think you’re so damn smart, but I bet half the shit you come up with isn’t even real.”

Tucker shrugged. If he got upset every time Zinger accused him of cheating he would’ve choked the man long ago. And he couldn’t do that. Zinger was the only one who could challenge him at Scrabble or chess, and he knew he’d go stark raving mad without something to distract him. He worked thirty hours a week and spent a couple of hours each day lifting weights, but he had to fill the rest of his time somehow. Fortunately the warden had recently started a pilot program that rewarded inmates who worked hard and demonstrated good behavior with two hours a week to play games. Since prisoners came up for review only once every six months and Hansen hadn’t reported many of the fights in which Tucker had been involved, Tucker still qualified.

“You’re missing the s,” Zinger insisted. “You were thinking of ‘parsley.”’

Maybe he would choke Zinger, Tucker thought. At least then he’d deserve to be locked up in this godforsaken place.

“No, I was thinking of parley. Check the dictionary,” Tucker responded, knowing Zinger would, anyway. The five-foot-two, dark-eyed Chilean took nothing on faith. He looked up every word, even if it had only three or four letters.

“It’s a word.” Officer Hadley had come to stand over Zinger’s shoulder and was studying the board. “If I remember right, it has something to do with meeting one’s enemy, doesn’t it?” She directed her question to him, but Tucker refused to glance up at her. He was afraid he wouldn’t be able to look away.

“I don’t know what it means. I just know it’s a word,” he mumbled, hoping his answer would suffice and she’d move on.

Instead she came a step closer. “How’s your hand?”

Tucker scowled and studied the tiles he’d drawn, hoping his silence would encourage her to leave. After his fantasies last night, he was even more convinced that a woman like Officer Hadley had no business in a prison. She was too soft, too friendly, too temptingly beautiful. What did she want, anyway—to be every convict’s wet dream? To have them close their eyes at night and see only her?

Well, he’d been to that party once already, and it hadn’t made his life any easier. He wasn’t going back.

At last assured that he wasn’t being cheated, Zinger set the dictionary aside and began trying to come up with his own word. Tucker wasn’t worried. He had him beat. They were getting down to the last few tiles, and he was fifty points ahead.

“Aren’t you going to answer me?” Hadley asked.

Tucker ran his left thumb over the smooth finish of a blank tile. “My hand’s broken. What do you want me to say? That it hurts like hell? Well, it does. Happy?”

Ignoring their conversation, Zinger muttered to himself as he rearranged his tiles again and again.

“Come on, you’re taking too long,” Tucker snapped.

“‘Thanks for asking’ would’ve been nice,” Hadley said.

Zinger cursed, a frown of concentration on his face. “Shit, man, I can’t do anything. I’m going to have to pass.”

Tucker leaned back in his chair, finally giving Officer Hadley his full attention. “You don’t want to hear what I have to say. Because if I said what I think, I’d tell you to find another job. You don’t belong here.”

She blinked in surprise. “I guess you were pretty glad I worked here yesterday when I stopped those thugs from killing you.”

“I thought you were just doing your job.” He purposely lowered his lids halfway, feigning indifference, and looked at Zinger. “So you pass? It’s over?”

“There’s nothing else I can do,” Zinger said. “I’ve got a z, a t, a q, a g, two a’s and a u. What can be made with that?”

“Quagga,” Hadley supplied. “It doesn’t use the z, but you can play it off this g here.” She pointed to the word “grab” on the board.

“Quagga?” Tucker repeated.

She raised the finely arched brows above her green eyes and nodded toward the dictionary. “Check it out if you don’t believe me. I used to play Scrabble by the hour.”

Tucker wasn’t about to rise to the bait, but Zinger eagerly seized the tattered paperback and fanned the pages until he found q. “Quadrennial…quaester…quaff…quagga.” He glanced quickly at Officer Hadley before continuing. “‘An extinct mammal of southern Africa related to the zebra.”’ He started placing his tiles. “Now, how the hell would she know that?”

Hadley folded her arms across her chest. “Double letter score on the q. Double word score on the whole thing. That makes fifty-four points. I’m afraid you lose this game, Mr. Tucker,” she said and walked away.

Tucker watched her go, telling himself he didn’t care if he’d offended her. At least he’d win the only game that really mattered—survival. She wouldn’t be smiling at him or asking after him or offering him any more kindness. And without her to remind him of what he was missing, he could remain strong and endure his sentence as he had in the past. He’d survived by not letting himself feel anything, least of all the kind of want that could harrow a man’s soul as nothing else.

The kind of want he’d known last night for the first time since Andrea was killed—all because Officer Hadley had been compassionate enough to give him some Tylenol.

“I HEARD we had a little excitement here yesterday.”

Gabrielle put her sandwich down and swallowed so she could answer Officer Bell, who’d just entered the yard office, ending her precious solitude. Normally part of her shift, Bell had been off yesterday, so she’d missed the Tucker beating. But Gabrielle was sure the other guards had already shared every detail, including her role in it.

“Four members of the Border Brothers ganged up on Randall Tucker. It wasn’t pretty,” she said, taking a drink from her water bottle.

Bell dropped some change into the soda machine, pressed the Pepsi button and retrieved the can that clunked into the small opening. Then she threw a furtive glance over her shoulder toward the gray steel door that stood open to the hallway beyond. “That kind of thing’s been happening a lot lately,” she murmured.

Gabrielle watched as Bell took a seat across from her. “Why do you suppose that is?”

She popped the top of her soda and lowered her voice. “Hansen’s out of control, if you ask me. Thinks he can get away with anything.”