Riven - Jerry B. Jenkins [166]
“You know, Gladys, one of these days I’m going to tell the warden that you call him that.”
“You’d blackmail me?”
“If I could figure out a reason. But if I did, what would I get out of it?”
“My loud scarf collection. Any one of ’em would go well with your somber suits.”
“That’s just my uniform, Miz Fashion Plate.”
“And you wear ’em well. Now get your tail in here and do your job.”
“Can you do me a favor? See if you can get the man’s file for me?”
“You didn’t get enough of that story in the papers and on TV?”
“More than I wanted, actually, but there’s always stuff the press ignores that can be enlightening.”
Death Row
Brady got word late that morning that the chaplain would visit his cell at four in the afternoon. Interesting timing, he thought. If he gets bored, he can leave at the end of his workday.
They would have an hour and a half before the dinner count and then the meal delivery. Brady couldn’t imagine it taking that long. He was curious was all. Just wanted to know where the local man of the cloth stood on this stuff. Brady had heard friends say over the years that when you’re dead you’re dead, but being a Christian or trying to live like one was good because it made you a better person in this world.
Well, he had certainly failed on that account, and long before he murdered Katie North.
Administration Wing
Thomas spent the day busy but distracted. Brady Wayne Darby was the highest-profile inmate the penitentiary had had in ages. While there had been no trial to make the thing the media circus it might have become, the murder had been center stage for weeks.
Andreason and LeRoy were adamant about no information being leaked out of the prison about Darby, though a couple of corrections officers reported that they had been offered money by the tabloids to sneak a cell phone photo or any tidbit of news to them. The truth was, one of them might have taken the offer had the inmate been the least bit interesting. Word was he was quiet and cooperative, though still considered a suicide risk. But he was talking with no one, so anything sold to the cheap newspapers about Brady Darby would have to be invented, like most everything else in those rags.
At 2:00 Gladys swept into Thomas’s office and plopped a three-inch file on his desk. “You owe me,” she said.
“I’m hopelessly in debt to you already.”
“And don’t you forget it. Someday you’ll pay, Padre.”
“How would I ever?”
“Oh, trust me, I’ll think of something. And if I can’t, my hubby will. If nothing else, we ought to have a barbecue at your place while your darlin’ is up and about.”
“C’mon, Xavier wouldn’t want to cook on his day off. That’d be like me preaching on my day off.”
“I didn’t say he was gonna cook. You are!”
“Then I’ll really owe you.”
Thomas found investigative files fascinating and had taken to watching real-life mystery shows on television when he had the chance. He might have enjoyed a career as a detective. He certainly couldn’t have done worse than as a clergyman. Thomas had to smile at the memory of Grace’s scolding when he had mentioned that.
He read through the entire corpus of the Darby case, which included the young man’s whole criminal history. Everything was fairly straightforward. Like many other men at Adamsville State, he had been raised by a single parent, had suffered a loss in his immediate family, had a history of drugs and petty crimes before graduating to bigger ones, and had been in and out of all sorts of penal institutions from juvie to local lockups and even the notorious county jail.
Again, like many, he’d had the occasional bright spot—sort of like remission, Thomas thought. He had enjoyed stellar marks at his last halfway house and was on the verge of finishing, getting a certificate, and being recommended for job placement. Then came the murder, which had taken everyone by surprise.
Darby’s lengthy rap sheet showed the telltale signs of almost every other inmate Thomas had ever studied. He had progressed in his career from little stuff to big, eventually pulling armed