“Listen,
Mr. Dukakis, I don’t need some punk reporter to tell me how to do my job,”
bespectacled Roger Gregory said from behind his desk. Gregory was in charge of
the parole division in Cade County. “We have three hundred parolees in Cade
County, and every one of them is being interviewed in connection with these
unsolved murders. Every one of them. Do you have any idea how many man hours—”
“I’m sure your people are doing a wonderful
job,” Duke said, trying to smooth the ruffled feathers. “But I’m only trying to
check on one parolee, Malcolm Jones.”
“Well, with a name like Jones, he could be
anyplace,” Gregory said as he thumbed through a long card file.
“I found him on the sex offenders report,”
Duke said, “except he wasn’t where the list said he was.”
“Useless,” Gregory muttered. “That report
comes out once a year, and it’s already out of date by the time they get around
to typing—well, look here. Your Mr. Jones is in Cade County, and he’s
already been interviewed,” Gregory said, pulling out a yellow card.
“Yessir, deputies Blake and Cummings. ”
Gregory scratched the deputies’ names on a bright orange index card along with
Jones’ address in Jordan township. “Interviewed him on July twenty-five. No
suspicions noted here, but you may want to talk with the deputies,” Gregory
said, handing over the orange card. Duke slipped it into his shirt pocket.
“Let’s see, his parole officer reports that he
attends his weekly parole visits, only problem seems to be getting him a job.
Don’t know what that’s about. Hey, you’re in luck, if he’s as punctual as this
report says, he’s probably upstairs right now. One p.m., Tuesdays. Stop by
Martha Bailey’s cubicle, third floor.”
“Right
now? Hey great, thanks,” Duke said, heading for the elevator.
The
parole officers’ cubicles surrounded an open reception area lined with chairs.
Duke took one close to the opening marked “Martha Bailey.”
“But that’s no reason to walk off the job,”
the stocky, white-haired woman was saying to a large black man. The man sat
with his back to the open doorway and spoke so softly that Duke couldn’t
understand him.
“Well, here’s another one to try. A warehouse.
You should be good at that,” the woman continued. “It’s on the bus line, but
the hours start pretty early, six a.m. I doubt you can get a bus that early.
You may need to borrow a car. Don’t you have a relative who could drop you
off?”
The
man made some reply, but again Duke couldn’t be sure what it was.
“Well, you need to come up with some
accommodation on your own. You need a job if you are going to stay out of jail.
Do you understand the connection?”
After
a pause for the man’s reply, the woman continued.
“I don’t want to hear excuses. The buses are
running today. Take one over there right now. This afternoon. I’ll call Mr.
Ravel to tell him to expect you. Don’t put it off. Get a bus schedule from the
driver. Show it to Mr. Ravel. Tell him you can be there on the first bus.
There’s probably one by six thirty or seven. Show him you are willing to do the
best you can. I think he’ll give you a chance. I’ll talk to him a little. Get
this job, save your money, and in no time you can buy a car, and then you can
work whatever hours they want.”
The
man rose, but Duke still couldn’t understand what he said. The woman followed
the man through the doorway, “Now, next week when I see you, I want you to have
a job—and the week after that, I want to
see your paycheck. You understand?” Then
she gestured into the reception room, pointing toward a tattooed young man with
long greasy hair and watery eyes.
“Marty, come on in,” she said.
The
big man lumbered for the door and Duke followed. Once they were in the hallway,
Duke spoke.
“Excuse me, are you Malcolm Jones?”
The
black man turned slowly, and Duke tried to hide his surprise. This was not the
face he was expecting. Though he’d never said so, Duke was expecting to see the
Cornfield Killer, the square-jawed, muscular face from the artists’ sketches.
The face Elizabeth described that they had been running in the newspaper. The
face that was flashed on television screens and tacked onto bulletin boards all
over town.
Instead,
he saw a rounder, softer face and something he hadn’t expected at all—a
goatee. None of the witnesses—Franklin,
Natalie, Elizabeth—had said anything about facial hair of any kind. It was too
obvious to miss. Duke’s heart sank.
“Yep,” the man replied, softly. “Do I know
you?”
Duke
introduced himself and offered to give Malcolm a ride to his appointment.
“Now, why would you want to do that?” Malcolm
said, continuing down the hall. “We can
pick up a sandwich on the way,” Duke said. “You look like you could use a
little something to eat.”
“What you want from me?” Malcolm asked as they
stepped into the elevator. There Duke seemed to shrivel next to the huge,
linebacker of a man who wasn’t much taller but was so much broader.
“Oh, just some talk. I’m from the newspaper,
and I want to talk to you about Ruth Van Ness,” Duke said, looking for some
reaction on the expressionless face.
“I don’t know no Ruth,” Malcolm said,
shrugging his shoulders.
“She’s the one who . . . ” Duke struggled for
the right words. “You took her to the hospital many years ago.”
“Oh, yeah,” Malcolm said, exiting as the
elevator door opened. “I never knew her name.”
Malcolm
walked in quick, long strides and it was all Duke could do to keep up with him.
“I
won’t take much of your time,” Duke said, tagging behind as they went outside
and turned the corner of the building. “I can drop you wherever—”
Suddenly
Malcolm turned and shoved Duke up against the wall.
“Look,
Cocky or whatever your name is, I don’t have nuthin’ to say to you.” Malcolm spoke in a low voice, almost a
whisper, but his eyes were shouting.
“Ah,
sure,” Duke said, “you don’t have to
talk. I’ll just give you a ride, then maybe later—”Malcolm pressed him harder
into the rough concrete.
“I
don’t need a ride, neither.”
“Listen,
I heard what Mrs. Bailey said about the warehouse,” Duke said smoothly as his
confidence returned. “I know you need to go there about a job. I can give you a
lift. No questions, I promise.”
“You
don’t hear so good, do you?” Malcolm repeated calmly. “I ain’t goin’ to no
warehouse. I ain’t gettin’ no job. I don’t need no ride.”
“But
Mrs. Bailey . . . ”
“You
don’t get it do you?” Malcolm said, his voice tightly controlled. “ The bitch
don’t tell me what to do.”
“But
she’s your parole officer.”
Malcolm
started laughing, turned and strode away.
“So,
what’s she gonna do to me, huh? Send me back to jail? ” Malcolm stopped at the
corner waiting for traffic to clear, and Duke caught up to him. “This is worse
than prison. This freedom you like so much,” Malcolm mumbled,
looking straight ahead. Then he looked down at Duke with an icy stare. “I get
respect inside. No fidgety little lady constantly harping on me. Little pissant
like you wouldn’t last a day.”
As a bus stopped at the corner, Malcolm
stuffed the warehouse address into Duke’s face, shoved him down to the sidewalk
and boarded. By the time Duke was back on his feet, the bus had pulled away.
