Poisonfeather (Gibson Vaughn #2)(80)

After an hour, a guard came and collected one of the inmates. A few minutes later, a replacement inmate was led in with his plastic tub, as if three were the room’s maximum occupancy. Another hour passed before they came back for the next inmate. Then another. By the time it was Merrick’s turn, his stomach was growling for lunch, and he was sorry he hadn’t eaten more of his breakfast. He was taken to an office, where a guard filled out his release paperwork while Merrick answered questions. They asked if he wanted anything from the tub; he said no. Then they searched it for contraband anyway and tossed it in a dumpster. He was ordered to strip for a cavity search.

“Do you seriously believe I plan on sneaking anything out of prison?”

“Shut up, inmate. Spread ’em and cough.”

Long is the way, and hard, that out of hell leads up to light, reflected Merrick as he assumed the position, heard the snap of the latex glove, and squeezed his eyes closed and thought of sandy beaches.

With that indignity complete, he was permitted to dress and wait in a different holding cell, where he rejoined his compatriots. They shared a pitiful lunch—a granola bar, a cup of water, and a brown banana. For entertainment, the two inmates treated him to a graphic replay of how they would celebrate their impending releases, only with more steak, more parties, and many, many more hot women who just couldn’t resist a penniless ex-con.

Merrick put his head back and dozed.




Gibson pulled the van to the side of the road and spread the map out on the steering wheel. It was noon, and in the last twelve hours, he’d covered the smallest two remaining grids. Hungry and tired, he felt as though he’d driven every highway, byway, and alleyway in West Virginia. So it was discouraging to see how much of the state remained.

He looked at the map again, studied the remaining grids without a red cross through them. There were no more educated guesses left to make. It would be dumb luck or nothing at all. Quitting seemed a reasonable option. Merrick might already be a free man for all he knew. He hated to fail the judge, but he’d taken this thing as far as could reasonably be expected. Far past reason, if he were being honest, but honesty lay bleeding in a ditch a ways back.

So pick another grid, and get back on the road.

But which?





CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO


It was late afternoon before a guard finally came for Merrick. He felt half inclined to complain. Should it really take this long to let a free man go free? A ludicrously inefficient system, but he bit his tongue and followed the guard. It would all be behind him shortly. At a steel-caged door, he signed for his belongings. He changed into his suit and returned his prison blues. As he suspected, the suit needed to be tailored—loose at the waist, tight in the chest and shoulders. It offended his sartorial sensibilities, but at the same time it pleased him. As if it might come apart at the seams if he flexed. He looped his tie in the supercilious full Windsor that he favored and plucked a piece of lint from his lapel. He was already feeling more himself. Perhaps the clothes did make the man.

The custodian returned his wallet, a fountain pen, and the cheap Rolex knockoff that he’d been forced to wear in court—his Vacheron Constantin Tour de I’lle having long since been confiscated. God, how he missed that watch, but the knockoff would suffice until he got where he was going and could find a suitable replacement. He asked the time, then wound and reset it. It was almost five p.m.—how is that possible? He flipped through his leather billfold, empty apart from an expired driver’s license. He slipped it into the breast pocket of his suit nonetheless. Squared away, he moved to a final station, where he attempted to sign his release papers with his fountain pen, but its ink had long since desiccated. They handed him a bus ticket for New York City, twenty dollars in cash, and a check for fifty-seven dollars and twenty-three cents—the remaining balance on his commissary account. He endorsed the check and slid it back.

“Keep it,” Merrick said. “You need it more than I do.”

It felt right to tip them, and he wished he had more to give. The average man tipped to show his appreciation; the exceptional man overtipped to remind the world of its insignificance. After eight years, if Merrick had learned anything, it was that insignificance was the defining characteristic of everyone associated with this place. Imparting that lesson to them felt, in a small way, like repayment for all their many kindnesses. The guards looked dumbfounded, so he thrust his hand out and shook each one’s hand, clapping them on the shoulder as he did—a formality perhaps, but that was what one did at the conclusion of a business transaction.

“Farewell, gentlemen,” he said with a wave.

And with that, ten-plus hours after his exodus had begun, Charles Merrick finally stepped through the doors of Niobe Federal Prison and walked to the front gate, a free man.




For the last hour, each new road had been categorically the absolute last Gibson would drive. This was it, he’d tell himself, and then turn the corner and start down another. He was talking to himself at this point, an incoherent monologue about futility and stubbornness. Merrick was probably already out by now. But he didn’t stop. He drove leaning forward now, to rest his chin on the steering wheel. He would finish this one road, pull into a parking lot somewhere, and sleep in the back. After this one last road.

In a moment of perfect metaphor, the Stingray alarm sounded as he pulled up to the crossroads of a small town with a McDonald’s and a service station at its center. Gibson craned back in his seat to stare at it with the look of a man who flies halfway around the world only to bump into the guy who terrorized him in elementary school.