I Will Find You(25)

“Not right now, Carlos. I’ll contact you if I need a statement.”

Carlos looked over at me, then back to Philip. “Okay then.”

“Carlos?”

“Yes?”

“Please close the door on your way out.”

“You sure, Warden?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

Carlos nods and closes the door. Philip and I are alone. Before I can say anything, Philip signals me to take a seat. I do so. He stays standing.

“Ted Weston says you tried to kill him last night.”

Label me surprised.

Philip folds his arms and leans across the front of his desk. “He claims you faked an illness to get him to take you to the infirmary. Because of your earlier altercation with an inmate named Ross Sumner where you sustained injuries, he took you at your word.”

Philip turns his head to the right and points to the shiv—I assume it’s the one Curly used last night—on his desk. The blade is sealed in a plastic crime-scene bag. “He further claims that once you were alone, you pulled this on him and tried to stab him. You two fought. He wrestled the weapon away from you, slicing your arm in the process. Then you ran down the corridor. Another correctional officer heard the commotion and subdued you.”

“It’s a lie, Philip.”

He says nothing.

“What motive would I have?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Didn’t you come to see me yesterday for the first time and beg me to get you out?”

“So…?”

“So maybe you became desperate. You get in a fight with a high-profile inmate—”

“That psycho jumped me—”

“And that gets you to the infirmary. Maybe that’s part of your escape plan, I don’t know. Or maybe you get the weapon from Ross Sumner once you’re there. Maybe you’re working together.”

“Philip, Curly is lying.”

“Curly?”

“That’s what we call him. I didn’t do this. He woke me up. He walked me to that corridor. He tried to kill me. I got injured trying to defend myself.”

“Right, sure, and I guess you expect me—and the world at large—to take the word of a convicted baby-killer over the word of a fifteen-year correctional officer with a spotless record.”

For the moment, I say nothing.

“I saw your father yesterday.”

“What?”

“Your aunt Sophie too.”

He looks off.

“How are they?”

“Your father can’t talk. He’s dying.”

I shake my head. “Why did you go see him?”

He doesn’t reply.

“Yesterday of all days. Why did you go to Revere, Philip?”

He starts toward the door. “Come with me.”

I don’t bother asking where we are going. I stand and follow him. We start down the corridor and down the steps. We walk side by side. Philip keeps his spine ramrod straight, his eyes straight ahead. Without turning to me, he says, “You’re lucky the correctional officer who subdued you was Carlos.”

“What?”

“Because Carlos called me right away. To report the incident. I immediately ordered three correctional officers, including Carlos, to watch you around the clock.”

I stop and take hold of Philip’s sleeve. “So no one could finish the job,” I say. “You were afraid someone would kill me.”

Philip stares down at my hand on his sleeve. I slowly let him go.

“You’re still in danger,” he says. “Even if I put you in solitary. Even if I get you an immediate transfer. A correctional officer who is now claiming a vendetta wants you dead, plus you still have Ross Sumner and the Sumner fortune on your back—all of that is not conducive to a healthy outcome.”

“So what do I do?” I ask.

Philip replies by opening the door to his office, the one I had visited just yesterday. When I see Philip’s son Adam standing there in his full police uniform, my heart soars for the first time in I don’t know how long. For a moment, I just stare at my best friend. He smiles and nods as if to tell me that this is real, he is there, right in front of me. I let my mind fall back to another era, to the locker room before basketball practice at Revere High or double-dating with the Hancock sisters at Friendly’s or hanging out in the last row of the Fenway Park bleachers and razzing the opposing team’s right fielder.

Adam spreads his arms and steps forward and I fall into his bear hug. I squeeze my eyes shut because I’m afraid I’ll cry. I feel my legs give way, but Adam holds me up. How long has it been since I’ve experienced any physical affection? Almost five years. The last person to hug me with any genuine feeling or caring? My father, who now lay dying, on the day the jury read the guilty verdict. But even with him, even with the father I loved like no other man, I had sensed some hesitancy in the embrace. My father loved me. But—and perhaps this is me projecting—there had been some doubt, as though he wasn’t sure whether he was embracing his son or a monster.

There is no doubt in Adam’s hug.

Adam doesn’t release me until I finally let go of him. I step back, not sure I can even speak. Philip has already closed the door. He stands next to his son.

“We have a plan,” Philip says.