Redemption Road(56)
“Some months after the final assault.” The warden froze the image, looked vaguely apologetic. “It was time. Beyond time, perhaps.”
Elizabeth considered Adrian’s image on the screen. His face was tilted toward the camera, the eyes wide and fixed, the centers pixelated black. He looked angular, unbalanced. “Why is he out?”
“I beg your pardon.”
“He was released on early parole. That could not have happened without your approval. You say he killed three people. If that’s true, why did you let him out?”
“There is no proof he was involved.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “It’s not a matter of proof, though, is it? Parole is about good behavior. A subjective standard.”
“Perhaps I am more sympathetic than you imagine.”
“Sympathetic?” Elizabeth could hide neither the doubt nor the dislike.
The warden smiled thinly and selected a photograph from the desk. It showed Adrian’s face: the ripped skin and staples, the stitches in his lips. “You have your own problems, do you not? Perhaps, that’s why Detective Beckett suggested you come, to better understand the proper use of your time.” He handed her the photograph, and she studied it, unflinching. “Prison is a horrible place, Detective. You would do well to avoid it.”
*
When Officer Preston took the woman away, the warden moved to the window and waited for her to appear outside. After four minutes she did, stopping once to peer up at his window. She was pretty in the morning light, not that he cared. When she was in her car, he called Beckett. “Your lady friend is a liar.” The car pulled away as the warden watched. “I studied her face when she looked at the photographs. She has feelings for Adrian Wall, perhaps very strong ones.”
“Did you convince her to stay away?”
“Keeping Adrian Wall alone and isolated is in both our interests.”
“I don’t know anything about your interests,” Beckett said. “You wanted to talk to her. I made that happen.”
“And the rest of it?”
“I’ll do what I said.”
“He really is broken, our Mr. Wall.” The warden touched the television, the pixelated eyes. “Either that or he’s the hardest man I’ve ever seen. After thirteen years I’m still unsure.”
“What does that even mean?”
“I should explain myself, why? Because we were friends, once? Because I am so generous with my time?”
The warden stopped talking, and Beckett said nothing.
They weren’t friends at all.
They weren’t even close.
*
If Elizabeth was looking for further insight into Adrian, she didn’t find it in the first moments of court. He entered in full restraints, the nineteenth inmate in a row of twenty. He kept his eyes down, so she saw the top of his head, the line of his nose. Elizabeth watched him shuffle to his place on the long bench and tried to reconcile the man she saw with the video from the warden’s office. As disturbing as he’d appeared, he looked ten times better, now—not filled out but heavier, troubled but not insane. She willed him to look her way, and when the brown eyes came up, she felt the same shock of communication. She sensed so many things about him, not just willfulness and fear but a profound aloneness. All that flashed in an instant, then the din of court intervened, and his head dipped again as if weighted by all the stares heaped upon it. Cops. Reporters. Other defendants. They all got it. Everybody knew. Crowded as the room was—and it was packed—nothing brought the thunder like Adrian Wall.
“Holy shit. Look at this place.” Beckett slid in beside her, craning his neck at the double row of cameras and reporters. “I can’t believe the judge allowed this kind of circus. There’s what’s-her-face. Channel Three. Shit, she’s looking at you.”
Elizabeth glanced that way, face expressionless. The reporter was pretty and blond in bright nails and a tight red sweater. She made a call-me gesture and frowned when Elizabeth ignored it.
“Did you see the warden?” Beckett asked.
“You know what? Outside.” Elizabeth pushed against his shoulder and followed him off the bench. Eyes tracked them, but she didn’t care what Dyer or Randolph or any of the other cops thought. “You know, your buddy the warden is a real *.”
They rounded into the hall, a sea of people milling around them, parting at the sight of Beckett’s badge. Elizabeth crowded him into a corner beside a trash can and a tattooed kid sleeping on a bench.
“He’s not exactly my buddy,” Beckett said.
“Then, what?”
“He helped me once when I was in a bad place. That’s all. I thought he could help you, too.”
“Why was he at Nathan’s?”
“I don’t know. He just showed up.”
“What were you arguing about?”
“The fact I didn’t want him on my f*cking crime scene. What’s going on here, Liz? You have no reason to be angry with me.”
He was right, and she knew it. Moving to a narrow window, Elizabeth wrapped her arms around her chest. Outside, the day was too perfect for what was coming. “He showed me the tape.”
“And the people Adrian killed?”
“The people he might have killed.”