“I didn’t kill Matthew,” I say.
“An inmate telling me he’s innocent,” he says with an almost amused shake of the head. “This has to be a first.”
Philip Mackenzie rises from his chair and turns toward the window. He looks out into the woods past the fence. “When your father first heard about Matthew…and even worse, when he found out you were arrested…” His voice trails off. “Tell me, David. Why didn’t you plead temporary insanity?”
“You think I was interested in finding a legal loophole?”
“It wasn’t a loophole,” Philip says, and I hear sympathy in his tone now. He turns back to me. “You blacked out. Something inside of you snapped. There had to be an explanation. We would have all stuck by you.”
My head begins to throb—another product of that beating, or perhaps his words are the cause. I close my eyes and draw a deep breath. “Please listen to me. It wasn’t Matthew. And whatever happened, I didn’t do it.”
“You were set up, huh?”
“I don’t know.”
“So whose body did you find?”
“I don’t know.”
“How do you explain your fingerprints on the weapon?”
“It was my bat. I kept it in the garage.”
“And what about that old lady who saw you burying it?”
“I don’t know. I only know what I saw in the photograph.”
The older man sighs again. “Do you realize how delusional you sound?”
I stand now too. To my surprise, Philip takes a step back as though he’s afraid of me. “You have to get me out of here,” I whisper. “For a few days anyway.”
“Are you out of your mind?”
“Get me a bereavement leave or something.”
“We don’t offer those to your class of felon. You know that.”
“Then find a way to help me break out.”
He laughs at that. “Oh sure, no problem. And let’s say hypothetically I could do that, they’ll come after you with everything they got. Brutally. You’re a baby-killer, David. They’ll gun you down without a second thought.”
“Not your problem.”
“Like hell it’s not.”
“Suppose this happened to you,” I say.
“What?”
“Suppose you were in my place. Suppose the murdered boy was Adam. What would you do to find him?”
Philip Mackenzie shakes his head and collapses back into his chair. He puts both hands on his face and rubs vigorously. Then he hits the intercom and calls for a guard.
“Goodbye, David.”
“Please, Philip.”
“I’m sorry. I really am.”
*
Philip Mackenzie diverted his gaze so he wouldn’t see his correctional officer enter and escort David out. He didn’t say goodbye to his godson. After he left, Philip sat in his office alone. The air felt heavy around him. He had hoped that David’s request to see him—the first one David had made in the nearly five years he’d been incarcerated here—would be some sort of positive sign. Perhaps David finally wanted to get help from a mental health professional. Perhaps David wanted to take a deeper dive into what he’d done that awful night or at the very least, try to scratch out some kind of productive life, even here, even after what he’d done.
Philip opened his desk drawer and took out a photograph from 1973 of two men—correction: dumb kids—decked out in military fatigues in Khe San. Philip Mackenzie and Lenny Burroughs, David’s father. They’d both gone to Revere High School before being drafted. Philip grew up on the top floor of a three-family row house on Centennial Avenue. Lenny lived a block away on Dehon Street. Best friends. War buddies. Cops patrolling Revere Beach. Philip had stood as David’s godfather. Lenny had been Philip’s son Adam’s. Adam and David had gone to school together. The two had been best friends at Revere High School. The cycle had started anew.
Philip stared at the image of his old friend. Lenny was lying on his deathbed now. There was nothing anyone could do to help him. It was just a matter of time. The Lenny in the old photo was smiling that Lenny Burroughs smile, the one that made hearts melt, but his eyes seemed to bore right now into Philip’s.
“Nothing I can do, Lenny,” he said out loud.
The photo Lenny just smiled and stared.
Philip took a few deep breaths. It was getting late. His office would be closing soon. He reached out and hit the intercom button on his desk again.
His receptionist said, “Yes, Warden?”
“Get me on the first flight to Boston in the morning.”
Chapter
4
There is never silence in a prison.
My “experimental” wing is circular with eighteen individual cells on the perimeter. The entrance still has old-school see-through bars. In one of the oddest moves, the stainless-steel toilet and sink—yes, they are combined into one—are right by the bars. Our cells, unlike general pop, each have a small private shower in the back corner. The guards have shutoff valves if you take too long. There is a poured-concrete bed with a mattress so thin it’s almost transparent. Handles are built into the bed’s corners for attaching four-point restraints. So far, that has not been necessary for me. There is also a poured-concrete desk and poured-concrete stool. I have a television and a radio that only broadcast religious or educational programming. A single narrow window slot is angled up, so I can only teasingly see the sky.
I lay on said concrete bed and stare up at the ceiling. I know this ceiling intimately. I close my eyes and try to sort through the facts. I go through the day again—that horrible day—and search for something I may have missed. I had taken Matthew out, first to the local playground by a duck pond and then to the supermarket on Oak Street. Had I noticed anybody suspicious at either? I hadn’t, of course, but I reach back now and comb my memory for new details. None are forthcoming. You’d think I would remember this day better, that every moment would still be vivid in my mind, but it all grows fuzzier day by day.
I had sat on a playground bench next to a young mother with an aggressively progressive baby stroller. The young mother had a daughter Matthew’s age. Had she told me her child’s name? Probably, but I don’t remember. She wore yoga clothing. What had we talked about? I don’t remember. What exactly am I searching for here? I don’t know that either. The owner of that hand, I guess—the adult man’s hand holding Matthew’s in Rachel’s photograph. Had he been watching us at the playground? Had he followed us?
I have no idea.
I go through the rest of it. Coming home. Putting Matthew to bed. Grabbing a drink. Flipping channels on the television. When had I fallen asleep? I don’t know that either. I only remember waking up to the smell of blood. I remember heading down the hallway…
The prison lights come on with a loud snap. I shoot up in bed, my face coated with sweat. It is morning. My heart thumps in my chest. I swallow down some breaths, trying to calm myself.
What I saw in those Marvel-themed pajamas, that awful misshapen bloody form…it was not Matthew. That was the key here. It was not my son.
Was it?
Doubt starts to worm its way into my brain. How could it not? But for now, I won’t let the doubt in. There is nothing to gain from doubting. If I’m wrong, I will eventually find out and then I’ll be back to where I am now. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. So for now: No doubts. Just questions about how this could possibly be. Perhaps, I surmise, the brutality had been to cover up the victim’s—yes, good, think of him as a victim, not Matthew—identity. The victim was male, of course. He was Matthew’s size and general shape and skin tone. But they hadn’t run a DNA test or anything like that. Why would they? No one doubted the victim’s identity, right?