This was the argument I’d put forth to the rest of the girls, the one I wholeheartedly and foolishly believed.
* * *
The Sheriff’s Department in Glenwood Springs contained nine jail cells, and one of them had been repurposed into a visitors’ room. There was a lumpy old love seat and a bistro dining set that not only looked like something someone had donated when they decided to pull the trigger on new furniture but, Tina pointed out, sported whittled metal legs that were not even bolted into the floor. The three of us sat at the table and waited an hour past our scheduled appointment. Apparently, Gerald had been assigned to do some yardwork at one of the national parks, and the job had to be completed before the sun set. At long last, a man wearing a prison-issued parka and knit cap appeared, a stone-faced guard at his heels. The prisoner smirked at his captor, who unlocked the door to the visitors’ cell and gestured for him to step in first.
“Always the gentleman, Sammy,” said the prisoner, and he had to raise both his hands to mime tipping the brim of his hat because they were cuffed. This was Gerald Stevens. “I’m starving,” he said, drumming his belly demonstrably, and Tina popped the lid on the take-out container.
“It was hot,” she said.
Gerald didn’t seem to mind. He went over to the love seat and tore apart his cold prime rib with his bare hands; at least they didn’t give him a knife.
“And the rest?” Gerald asked, sucking grease off a finger. Tina got up, hooking her finger through the handle of a small shopping bag and going over to dangle it before Gerald: a carton of Marlboro Reds, a six-pack of Coke, and a tin of chocolate chip cookies. That’s what he’d asked for, in exchange for answering any questions we had about his 107 days as The Defendant’s cellmate.
Gerald pulled the tab on a can of soda, chugging the whole thing in four long gulps. Blink, and I could have been at Brian’s fraternity house on a Tuesday night. He drew an arm across his upper lip and sat waiting with watery eyes to burp. He was an average, angry-looking man. Light brown hair, dark brown eyes, normal height, normal weight. On Christmas morning 1976, he’d walked into a home in Aspen high and drunk and held up a family at gunpoint, making off with the woman’s jewelry and the family station wagon. He’d never killed anyone, that he could remember.
“I got everything you asked for,” Tina reminded him. We made a deal.
Gerald dotted the corners of his lips with a paper napkin, in no great rush to keep up his end of the bargain.
I checked my watch anxiously. At this rate, there was no way we were making the red-eye back to Tallahassee.
“We’re hoping you can perhaps shed some light on where The Defendant’s head was at right before he escaped,” Carl prompted.
“What’s he gone and done now?” Gerald bit into the cigarette carton’s wrap and spit a sliver of plastic out of the corner of his mouth like chewing tobacco.
“We’re not sure he’s done anything yet,” Carl said.
“What’s it you suspect him of doing, then?” Gerald gestured for someone to light him up. Tina reached into her purse, obliging.
“Did he ever talk about where he might go if he got the chance to escape again?” Tina rolled the lighter’s wheel with her thumb and offered the flame to Gerald, who leaned in to meet it. I was impressed that Tina hadn’t mentioned Florida, which could have easily led Gerald into giving her the answer she wanted. That although she had an agenda, she could show restraint.
“I’m no snitch.” Gerald’s nostrils pulsed with smoke. He considered that declaration while the air between the love seat and bistro table dispersed in various directions. “Not opposed to it on principle. Just not my line of work, you see.” He shot a gummy grin at the guard, who stared straight ahead at the wall, expressionless.
Tina nudged me with her elbow and made eyes. Now. Now is the time. I reached into my purse. “These are my friends,” I said, bringing out the photographs of Denise and Robbie. I’d stuffed an envelope full of options that Tina had reviewed on the flight. We’d gone with the ones from field day, the girls on home plate wearing red shorts and red baseball caps, posing with bats and tough faces. I was worried it was too much leg, but Tina had said to bring photographs that wouldn’t appear in the newspaper. The flat, soulless yearbook style, which made the subjects look like it was their born destiny to have their untimely deaths reported in the paper, didn’t pull at anyone’s heartstrings.
“Denise is the one with the paint on her face,” I said while Carl brought the images over to the love seat where Gerald sat. “And Robbie is the one wearing kneepads. They were both killed two weeks ago, and we just”—I inhaled shakily—“we just don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”