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“Guess you were just lucky.” As well as convicted for selling cocaine to middle-class teenagers who’d been sight-seeing in Richmond’s inner city.
Christian started back toward the kennel.
“Christian?”
He hadn’t noticed the Reverend Bertha Petersen at the end of the first run. An overweight woman in her fifties, she wore jeans and a sweatshirt with a bandanna covering her closely cropped salt-and-pepper hair. A barrel-chested guard stood stiffly nearby, watching every move Christian made.
Christian approached her, stopping several yards away so as not to worry him. “Hello, Pastor. We weren’t expecting you.”
“It’s good to see you. How are the new puppies?”
“It’s too early to tell. But no real problems so far. The Lab’s a little excitable. She may calm down, but we’ll watch her.”
Bertha Petersen was the director of Pets and Prisoners Together and an ordained minister in a small fundamentalist sect with a long name. While many of her cohorts were busily converting the heathen, Bertha had turned her own considerable energy to good works.
The purpose of Pets and Prisoners was to raise and train helping dogs for the physically or mentally challenged. Ludwell was the first prison in the program to train dogs for the blind, turning over two dozen a year to organizations that did the final portion of the training and placed them. Christian had been in charge of the Ludwell program for two years.
“So, did you just drop by to check on us?”
“I like to keep up with everybody if I can.” Bertha’s gaze traveled to the guard, then back to Christian. “Why don’t you show me the dogs in training? How many do you have right now?”
Ludwell had two separate programs in progress. A new program, of which Seesaw was a part, evaluated puppies who had been bred to become guide dogs. The second and more established, brought in young dogs who had already been socialized by a host family and trained in good manners and family routine. They received intensive training from the prison staff for three months before they were passed on to one of several programs.
Christian would have liked to finish the training of each animal, but the final month involved working with the dog’s new master, often on city streets. And no one felt safe sending the blind to a prison or prisoners to the blind.
But what did that matter compared to everything else the men were denied?
“We have four dogs left,” Christian told the pastor. “We started this session with ten.”
She turned to the guard. “Officer, we’re going over to the other kennel. Will that be all right?”
He didn’t answer directly. Instead he picked up his two-way radio and spoke into it, then he gave a brief nod.
The second kennel was on the other side of solid steel doors. Christian and Bertha waited as the doors opened, then closed behind them. They walked down a short corridor flanked by video cameras. The second kennel looked much like the first, but the track was considerably larger, and a yard fenced in mesh and topped with razor wire was visible through a window.
The guard on duty here was used to Christian and hardly gave him a glance. He was busy watching one of the other inmates walk blindfolded through an obstacle course. A chocolate Lab wearing a leather harness led him through the maze. Javier Garcia, a huge man in blue jeans, walked confidently behind him.
Christian and Bertha strolled over to the guardrail overlooking the course and watched.
Christian explained what they were viewing. “That’s Cocoa. She’s had a little trouble with overhead obstacles.” The dogs had to be trained not to lead their new masters into low-hanging obstacles like tree branches and awnings, even if their masters urged them forward. Guide dogs were trained to practice “intelligent disobedience.” Their own good instincts had to supplant their blind master’s commands.
“She’s catching on?”
“Cocoa’s a winner. Very bright. She’ll make it. But we had one of her litter mates who flunked out the first week. He jumped at loud noises. Very distractible for a Lab. Hopefully by checking out the puppies earlier, we’ll avoid these problems.”
The pastor was silent for a moment as she watched Javier and Cocoa move flawlessly along the track. Then she turned so she could see Christian’s face. “Christian, I’ve been considering this conversation carefully.”
He waited stoically, another survival skill he’d learned.
“I’ve heard something.”
He supposed Bertha heard lots of gossip as she moved from prison to prison. Ludwell wasn’t the only penal institution that trained helping dogs.
She continued. “I suspect I could be accused of interfering with proper procedure for telling you this. Certainly for jumping the gun.”
“I’m listening.”
“Have you heard of a man named Karl Zandoff?”
Christian devoured the newspaper whenever he could. Anyone who could read had heard of Karl Zandoff. He gave a short nod. “He’s on death row in Florida. His appeals are almost up.”
“His execution date’s been set for December.”
“Yeah, and it looks like a date he’ll be keeping.”
“He’s been talking to the authorities.”
“So?”
“Apparently he’s confessed to another murder, one they didn’t suspect him of.”
“Nothing like a rendezvous with Old Sparky to get the juices flowing.”
“I’m told he might confess to more before this is over.”
Despite himself, Christian was growing curious. “Maybe confession’s good for the soul. You’d believe that, wouldn’t you?”
“How about you?”
“I haven’t seen much God in here, Pastor. If we were ever on speaking terms, we haven’t been for a long time. If I had anything to confess myself, I’d do it to my lawyer.”
She didn’t miss a beat. “Zandoff told them where to look for the body, and they found it. A case solved. The girl’s parents can finally put her to rest.”
“Girl?”
“A college student in Tennessee. She disappeared ten years ago.”
“I thought all his crimes had been committed in Florida.”
“Now they’re looking at other unsolved murders in the South. Turns out he drifted for a while. Worked construction, followed the jobs. Then he settled in with a wife and couple of kids in the Sunshine State. But he didn’t stop preying on young women.”
Christian knew Zandoff had been caught with a young woman’s monogrammed barrette and a brand-new shovel covered with Tallahassee’s sandy clay loam. That was the crime he’d been arrested for. And when the body was finally located, the two in shallow graves beside it had earned him the death penalty.
Christian searched the pastor’s face impassively. On the track beyond them he could hear Javier praising Cocoa for a job well-done. They only had another minute at most to finish the conversation before Javier joined them.
“I’m unclear as to why you’re telling me this. I’m not Karl Zandoff. I didn’t kill one woman, much less an interstate sorority. If you think his example is going to stir my conscience, forget it.”
“Christian.” She shook her head, as if she really was disappointed in him. “I know you as well as anybody does. You didn’t kill Fidelity Sutherland.”
He studied her. “There were people who knew me as well as they knew themselves, and they questioned it.” One woman in particular, whose face he still hadn’t been able to erase from his memory.
She glanced at the track. “I’m telling you because there’s a rumor Zandoff spent time in northern Virginia between nine and ten years ago. He’s hinting that he murdered a woman here, as well.”
For a moment Christian didn’t make the connection. Then he shrugged. “Lots of people disappear or die mysteriously every year.”
“He worked construction. They’re looking at records.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Somebody working the case told me. I want to call your attorney. Your interests should be represented.”
Javier reached the railing with Cocoa in tow. He had black hair that fell straight to his shoulders and an incongruously narrow face that didn’t fit his broad body. “Did you see that? She’s catching on, and she goes with a real light touch. She’ll be perfect for a woman.”
“Hello, Javier.” Bertha greeted him warmly. “I spoke to your wife last week.”
The big man beamed. “She doing okay, Pastor?”
“She says you have a good chance with the parole board. Should I start scouting out a job for you?”
“You’d do that?”
“I sure would.”
There wasn’t much Bertha Petersen wouldn’t do for her inmates. She believed in every one of them, despite all evidence to the contrary. She was as comfortable with murderers as she was with Bible-thumping evangelists. She wasn’t foolish, she simply believed that God held her life in his hands.
“About that phone call?” She turned to Christian.
He shrugged. He was dismayed to find that for a moment he had almost been suckered by hope. But unlike the good pastor, he had no illusions that God cared one way or the other what happened to Christian Carver. The prison walls were too thick for lightning to strike here.
“I’ll take it that’s a yes,” she said with a smile. “I’ll leave you gentlemen to your work.”
“She don’t know what bad asses we really are, does she?” Javier said, once the minister was out of earshot.
“Oh, she knows. She just doesn’t care.” Christian grimaced. “God doesn’t deserve a woman like that one.”
“Hey, man, you could go to hell for saying that.”
“Been there, doing that.” Christian walked away.
5
Julia longed to pace, but that was a recipe for disaster. She’d been raised in this house, but nothing had ever stayed the same. As a child she might return home from school to find that Maisy had rearranged bedrooms or turned the dining room into an exercise studio. Furniture mysteriously traveled from room to room, and carpets soared to new locations like props from the Arabian Nights.
With her eyesight intact, the changes had been mere annoyances. Now they were lethal. She didn’t know where to step or sit. Even with Karen’s help, she hadn’t yet mastered the small first-floor bedroom where Jake had made her welcome.
“I’m facing the window that looks over the front driveway.” Julia lifted her arm cautiously, but if she was indeed facing the window, it was still more than a length away.
“Good.” Karen’s voice sounded calmer than it had since their escape from the clinic.
Julia felt sympathy for the nurse, but right now she was too worried about Callie to offer much support. Maisy had gone to Millcreek to fetch her, and Julia was afraid there might be trouble. “I’ve got it right?”
“You’re right on target. We’ll get this room memorized, then I’ll talk to your parents about setting up the rest of the house so you can move around easily.” Karen paused. “This really isn’t my area of expertise, Mrs. Warwick. You’d do better to hire someone who has experience with the blind.”
“Call me Julia. And you have a job with me as long as you want one.”
“Your eyesight could return tomorrow. I hope it does.”
“Me, too. And if it does, then you automatically become my personal assistant. And don’t think I don’t need one. I’ve been threatening to hire somebody, and now I have.”
“Just remember I warned you.”
“Didn’t you tell me you have a son at home? Do you need to get back to him?”
“Brandon. My mother takes care of him.”
“Why don’t you go ahead and leave for the day? You’ve done more than enough. But we’ll see—” She stopped and wondered how long she’d continue to use that expression. “We can expect you in the morning?”
“Eight? Nine?”
“Nine will be terrific.” Julia managed a smile. “I’m turning now and facing the bed.” She started forward, stopping after several steps. She put out her hands but didn’t touch anything. Karen wisely kept silent.
She took two more steps before feeling for the bed again. This time she felt the spread under her fingertips. “I can make myself comfortable. Go on, now.”
“Nine, then. I’ll come right after I get Brandon off to school. Sleep well.”
“Better than I have in weeks.”
“If you have trouble, try herbal tea or warm milk.”
Julia liked that prescription better than the ones the doctor had issued. “A shot of whiskey in the milk might work wonders.”
Karen squeezed her shoulder. In a moment Julia heard the door close behind her.
She was home. But not in the upstairs room where she had danced to Depeche Mode and Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” where she had sketched a thousand portraits of her schoolmates and landscapes of her beloved hills, suffered over trigonometry defeats, talked on the telephone for hours to Fidelity…and Christian.
Her hands rested in her lap, but she felt them ball into fists. She hadn’t slept under this roof since her marriage. Even though she’d only been twenty when she married Bard, she had packed away her childhood and stored it in the attic of her unconscious.
She remembered it, of course. If she had the need she could pull pieces of it from mental suitcases and trunks. When Callie asked, Julia told stories of growing up at Ashbourne, of the winter when she’d had the chicken pox and to cheer her Maisy had dressed up like Santa Claus to deliver Valentine candy nestled in a lavender-and-yellow Easter basket.
She thought now that she had been a pensive child in a happy home. A quiet child in a home where nothing ever went unsaid. A secretive child in a home with no mysteries. No one here had belittled her or tried to change her. She had been accepted and loved, and though at times she had yearned for the more traditional households and parents of her friends, she had also realized just how lucky she was.
Until the day her world turned upside down.
Her reverie was broken by a knock at her door. “Come in,” she called too loudly, grateful to be interrupted.
“I brought you some tea. I remember the way you liked it as a little girl.”
She smiled in the direction of Jake’s voice. “You’re too good to me.” She heard his footsteps.
