"Oh! What a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive."  Sir Walter Scott

Behind the Bars

          "Tell it how you find it." Stace Mallack's voice was as hard as thunder.

             "I always do."

             Her hands indicated the office in which we stood. "Thus here we are, seventeen years later."

             "That wasn't my fault."

             She sighed. "Whatever. I'm not here to rehash the past."

             "Why are you here?"

             "Because Farnum is dead. Because he attacked one of my guards."

             When she looked at me, fire blazed in her eyes and I realized that even after seventeen years, I still burned a torch for this angry woman.

             The thunder filling our ears had a metallic edge, as though it wasn't really thunder but kids in a school play banging a sheet of tin. Except it wasn't thunder or tin, it was more than 300 pairs of hands beating against cell doors. I rubbed my temple. "Was it deadly force?"  

           "Farnum's dead, isn't he?"

             Stace was the Zachary County jail superintendent, a woman I'd known nearly twenty years. We began our careers, her with the sheriff's office and me with the Barefield police department, about the same time. I busted the bad guys and she jailed them. But more than that, we spent lots of time together.

             For a while we had been lovers.

             Her weary smile cracked my heart. "Thanks for coming."

             "Anytime you call."

             "Mr. Gallant. Whatever."

             Take away the noise and the bars and we were like two lovers painfully attempting a reconciliation.

            "Was the deadly force justified?"

            "He said Farnum attacked him." Stace shrugged. "It's on the tape."

            "You sound like you don't believe it."

            "I don't believe most things." Her vague smile faded to nothing.

            "Why me?"

             Stace licked her teeth, as though she wanted to say one thing, but chose to say something else. "Isn't this your job? Investigating cops?"

             "I'm a detective with the Barefield Police Department. I investigate all crime."

             "Your specialty, then. I need someone who isn't afraid to investigate, regardless of the state troopers and the Attorney General and the Feds. You're the obvious choice."

             "Sounds like a lot of cops involved."

             Stace shrugged. "The inmate is lots of dead."

             It was a cheap thing to say but Farnum's death had badly shaken Stace. People didn't die in her jail, it was a point of professional pride.

             "How many others?" I asked.

             "I've been here eighteen years. There was one my first year –-" Her eyes avoided mine. "None since I took over as super. It doesn't matter what they're accused of doing, Dwight. On my watch, they get treated like human beings. They don't die."

             We left the cafeteria and in the corridor, where burn marks from the riot still decorated the walls like blackened Christmas lace, the inmates' pounding was twice as loud.

             "Tell it how you find it."

             Then she was gone, back to the administrative offices while I listened to angry fists and stared down a hallway that snaked deeply into the jail.

* * *

             The official line, being spoon-fed to the media, was that Farnum had been killed by inmates unknown during the riot. In truth, the death precipitated the riot. But by calling me specifically, Stace was telling me much more than that a guard had been attacked and had defended himself. And by ordering me to report it as I found it, she was telling me that she was ready for whatever verdict might come.

             In the central control room, a guard named Grady reluctantly handed me a radio. "I've been ordered to assist you." His words were sheets of ice. "You get lost, call me. I'll pop the door that'll get you outta there. Then I'll pop the next door and the next and the next. Listen for that lock popping, you can't miss it even through the bullcrap noise they're making. You follow the pops and you'll get out."

             "I know my way around, Deputy, I've been in here about a million times."

             "Not like this, you haven't. We haven't replaced all the lights yet and in the dark, that banging screws up your sense of direction. You won't know where you are."

             In front of Grady was a bank of monitors six screens high, arranged in a half-circle around him. "Forty-eight monitors," he said. "To cover 140 cameras."

             "How do you see it all?"

             "Been doing this for twenty-eight years, Detective. I know what to see."

             "What did you see the night of the death?" I stayed away from the word murder, though I was certain the grapevine had carried the word far and wide.

             "Hard to see anything when you're off duty."

             A red burn filled my face. The death had been during two shift and he worked one shift. A stupid question. I chalked it up to nerves because regardless of how Stace made it sound, I had only investigated cops once before. That that investigation had been in this jail, an inmate dead at the hands of a guard, only made this more awkward.

             "I want to see the tapes of that night."

             "I’m sure you do. Been awhile since you popped a cop, hasn't it?"

             "You got a problem with me, Grady?"

             "You and every other friggin' bleeding heart in this country."

             I tried not to smirk. "Going with the greatest hits package, huh?"

             He frowned, puzzled.

             "Bleeding hearts," I said. "Same old arguments."

             Absently, he pointed to a far door. "We keep the tapes a year before we reuse them. Pretty quick, we're going to digital cameras and remote servers. We'll burn each shift to DVD and store that. Testing them already in a few places, I'm not sure where. Stace won't tell anyone. She keeps the servers locked up."

             "Doesn't want you playing computer games, no doubt."

             "Piss on you, I do my job."

             "Then do it and give me the tape."

             "I ain't giving you anything. The tape is ready to go in the line-up room. Sign the log-in sheet before and after, the sheriff wants to know exactly who is looking at it."

             "No digital technology for me?"

             Grady snorted as his eyes went back to his monitors. "Lemme jump right on that, sir. Lemme give you all the help you need, sir."

* * *

             Grady had been right. Even in the midst of the thunder, I clearly heard the door unlock. The inmates' thunder was deep, like thunder rolling across the west Texas desert, while the pop of an unlocking door was higher pitched. It reminded me of a guard's open hand against an inmate's cheek.

             Trying to ignore both sounds, I slipped into the line-up room and signed the sheet. Within seconds, I was staring at a jumpy black and white image.

             It was a standard pod. Two tiers with six cells per tier, stairs on either side. The cell doors weren't barred but did have narrow windows in them. Two inmates were locked down in their cells and stared out at the common area where other inmates played cards, read books. Three watched TV and a single frail man talked on the phone. In the corner of the screen, the time stamp said 14:07.

             Every few seconds, the picture jumped a bit. Near the edge of the picture, a young inmate bounced a rubber ball off the wall just below the camera. I chuckled at the thought that his simple rubber ball could shake the camera.

             At 14:13, Anthony Farnum came out of his cell. His hair was thin, his arms and face thinner. On the black and white film, his orange jumpsuit appeared white and when he turned, I could see it was one of the old ones. Some of the black letters were missing from the back. ZACHAR COU TY JA L.

             Farnum went for the phone and the man using it hurriedly ended his call. At 14:14 by the time stamp, Officer Donald Jurewicz entered the pod and my throat constricted. I recognized him immediately.

* * *

             "Any questions?"

             "Dwight, under those circumstances, would force be justified?"

             "Force? We're not talking about force, we're talking about talking."

             "If that didn't work? Suppose force is the only thing that would make her eat."

             "You want to make her eat? Let her skip a meal if she wants."

             "No, she needs to do what I tell her. So in that case, would force be justified?"

             "Legally, given those circumstances, yes, but not much. That's what I'm trying to tell you; not every situation demands force. If it were me, I'd talk her down. All she's doing is yelling about gravy on her dinner."

             "She's resisting."

             "Hardly that and only verbally. Remember the progressive application of force. As an officer, you have to use more force than what you're presented with, but only slightly more. Only enough to control the threat. Right now, I wouldn't call her a threat, and if she is a threat, it's pretty minor."

             "There are no minor threats."

* * *

             The young prisoner continued to throw his ball against the wall and the camera continued to jump.

             Farnum hung up and his eyes never left Jurewicz. When he walked toward the officer, his gait was jerky, like an electric highwire attached only at one end. His eyes narrowed to slits and radiated venom.

             Jurewicz got himself into a defensive position: hands up, weak one out slightly further than his strong one, palms out, feet apart and set. It was Self-Defense 101 in the academy. All the students, including Donald Jurewicz, were taught that not only was this position great for dodging blows, it also looked brilliant on the jailhouse camera. If anyone ever died at your hands, young officers were taught, the inevitable civil jury would see an officer with his hands out, trying to calm an unruly prisoner.

             Almost baring fangs, Farnum moved forward but Jurewicz held his position, motioning up and down with his left hand, trying to get Farnum to back up or sit down or something. I clearly saw Jurewicz tell Farnum to stop. Farnum ignored the officer and soon he was less than ten feet from the cop. At that point, Jurewicz pulled his pepper spray and again told Farnum to stop.

             The tape was eerie. The inevitability of the end gave me a chill. Watching what was, basically, a real time death was somehow more terrible than all the previous crime scenes I'd seen before. This wasn't a static scene with someone already dead. Or even an interview, where someone eventually told you all about the grandmother they killed to collect her Social Security checks. This was happening moment by moment and it left me both hot and cold with fear.

             Farnum never calmed, he grew angrier. He continued to yell and move forward on the officer. But Jurewicz didn't blast his spray and I was stunned. Jurewicz's self-defense instructor would have been appalled. Never never never should an aggressive inmate be allowed that close to an officer. What in hell was Jurewicz thinking?

            After two more steps, Farnum did suddenly stop. He yelled and waved his arms, but his feet had stopped moving. Then he quickly backed up a step and one hand went up to cover his eyes.

            Had Jurewicz fired the pepper spray? I looked for a stream and saw nothing.

            And then, as quick as a bullet from my Glock 21, the two spun and fell, Farnum on top and Jurewicz on bottom. They slammed hard to the concrete floor. Most of the other inmates disappeared into their cells. One ran to the pod door and began pounding on it, no doubt calling for another officer.

            Farnum pummeled Jurewicz. My own head began to hurt in sympathy and I wanted Jurewicz to get off the floor NOW! and get some help in there.

            "Damnit, use your radio," I shouted at the screen. "Get some back-up."
Instead, Farnum pounded at least one tooth from Jurewicz's mouth. It skittered across the floor just as the cop managed to get both hands around Farnum' neck and jerk Farnum's head down toward his shoulder.

            "Yes," I said. "Turn his head, turn it."

            A painful but not fatal twist of Farnum's head, I knew, and Farnum's own momentum would roll him off Jurewicz.

            Instead, Farnum slumped. A heartbeat later, Jurewicz rolled the dead man off him and stood, his face battered and bloody, his uniform shirt torn, his hands clenched so tightly into fists that his palms bled.

            He mouthed "Someone help me," and "His neck's broke."

            The time stamp rolled over to 14:15.

* * *

            "But let's say she throws the dinner on me. Would that be justified?"

            "You're covered in gravy. Other than a dry cleaning bill, where's the harm?"

            "Not funny. I'm going to be taking my life in my hands every time I go into those pods. I need to be able to defend myself."

            "There is nothing to defend. She threw some gravy on you. Better get used to that because you're going to get it worse than that. Piss. Shit. Vomit. Blood."

            "I understand what you're saying, but let's say she moves from yelling to putting hands on. Would that justify it?"

            "Obviously. The question is how much. Remember the principle. Take what you learned in control tactics and get her hands off you. Then order her to stop. If she does, then your force is done."

            "She attacks me and I can't attack her back?"

            "Attack her back? You can never attack an inmate, Officer Jurewicz."

            "Right, I know that. What I meant was, if she's banging my head against the concrete and didn't stop, wouldn't that be a case of justified force?"

            "Absolutely. I would consider banging my head against a concrete floor pretty close to deadly force, wouldn't you?"

            "A lot less than that is deadly force, you ask me."

* * *

            "Detective Dwight Bridgewater," the CO said.

            I grinned and shook his hand. "Officer Grayson."

            He pointed at the stripes on his sleeve.

            "Sergeant," I said, rolling my eyes. "I thought it was a joke."

            He frowned. "Why?"

            I held both hands out like a butcher's scale. "Grayson…sergeant…. In the same sentence? Who'd'a thunk it?" I sat on his desk. "How was Houston?"

            "Worst two years of my career."

            "Your career is still young, my friend. It'll get worse yet."

            "Thanks for that."

            I took a deep breath of fetid jail air. "Got a few questions."

            "I figured. Mallack asked me to be here today, in case you did."
"Tell me about Jurewicz, Mr. Sergeant Shift Commander."

            Grayson shrugged. "Not much to tell, I haven't known him that long. He hired on just a few days before I came back. His personnel folder is pretty empty. No complaints, no citations. Nothing."

            "Spectacularly average."

            "He's only been here six months."

            I looked at Grayson. "Don't give me that. A cop knows. A rookie comes in and every cop in the shop knows if they're going to make or have to find a new job."

            "He's making."

            "Except he's got a dead body at his feet."

            "Lots of cops have dead bodies at their feet." Grayson looked at me sideways. "Including Mallack."

            "I know."

            "I know you know. And yet in spite of that body, she's a damn good cop."

            That body had been one of my first investigations. I'd only been on the force for two years but was moving pretty quickly through the ranks. Back in those days, my father being a lieutenant meant he could grease some skids. Nowadays, a connection like that could actually slow a career.

            My final report said that Stace Mallack, less than a year on the force and working in the jail – with expectations of going on the road within a few years – had used excessive force. Though we were sleeping together at the time, I wrote that she had ignored the verbal approach and then had ignored the use of force scale. One minute and forty-four seconds after the prisoner first offered verbal resistance, he was dead.

            She and I didn't sleep much after that.

            "Mallack's death wasn't murder," Grayson said while absently fingering his new sergeant's badge.

            "I never called it murder. I called it an accidental death."

            "Inexperience, maybe a little fear."

            "And Jurewicz's?" I asked.

            "If Jurewicz murdered Farnum, we have to lock him up."

            "Did he?"

            Grayson shrugged. "Killed him for sure, but I don't know if it was murder."

            I stood and shook the sergeant's hand. "All right. Thanks for the insight. Hey, do something about those flimsy camera mounts, will you?" I cracked a smile.  "A professional outfit like this ought to damn well have professional camera mounts."

            Grayson frowned. "What are you talking about?"

            "The videotape. Some guy was bouncing a ball off the wall and the camera was jumping all over the place."

            A long, slow shake worked through Grayson's head. "Try again, Detective. Those mounts are designed to withstand a riot and still let us see who did what. You could do chin-ups on those mounts and they wouldn't move."

           That didn't at all jibe with what I'd seen. Unless I'd seen it wrong.

            "Can I get a look at Farnum's personals?" I asked suddenly.

            "Absolutely. I'll radio down, have someone there for you."

* * *

            When I saw Farnum's jumpsuit, my teeth ground together. Some of the letters on Farnum's jumpsuit were missing.

            But not the right ones.

            And then I remembered something else from class.

* * *

            "If I kill her, after she has attacked me and caused me great bodily harm, I'm golden, right?"

            "Golden? You've just killed an inmate and you're saying you're golden?"

          "You know what I mean."

            "No, I don't, Officer Jurewicz. What you seem to be asking is when, exactly, can you kill someone."

            "Not at all, I'm asking when can I defend myself. And what you're saying is: if they attack me with deadly force, I can respond with deadly force, right? Is that, or is that not, what you're saying?"

            "Yes, Mr. Jurewicz, that's how the law reads."

            "Fine, then let's move on to something else."

* * *

            When Jurewicz had been in my academy classes, the tone of his questions had progressed. Every question he asked me was, on its surface, about self-defense. But none of them, at heart, was about self-defense. They were all about deadly force.

            I stood in the evidence room, a guard watching me intently. "This is all?"

            "What's in the box is what's in the box." His words came out in a snarl. "Don't know what you're looking for, anyway. Why'n't you leave dead dogs dead?"

            "Gotta find out why the dog died."

            "We know how the dog died."

            "I didn't say how, I said why."

            He snorted. "'Cause he's a piece of crap, just like the rest of them."
"Why don't you slip on out of here and let me take a look at this dead dog?"
Locking me loudly in the room, he left.

            On the video, when Farnum had been on the phone, his jumpsuit had read: ZACHAR COU TY JA L.

            But what I had in my hand said Z CHARY COUNTY AIL .

* * *

            "You here again?" Grady asked.

            "I need to see the tape again."

            The old guard looked annoyed. "You've seen it once already. What, you want me to make you a copy to take home? You got a collection of cops getting attacked? Maybe you edit them all together and sit around with your ACLU friends, figuring out how to get cops in trouble."

            "My ACLU membership expired."

            His teeth ground together and his hands clenched. He didn't want to let me in, he didn't want me to even be in the jail. But he knew Stace was behind all of my questions. Every guard, and probably every inmate, knew I was investigating. The guards didn't want one of their own going down while the inmates wanted justice.

            The lock on the line-up room door popped and I gave Grady a pleasant little smile sure to stick in his craw for the next few days as I left.

* * *

            I froze the tape at the moment Farnum and Jurewicz spun, just before they fell to the concrete. Farnum's suit matched that in the evidence room. It did not match what was on the same tape only moments earlier. The tapes had been edited. That was the jumping around, not the rubber ball.

            It might or might not be justified deadly force, but now sure as hell it was tampering with evidence.

            "Damn," I said, slamming the room's door behind me.

* * *

            Stace sat behind her desk. From her office, the thunder was mostly muffled. Truth was, I didn't hear it much anymore. It was so constant it had faded into the background.

            "Five hours. You wrapped that investigation pretty quickly."

            "I'm not done. I'd like to see the digital masters, Stace. The ones running parallel to the tape system. The ones that convinced you Jurewicz murdered Farnum. Does anyone else know about them?"

            "At least Jurewicz, but no one else."

            "Why? You've always done things by the book."

            She gestured at her surroundings. "Obviously that's not quite correct. I fouled up once, didn't I? And that mistake has kept me in the jail for seventeen years."

            I said nothing.

            "I wanted to be sheriff, Dwight. I wanted to be sheriff but you wanted to be truthful. Your truth kept me off the road, which kept me out of the sheriff's office."

            "My truth? There is a difference between our truths?"

            "Damn straight. My truth was that Charleston Weadon was a child killer. And a molester. He killed his two children and dressed them out like deer."

            "I know."

            "He hung their carcasses in his closet while –"

            "I know.

            " – he raped at least two other children."

            The bad taste, from seventeen years ago, was back, as thick as phlegm in my throat. I hadn't liked what I had to report then and I didn't like thinking about it now. "So I should have lied."

            Her hair bounced when she nodded. "In that one case, yes."

            This was the conversation we had never had. "I don’t lie."

            "Don't play righteous with me. You've lied and we both know it."

            I cocked my head.

            "You told me you loved me."

            "I did love you, maybe still do."

            "That's crap. You didn't love me, you loved the idea of using me to ratchet up your career, to get that gold shield."

            Something in my heart broke a little. Or maybe it had been broken since we broke up and I was only now realizing it. "I'm sorry you think so."  

            "Follow me."

            Five minutes later, I was in a small office. There were two monitors and the rest of the room was filled with computers. She punched a couple of keys, opened a couple of files, and the same scene I'd already watched filled the screen.

            "Close the door behind you," she said as she left. "It'll lock automatically."

            There was the pod, the cells along the top and bottom. Two inmates, just as last time, stood behind their door, their faces framed by the windows. The card players and book readers and TV watchers were all there. The time stamp said 14:07.

            And the camera didn't jump at all.

            At 14:13, Farnum went to the phone. His jumpsuit read ZACHAR COU TY JA L.

            At 14:14, Jurewicz came in.

            At 14:15, Jurewicz began talking to Farnum while the inmate talked on the phone. Farnum turned his back and tried to ignore the officer. Jurewicz slipped around the far side and managed to turn Farnum back toward the camera without touching him. He talked to Farnum, his face twisting a bit and growing angry.

            At 14:17, Farnum hung up the phone and headed to his cell. Twice before he got there, Jurewicz crowded him into the concrete wall.

            At 14:19, Farnum made it into his cell. Laughing, Jurewicz locked him in and left the pod.

            I clicked open the next file, time stamped 16:48. Farnum was still in his cell and when Jurewicz came into the pod, he opened the cell and ordered the inmate out. For the next five minutes, he harangued the inmate while Farnum tried to get back into his cell. Eventually, Jurewicz left the pod.

            At 18:02, Jurewicz was back. Mouth moving constantly, he crowded Farnum everywhere. He talked at him, turned off the TV he watched, closed the book he tried to read. He hung the phone up again and again while Farnum tried to use it.

            The other files were the same. Endless minutes of Jurewicz pushing Farnum verbally and eventually physically. Those moments were quick, a hand here or there, a shoulder in the back, a foot to the butt. I spent two hours watching Jurewicz, the officer who'd asked me when deadly force was and was not justified, systematically work Farnum until the inmate was nearly crazy with anger.

            About halfway through the files, the time stamp had turned over to a new day and when I saw Farnum again the next morning, he was in a different jumpsuit, one that read Z CHARY COUNTY AIL.

            Eventually, the tape was back to what I had seen first: Farnum on the phone with Jurewicz coming in and Farnum heading toward him. Jurewicz' hands came up, but instead of being just defensive, he went on the attack. He drove Farnum back a few steps, which I had seen on the videotape, and threw a punch that went wide. That was when I had seen Farnum raise his hand.

            Moments later, Farnum was on top of Jurewicz and then was dead. Jurewicz called for help and the time stamp clicked over to 14:15.

            It was simply 14:15 twenty-four hours later than I had thought.

* * *

            Writing the report didn't take long. I had already made DVD copies of the camera footage, along with the edited videotape footage and the deadman's jumpsuit, and had boxed it all. Over that box, Stace and I stared at each other for quite a long time. The thunder was still there, but now it was a whisper.

            There was a universe in the words we never said. Both of us apologized, both of us refused to apologize. Both of us said we loved each other and I'm sure she said she hated me.

            "One jumpsuit when Farnum was on the phone," I said. "From the first of the two days. Then, when they fought, it was from the second day, a different jumpsuit, the one in his personals. When they're fighting, you can't tell which one he's wearing. Jurewicz managed to keep that part hidden."

            Stace nodded. "Good work. They wouldn't have believed me."

            "That's crap." She was a respected cop, the superintendent of the county jail. Of course she would have been believed. "Why'd you call me?"

            She licked her lips. "Because –" She took a deep breath. "Because I wanted you to see."

            "See what?"

            "Seventeen years ago I asked you to change your report. Part of me is still furious you didn't." She wiped her lips with the back of her hand. "I wanted you to see that I wasn't going to cover this up. That if my guy murdered a prisoner, we were going to prosecute him."

            "You knew he murdered Farnum, regardless of what everyone else said."

            She nodded and fell silent and I let the silence yawn. Eventually, she turned away and wiped her eyes. "I screwed it up, Dwight. If I hadn't asked you to cover it up, we might still be together."

            That was exactly it and not even remotely it. The situation had been much more complicated than that, was still more complicated than that seventeen years later. All I knew was that at this moment, with the report in my hand, I still loved her and I would continue to love her, regardless of how this murder played out.

            "It's us," I said. "We've got badges, but we're behind the bars as surely as they are." I tilted my head toward the inmates, still banging their hands against their doors.

            She nodded. "Ever since I killed Charleston Weadon. In my head. In my heart. In my job. I locked myself in. Hard to pop the lock from the inside."

            Eventually, I held out my report. "What do you want me to do?"

            There it was, the question that had plagued both of us for the better part of two decades. Would she want me to change a report and let a murderer off, a guard who had murdered simply because he could? And would I be willing to?

            In the expanse of that sliver of a moment, I would have done her bidding, whatever it was. The barest hint of promise that we could resume our lives together was enough for me.

            "What do you want?"

            The rest of my life passed in that moment. But eventually, she stood and opened a gun safe in her office. After I had put the report and evidence in it, she locked it up. Then she called her executive assistant.

            "Get me the state police and the district attorney."

            Stace then made another call. "I know a guy at the Barefield Reporter-Telegram. He's good about sources. Just in case the Rangers and the D.A. don't move."

            "I would have done it," I said, nodding toward the report.

            "I know." She said nothing else and instead poured us each a tumble of Jack Daniel's. We drank quietly and waited for the reporter to arrive.

"Oh! What a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive."  Sir Walter Scott