A Dangerous Affair Read online

  Escorted by the Viking guard in front and a second man behind, Lloyd followed a maze of gates and fences until he entered the yard—where the general population gathered in cliques behind a two-story fence topped with hoops of glistening concertina wire. Lloyd recognized the prisoners who slinked along the east wall to congregate among themselves and avoid the guards dressed in gray slacks, white shirts, and maroon ties. On the west side, groups of fierce, lean, and muscular inmates commandeered the weight pile equipped with bench press machines, crooked barbells, and rusted plates. Rival gangs occupied the wobbly bleachers, employing subtle nods and hand gestures to communicate surreptitiously with other members they instructed to bury knives and pipes in the yard. Above the chaos, Lloyd spotted the guards who monitored the confined space with automatic rifles, housed inside four air-conditioned towers aligned equidistant around the property.

  Sensing danger, Lloyd shifted his attention front and center to ignore the Mexican Mafia soldiers approaching from the bleachers. At the edge of his peripheral vision, members of the Aryan Brotherhood gathered to show force against the Black Guerrilla Family lingering on the basketball courts.

  Despite his best efforts, Lloyd had made his share of enemies during his tenure in the hostile environment. And none hated him more than the Mexican Mafia, who resented his stubborn propensity to side with the black population when the balance of power shifted.

  "Yo hessay," a Mafia soldier in sagging khaki pants and laced boots called out to Lloyd. "Where you going?"

  Lloyd followed the guard in front of him, ignoring the young shot caller with arms sleeved out in dagger tattoos.

  Irate at Lloyd's indifference to his presence, the raging Mexican signaled for his posse to follow. "I'm talking to you, hessay." He lifted his shirt to his chest to expose the bullet hole scars on his stomach.

  "Move away," the guard ordered.

  "You got no play, homey," the Mexican soldier heckled Lloyd. He waited for his men to cram behind him and surreptitiously pass the weapon—a basic shank fashioned from a broken chair leg that had been smuggled into the vocational training shop, sharpened, and then smuggled back out in a pouch sewn inside a jacket sleeve.

  Lloyd deflected the taunts with unshakeable concentration, his mind centered on a single objective.

  "I said wussup, vato," the soldier persisted despite the guard's verbal warning and the threat of a beanbag shot to the body from a rookie tower guard itching to pull the trigger. "Yo, motherfucker! I'm talkin' at you!" Fueled by vengeance, the soldier charged at Lloyd with the shank concealed behind his forearm.

  Lloyd embraced the attack in his shackled hands, using his wrist restraints to trap the weapon and throw his attacker violently to the ground with an elbow lock and a graceful redirection of force.

  Before the other guards on the ground could respond, the control tower abandoned the usual warning shots and fired a barrage of bullets at the ground.

  A hundred prisoners hit the dirt all at once.

  The loudspeakers crackled. "Everybody on the ground! NOW!"

  A buzzer signaled the staff to place the general population on lockdown. One guard confiscated the Mexican soldier's weapon; another hauled the instigator to solitary confinement.

  "Keep moving." The big guard prodded Lloyd with his meat hook hands.

  Lloyd ventured toward the gauntlet of security checkpoints positioned between the yard and the inside entrance to the "love shack"—a minimal security administrative services building that housed the paper pushers and served as a gateway between the incarcerated criminals and those free to come and go with the outside world.

  A warning sign greeted Lloyd at the entrance. Large red letters made a statement about the authorized use of deadly force. Smaller print mentioned the use of video and audio surveillance.

  Escorted by the guard, Lloyd entered a changing room and had his prisoner restraints removed under close supervision from another armed officer stationed in the admin services building.

  Lloyd donned a pair of slacks and a button-down shirt. "I'm supposed to have shoes with these," he said, his words squandered on indifferent ears.

  Lloyd tucked in his shirt and followed the big guard to a conference room with a window air conditioner and a video surveillance camera mounted in the ceiling. A folding chair faced a metal table with a water pitcher and a tray of plastic cups on top.

  "Sit down," the guard instructed.

  Lloyd planted himself in the kindergarten chair. He kept his posture ramrod straight with his hands in his lap and his wrists cuffed and fastened to a chain around his waist. His prison-issue slacks fit him loose and short, causing the pant legs to ride high above his bare feet in flip-flop sandals.

  He recognized the conference room from his first parole board hearing. The same bland walls stared back at him. This time fresh paint fumes came through the ventilation ducts. If only for a short while, he relished his time in the peaceful enclave, removed from the D-block netherworld of perpetual disruption and violence. "I like what they did with the place," he told his stone-face chaperone.

  Minutes passed like hours while Lloyd waited for the four-member panel from the Florida Parole Commission to arrive.

  Three middle-aged Caucasian men and an older Puerto Rican woman assumed their spot at the conference table. A court reporter set up a portable stenograph machine.

  One panel member poured water. Another sneezed in a handkerchief. A third projected his own indifference toward the one person who stood between himself and an early lunch.

  "Good morning," the chairwoman said, acknowledging Lloyd.

  "Good morning," Lloyd replied with a smile.

  "We've all read your file, Mr. Sullivan. Since this is not your first dance, I'll get right to the point. You've had quite a ride in this facility, including a failed parole evaluation in 2007. Since that time, the court has asked this board to reexamine your case. We have. And to be honest, aside from your age, I'm not convinced much else has changed. What makes you think you're more equipped to enter society today than you were the last time we met?"

  Lloyd pondered this first of several probing questions designed to peel away the cheap veneer of false pretense and expose an inmate's true state of rehabilitation. Three years ago, the panel had asked him the same question. This time, he'd prepared a more carefully thought-out answer.

  Chapter 3

  Jamie Blanchart hauled groceries from the cherry red Volvo S-40 in her two car garage. Her hourglass figure strained beneath the sleeveless yellow sundress she wore over a lace bra and panties. Designer shades hid oval eyes inherited from her Polynesian mother. Straight auburn hair framed her heart-shaped face and brushed the top of her C-cup breasts.

  She carried the milk and OJ first. Then she went back for the bags of canned goods, frozen chicken, and the six-pack of her husband's favorite beer.

  She slid her clogs onto a shelf in the laundry room inside their three-bedroom home and carried the cold groceries to the counter by the fridge. She checked the microwave timer. The smell of baked tenderloin filled the quiet house.

  She crammed the frozen food in the freezer and organized the cold groceries in the fridge. The milk went on the bottom shelf. Cheese and meat went in the middle drawer. Beverages belonged in the door panel below the condiments. Butter came from sticks, not tubs of yellow spread. Milk was two percent. Cheddar cheese was sharp. Lettuce had to be crispy, not limp. And anything else Alan Blanchart wanted, Alan got.

  With the groceries finished, she grabbed a dust rag and a bottle of Pledge. She tackled the China hutch first, a gift from Alan for their five-year anniversary. She worked the rag in a clockwise motion along the mahogany grain, her image reflected in the glass doors that displayed the antique china.

  She used a feather duster on the silver candle holders and the faux bouquet of flowers on the dining room table. She ran the stick vacuum on the hardwood floor outside Alan's study, where the door to her man's domain remained locked at all times.

&n
bsp; She avoided the empty nursery and the flood of mixed emotions that always followed when she entered the room alone. Life was good to her, if not always fair. She had what she needed, more so than what she wanted. And although at times she missed her career, she held fond memories of her friends and the life she knew before marriage.

  A product of foster care, she had worked hard to find her place in the world. Now, at almost forty, she finally had a permanent home, a husband, and food on the table. She had found the American dream. Or so she convinced herself.

  She stowed her cleaning supplies in the butler pantry organized more methodically than a surgical suite. She aligned the canned goods an inch apart and six inches from the front of the shelf, the way Alan liked it. Cereal, oatmeal, and breakfast bars faced out from the middle rack above the paper products. Toiletries and other sundry items were segregated in colored bins on the bottom racks.

  When she heard the garage door open, she pressed her hands along her dress to flatten wrinkles. She washed up in the powder room sink and primped her hair.

  "You're home." She greeted her husband with a peck on the cheek. She could smell the cheap perfume on his collar.

  Sheriff Blanchart hung his hat in the closet the same way he did every time he came home, except on the special nights when he brought home flowers or a box of Jamie's favorite candy.

  Tonight wasn't one of those nights.

  "Did you make the appointment?" Blanchart asked bluntly. He unfastened his duty belt and hung it on the closet hook beside his hat.

  Jamie touched the butterfly tattoo etched between the dermal layers of skin on her upper back. A spring break memento from a college road trip to Daytona Beach, the tattoo served as a constant reminder about the consequences of her actions, and how at times, even the best intentions could have a negative affect. "I called the doctor's office this morning," she said. "I have an appointment for next week."

  Blanchart stooped to kiss her. Nearly ten inches taller than his life partner, he cupped Jamie's chin in his hand the way a forensic pathologist might examine a human skull.

  Jamie looked down. "I have to check on dinner." She reached for an oven mitt in the sliding drawer by the stove. There were no indecisions with Alan. His mood was hot or cold; content or irate; happy or sad. Sometimes he came home himself, and sometimes he came home a stranger in his own skin. On the good days, he kept to himself. On the bad days, he made her the center of attention.

  Jamie opened the oven to check the meat thermometer. A blast of hot air greeted her face. "How was work?"

  Blanchart ran his hand along the countertop to check for dust. "Not great."

  "I cooked beef tonight," said Jamie. "Your favorite."

  Blanchart shook his head. "Not tonight."

  Jamie closed the oven. "I can save it for tomorrow."

  Blanchart took a beer from the fridge. "This isn't cold enough."

  Jamie stiffened. "I just got home from the store."

  "Which one?"

  "The same one I always go to. I saved the receipt."

  Blanchart twisted off the cap and moved to the sliding glass doors facing the screened porch outside. "The pool looks dirty."

  "The guy didn't come today. I called this afternoon and left a message."

  Blanchart nudged a crooked wedding picture on the wall near the kitchen. He drank his beer in solitude, his thoughts distracted by recent events. "Did the mail come?" he asked rhetorically.

  "I put it in the basket."

  "Did anyone call?"

  "Not that I know of."

  Blanchart downed his beer. "I lost a deputy today."

  "Oh my God..." Jamie pulled the roast from the oven and set it on the stove to cool. "What happened?"

  "Simon Carter died in the line of duty."

  Jamie recognized the name. "His wife just had a baby."

  Blanchart picked at the beer bottle label with his thumbnail and hovered close to his wife. He touched her shoulder with his other hand. "I need to schedule his service. We should send his family flowers."

  Jamie reached up to touch his hand. "Are you okay?"

  Blanchart pulled away. He rinsed the empty bottle in the sink and squeezed it in a vise-like grip. "If I want your sympathy, I'll ask you for it."

  "I'm sorry."

  "For what? You didn't kill him."

  Jamie transferred the roast to a storage container with a lid and left Alan to his own machinations. She shared a tenuous connection with her husband of twelve years and knew what buttons to avoid.

  Blanchart squeezed the bottle harder, his jaw muscles twitching from the effort.

  The brown glass imploded with a pop. Broken pieces clinked in the double sink.

  Blanchart stared at the thorn of splintered glass stabbing his palm. Blood drizzled toward his sleeve.

  Jamie retrieved the first aid kit from the pantry and tore open a pack of four-by-four gauze. "That cut looks deep."

  Blanchart rolled his sleeve back, plucked splintered shards without flinching and rinsed the blood to expose the sliced skin. He dried his hand on a dishtowel and pressed the gauze on the deepest cut. Blood pooled in the cotton fiber.

  "You might need stitches," said Jamie.

  Blanchart wrapped the dishtowel around his hand. "Clean up this mess and don't let the glass go down the drain." He left the room momentarily and returned with the flashlight from his duty belt.

  Jamie could see the vein throbbing at her husband's temple, knew blood pounded in his head—as it always did when he considered she'd stepped out of bounds. He could tolerate only so much before his patience snapped and his role as her husband and care provider reverted to that of teacher. During the course of their marriage, he'd taught her many lessons to educate her in a manner consistent with his beliefs.

  Jamie used a wet napkin to wipe the glass fragments from the stainless steel basin.

  Blanchart raised the flashlight. "You missed some."

  "Where?"

  Blanchart shone the light in the garbage disposal. "Down there."

  Jamie peered inside the disposal opening. Light reflected off the broken glass. "How do I get them out?"

  "One piece at a time."

  "I can't reach in there," Jamie said with an apologetic tone. Her face was ashen.

  "I'll hold the light."

  Jamie stared at the garbage disposal. Her pulse raced. She brushed her fingers on the rubber trap above the circular metal teeth inside the grinding chamber. "My hand won't fit."

  "Yes it will."

  "What if it gets stuck?"

  "It won't."

  "What if the motor comes on by accident?"

  Blanchart thrust the light in her face and touched his wounded hand to the garbage disposal switch. "Do you trust me?"

  Jamie felt the knot tighten in her throat as if an invisible noose slowly choked the life out of her. She nodded almost imperceptibly and whispered, "Yes."

  Blanchart leaned closer and touched her face. "Good. Because a marriage without trust ends in mayhem."

  Chapter 4

  Lloyd gazed through layers of pollen, dust, and carbon emission residue caked on the prison bus window. Mesmerized by the sun's orange glow fading beneath the central Florida landscape of banana palms and hibiscus shrubs, he held his breath until his starving lungs forced him to inhale.

  He wasn't dreaming.

  His departure from the regimented life in a cell block dorm was happening in real time, in living, vibrant color, but without the fanfare he'd imagined. His chance to start over, to pick up where his life had ended ten years ago, had finally come to fruition. The light felt brighter. The air smelled cleaner. The freedom he'd dreamed about tasted sweeter than a cane sugar soda. He had the rest of his natural days to look forward to. And many disturbing images to forget.

  Lost in his own solitude, he shared a bench seat with the same correctional officer who initially indoctrinated him to a world behind bars—an irony gone unnoticed until Lloyd recognized the guard's hand deformi
ty, where two fingers grew together as one and ended at a point with a single nail. A thick beard hid the man's hardened face—a man who'd lost his voice box to cancer and his conscience to the devil himself.

  A fitting end, Lloyd thought, to the bastard who reaped profits from the pain and suffering of younger inmates recruited to participate in human cock fights—gang-bangers, mostly, with lots of attitude and little common sense, lured by the promise of easy coin and special favors if they won with a vicious display of force. Most of them fought the good fight and returned to their cells physically and emotionally bludgeoned by bigger, meaner, hungrier machines disguised as men.

  After years of powdered milk and dirty water, Lloyd salivated over thoughts of cold beer, warm steak, and a hot baked potato or fries. Not the lame-dick fries the prison served, but the over-salted, golden brown crunchy ones McDonald's cranked out by the millions. The salted grease would melt in his mouth the way the glob of whipped butter would dissolve on his open baked potato. And yet despite his desire for real food, a more potent hunger gnawed at him, a deeper emotional famine he experienced during his lengthy incarceration.

  When the bus arrived at the scheduled destination, Lloyd stepped out as a free man in his jeans and leather ankle boots embroidered with a cross on one side, the same clothes he wore the day the judge passed sentence in the courtroom and tore his family apart.

  He ventured across the street toward an abandoned strip mall and a bus shelter, where a handful of weary travelers waited for the public transportation to arrive.

  "You got a light?" a young woman asked. She approached Lloyd with her arm akimbo and an unlit cigarette between her fingers.

  "Sorry," Lloyd told the mocha-skinned girl in a miniskirt and heels with a wig and glitter nail polish. "I don't smoke." He advanced toward the bus shelter with the girl in his shadow, swinging her arm in sync with her hips. "Can I help you?" he asked.

  A streetlight petered out overhead after several seconds of random flickering.

  "Tell me what you did."