Blood Men: A Thriller

The warden shows up. He’s in a suit that probably cost all of a hundred bucks, and he has a neutral sick-of-the-same-shit look about him—like my dad almost getting murdered can’t muster up a single ounce of excitement in him. He’s in his midfifties and uses the facial expressions he’s learned over all those years to look at me with complete contempt. Without saying a word to me, he heads into the cell and directs his wrath at Schroder.

“Who the hell said you could bring a civilian in here?” he asks, loud enough for most of the prisoners in the wing to hear. “Are you insane? This is an absolute breach of policy and will cost you your badge.”

I don’t hear Schroder’s response—his voice is low and forceful, and when the warden responds his voice is low and forceful too. I try my best to listen in to what they’re saying, but can’t pick up much except a couple of names, one of which I’ve heard before. Their quiet argument goes on for a few minutes, and when the warden reemerges from the cell, he’s no happier as he storms past me, followed by the two prison guards he brought with him, cheered along the way by some of the prisoners.

The two detectives keep searching my father’s cell as if there could be a dozen hidden compartments, and after thirty minutes they come up with nothing. In the end they walk out dejected, like they were hoping for a reason to arrest my dad all over again. We’re escorted back out the same way we came in.

In the car Schroder lays out the facts. There are no suspects in my father’s case—except for the fifty men who piled on top of him. It seems unlikely that figure will be narrowed down, and even more unlikely they’ll try to narrow it down. When my dad wakes up he may be able to help—but until then there’s not much they can do.

I remember what my dad said yesterday when he gave me that name. He knew he was putting himself in danger. I think after twenty years he’d had enough of this place, he’d seen his son again, he’d seen an opportunity to be a father, and that was the best he was ever going to get.

We pass a couple of media vans going the other way, racing out toward the prison; news of my dad has already hit the city. It’ll be on the news tonight, the prison as a backdrop, and I’ll be on the news tonight and in the papers tomorrow too. They’ll probably accuse me again of killing my wife. Of course that’s just journalists being journalists, not caring if they turn my life upside down for the chance of a story. Each year the competition gets edgier and edgier, compelling them to give up their ethics—and tonight they’ll be speculating on how far the apple really fell from the serial-killer family tree.

We reach my street and there are no media vans parked anywhere. They’ll arrive though, with their cameras and lights and makeup kits. Landry is driving. He pulls up outside of the house and I climb out.

“Hang on a sec, Bill,” Schroder says to Landry, then follows me out. “You can make our lives a lot easier, Edward, if you tell me what you and your father discussed. You probably don’t see it, but it could go a long way toward catching the people who killed your wife.”

“What makes you think that’s what we were talking about?”

“Far as I can figure, there’s plenty for you two to talk about—but with the timing the way it is, it’s pretty obvious he was putting together a list of names. Look, Edward, you better think long and hard about what you want to do next,” he says. “See, it doesn’t look good for you. You go and see your father yesterday, and today one of the men who robbed that bank is dead. Then today your father gets a hit put out on him.”

“I can’t help that.”

“I know you can’t, Edward. But you’re not seeing the big picture,” he says.

“And what’s that?”

“I’m not saying you killed our victim last night. We’ll know soon—there was enough blood at the scene that somebody thought they could clean up with bleach, but they didn’t get it all. We’ll run it against your father’s, check for DNA markers—that way we don’t need a warrant for your DNA. So we’ll know about you for sure, soon enough. The problem you’ve got is that I’m not the only one who thinks you were there. They tried to shut your dad up before he got more names. That means they’re going to want to shut you up too. You’re going to drown in the mess, Edward, unless you start helping us.”

“You’re wrong,” I say, thinking about the small concrete cells, the other men inside them, and spending the next ten years there. “There’s another alternative.”

“Oh?”

“These people killed their own man for whatever reasons. Drugs, money, some weird gang-loyalty thing, whatever. They killed him, and that means they have no reason to come after me. They know I’m innocent.”

“I certainly hope for your sake that’s what happened,” he says.

I open my mouth to answer, but am not sure how. I think about Sam and I think about the cells, and I think the best solution for everybody is if I take my daughter and leave. Today. Get the hell out of this city. Out of this country.

“The blood will tell us if you were there last night. You can save yourself a lot of pain by telling me the truth. You sure you want to play it this way?”

I don’t answer him.

“Then you better watch your back,” he says, then turns and heads to the car.





chapter thirty