“Jesus. Please tell me he wasn’t calling me from Clifton,” I said. “Please tell me he didn’t go to the prison.”
“What do you mean, Dr. Brockton?” The agent’s question—and his tone of voice—couldn’t have been more casual if he’d been asking about the weather. And that told me, beyond a doubt, that something was badly wrong.
“Is Deck hurt? Is he in some sort of trouble?” The agent didn’t answer, and I snapped. “Goddamnit, Fielding, what the hell is going on? Quit playing games with me. If something’s happened to Captain Decker, tell me what it is, and tell me how I can help.”
I heard the agent take a long, deep breath, and then I heard him exhale it. “Captain Decker’s in the ICU at Vanderbilt Hospital,” he finally said. “He’s lost a lot of blood. They’re not sure if he’s going to make it.”
“Oh dear God,” I said. “He did go to the prison, didn’t he? This happened to him there.”
“What makes you say that, Dr. Brockton?”
“Because he mentioned it a couple days ago, when I saw him. He’s working a case involving an inmate there. Nick Satterfield. The serial killer. Satterfield’s . . . girlfriend, his groupie—I don’t know what to call her—she helped Satterfield send a threat to me. A threat and an amputated finger. Decker came to see me a few days ago, to tell me they’d arrested her. While he was here, he said something about paying a visit to Satterfield.”
“What, exactly, did he say?”
I hesitated; I didn’t want to create more problems for Decker, but I didn’t see any clear alternative to the truth. “He said he might go see Satterfield, might rattle his cage a bit.”
“Did he use those words? ‘Rattle his cage’?”
“I think so. Would you please just tell me what’s happened?”
“Bear with me, Dr. Brockton. Was it Captain Decker who suggested rattling Satterfield’s cage? Or was it you?”
“What?” He didn’t respond. “No, it wasn’t me,” I said. “It was Decker who mentioned it, but he wasn’t serious. He was just talking, you know?”
“No, sir, I don’t know,” he said. “What I do know is that Captain Decker went to see Mr. Satterfield. And there was a violent confrontation in the interview room. And Captain Decker nearly bled out on the floor.”
I had a terrible sense of déjà vu—of Satterfield uncoiling and striking down a good man, out of pure malevolence and unadulterated evil.
“I don’t understand how that could happen,” I said. “Aren’t the prisoners behind glass, or bars, or a wire screen, or something? Aren’t they shackled, or cuffed? Or at least guarded?”
“Captain Decker requested a private interview,” the agent said. “In a room. And he asked the guard to remove the prisoner’s restraints.”
“Jesus,” I said. “Jesus. Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know, sir. I thought maybe you could tell me.”
“But what happened? You said Decker lost a lot of blood. Did Satterfield have a knife? A shiv—is that what it’s called?”
“He had a razor blade,” said Fielding. “Hidden in his mouth. He must’ve been expecting trouble.”
“He was causing the trouble,” I snapped. “He sent that finger, and he waited. It was a trap. Bait. And how the hell did he get hold of a razor blade?”
“You’d be amazed what inmates can get hold of. Drugs. Phones. Weapons. Women. Anyhow, by the time the guards got in and broke up the fight, Decker was cut pretty bad. Satterfield went for the neck—he cut the jugular vein, and he was still cutting when they pulled him off. Almost got the carotid artery, the ER docs said.”
“That sick sonofabitch,” I said. I didn’t know whether to weep or scream. “I guess he just wants to take as many people down with him as he can.”
“That’s not the way he tells it, Dr. Brockton,” said the agent.
“What do you mean?” I was echoing the question Fielding had asked two minutes earlier, but my tone—unlike his—was anything but casual.
“Satterfield says it was self-defense. Says Decker was trying to kill him. Says Decker came there to kill him.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “That can’t be true.”
“No? That’s not all he says, Dr. Brockton. He says Decker was doing it for you.”
“Oh, bullshit,” I snapped.
“For you and your wife,” the agent went on. “Decker told Satterfield you and your wife promised him ten thousand dollars.”
“How dare you?” My voice sounded both loud and muffled—as if I were shouting, but shouting from somewhere far away. “Do you even know who Satterfield is, and what he’s done?”
“Yes, sir, actually, I am familiar with Satterfield’s record.”
The words “Satterfield’s record” seemed a mockery to me.
“Do you know what he did, actually, to the four women he killed?”
“I’ve seen the autopsy reports, if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s only a small part of what I mean,” I snapped. “Can you imagine the pain and the terror he put those women through, on their way to those autopsy reports?”