Gerald didn’t seem to mind. He went over to the love seat and tore apart his cold prime rib with his bare hands; at least they didn’t give him a knife.
“And the rest?” Gerald asked, sucking grease off a finger. Tina got up, hooking her finger through the handle of a small shopping bag and going over to dangle it before Gerald: a carton of Marlboro Reds, a six-pack of Coke, and a tin of chocolate chip cookies. That’s what he’d asked for, in exchange for answering any questions we had about his 107 days as The Defendant’s cellmate.
Gerald pulled the tab on a can of soda, chugging the whole thing in four long gulps. Blink, and I could have been at Brian’s fraternity house on a Tuesday night. He drew an arm across his upper lip and sat waiting with watery eyes to burp. He was an average, angry-looking man. Light brown hair, dark brown eyes, normal height, normal weight. On Christmas morning 1976, he’d walked into a home in Aspen high and drunk and held up a family at gunpoint, making off with the woman’s jewelry and the family station wagon. He’d never killed anyone, that he could remember.
“I got everything you asked for,” Tina reminded him. We made a deal.
Gerald dotted the corners of his lips with a paper napkin, in no great rush to keep up his end of the bargain.
I checked my watch anxiously. At this rate, there was no way we were making the red-eye back to Tallahassee.
“We’re hoping you can perhaps shed some light on where The Defendant’s head was at right before he escaped,” Carl prompted.
“What’s he gone and done now?” Gerald bit into the cigarette carton’s wrap and spit a sliver of plastic out of the corner of his mouth like chewing tobacco.
“We’re not sure he’s done anything yet,” Carl said.
“What’s it you suspect him of doing, then?” Gerald gestured for someone to light him up. Tina reached into her purse, obliging.
“Did he ever talk about where he might go if he got the chance to escape again?” Tina rolled the lighter’s wheel with her thumb and offered the flame to Gerald, who leaned in to meet it. I was impressed that Tina hadn’t mentioned Florida, which could have easily led Gerald into giving her the answer she wanted. That although she had an agenda, she could show restraint.
“I’m no snitch.” Gerald’s nostrils pulsed with smoke. He considered that declaration while the air between the love seat and bistro table dispersed in various directions. “Not opposed to it on principle. Just not my line of work, you see.” He shot a gummy grin at the guard, who stared straight ahead at the wall, expressionless.
Tina nudged me with her elbow and made eyes. Now. Now is the time. I reached into my purse. “These are my friends,” I said, bringing out the photographs of Denise and Robbie. I’d stuffed an envelope full of options that Tina had reviewed on the flight. We’d gone with the ones from field day, the girls on home plate wearing red shorts and red baseball caps, posing with bats and tough faces. I was worried it was too much leg, but Tina had said to bring photographs that wouldn’t appear in the newspaper. The flat, soulless yearbook style, which made the subjects look like it was their born destiny to have their untimely deaths reported in the paper, didn’t pull at anyone’s heartstrings.
“Denise is the one with the paint on her face,” I said while Carl brought the images over to the love seat where Gerald sat. “And Robbie is the one wearing kneepads. They were both killed two weeks ago, and we just”—I inhaled shakily—“we just don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”
Gerald’s eyes flicked over Robbie and Denise emptily. He pulled the tab on his second can of soda and said, “You’re asking the wrong guy.”
“Who do we ask, then?” Carl said.
“The right guy.” Gerald’s smile was toothless.
There was a metallic clang then, like the heavy steel door had been thrown open with too much force and collided with the bars of the jail cell behind it. Someone muttered, “Dang it,” and I heard that traditional wood heel striking the cement floor, a man whistling a leisurely tune. The guard reacted as though the fire alarm had gone off. He came toward Gerald and slipped a hand beneath his armpit, hauling him to his feet, telling him his time was up.
“But we’ve barely been here ten minutes!” Tina cried.
“Visiting hours are from nine to four,” a new voice said, and we turned to see a grandfatherly man outfitted in all khaki and, yes, cowboy boots, the walking kind with the slight slant, fitting his key into the door of the visitors’ cell. “You can come back tomorrow.”
“I sure hope they do, Sheriff,” Gerald said agreeably. “Bring me the filet next time,” he told Tina, sucking on his lips lewdly as the guard led him out.
“We’re leaving tonight, sir,” I told the Glenwood Springs sheriff. I dreaded having to address anyone as sir or ma’am. That wasn’t how I was raised, and no matter how hard I tried, I always sounded like I was mocking the person to whom I was supposed to be showing respect.
“You should have come earlier, then,” he said unsympathetically, and motioned for us to follow him, wriggling his meaty fingers like he was tickling something from the underside. I felt an extreme revulsion rise up in me.
“We did get here earlier,” I couldn’t stop myself from saying as I got up and followed him into the prison’s reception area. “On time. You were the ones who were late, sir.”
“Our sincerest apologies, ma’am,” the sheriff said, about as insincere as I’d ever heard a person, “but the prison transport van had to go to the shop for a little tune-up, and the guys got a late start at the park.”
“How convenient,” Tina remarked.
“You need me to look at it, sir?” Carl offered in an obsequious voice. When the sheriff glanced back at him, he added, “I was an airplane mechanic in the army.”
The sheriff swung the door wide with the side of his forearm. “Thank you for your service, but we go to the automobile mechanic when there’s a problem with our automobiles. You folks have a nice evening.” It wasn’t enough to allow the door to swing shut behind him; the sheriff pulled it closed with two hands on the knob, then tugged down the security shade for good measure.
Outside, the sun had dipped beneath the snowcaps, but the sky remained a soft, stained blue. Tina looked up, then back down at the hunk of gold on her wrist. It was a Rolex with the jubilee bracelet and jade mosaic dial, the same one my father wore.
“It’s three fifty-one,” Tina said. The three of us stood there, forming a small ring and passing between us a look weighted with understanding. We’d had nine minutes left with Gerald, enough time for him to tell us whatever it was they did not want him to tell. We’d stumbled onto something here in Colorado, and possibly it was the truth.
RUTH
Aspen
Winter 1974