Assistant Warden Lawrence “Lore” Hicks arrived shortly after Evie was escorted into lockdown. Warden Coates left Hicks to handle the new intake’s paperwork while she worked the phone, seeking guidance from the Bureau of Corrections and putting in calls to everybody on the off-duty roster.
As it happened, there wasn’t much to handle. Evie sat with her hands chained to the interview room table, still dressed (for the moment) in the County Browns Lila and Linny Mars had given her. Though her face was battered from repeated collisions with the mesh guard in Lila’s cruiser, her eyes and mood were incongruously merry. To questions about her current address, relatives, and medical history, she gave back only silence. When asked for her last name, she said, “I’ve been thinking about that. Let’s say Black. Black will do. Nothing against Doe, a deer, a female deer, but Black seems a better one for black times. Call me Evie Black.”
“So it’s not your real name?” Fresh from the dentist, Hicks spoke from a mouth that was still mushy from Novocain.
“You couldn’t even pronounce my real name. Names.”
“Give it to me anyway,” Hicks invited.
Evie only looked at him with those merry eyes.
“How old are you?” tried Hicks.
Here, the woman’s cheerful expression drooped into what appeared to Clint to be a look of sorrow. “No age have I,” she said—but then gave the assistant warden a wink, as if to apologize for something so orotund.
Clint spoke up. There would be time for a full interview later, and in spite of everything that was going on, he could hardly wait. “Evie, do you understand why you are here?”
“To know God, to love God, and to serve God,” Evie replied. Then she raised her cuffed hands as far as the chain would allow, made a show of crossing herself, and laughed. She would say no more.
Clint went to his office where Lila had said she’d wait for him.
He found her talking into her shoulder mic. She replaced it and nodded at Clint. “I’ve got to go. Thanks for taking her.”
“I’ll walk you out.”
“Don’t want to stick with your patient?” Lila was already headed down the hall to the inner main door and lifting her face so Officer Millie Olson’s monitors could see she was a citizen—Joan Law, in fact—and not an inmate.
Clint said, “The strip search and delousing is ladies only. Once she’s dressed, I’ll rejoin.”
But you know all this, he thought. Are you too tired to remember, or do you just not want to talk to me?
The door buzzed, and they went into the airlock-sized room between the prison and the foyer, a space so small it always gave Clint a mild case of claustrophobia. Another buzz, and they reentered the land of free men and women, Lila leading.
Clint caught up with her before she could go outside. “This Aurora—”
“Tell me again that I have to stay awake, and I may scream.” She was trying to look good-humored about it, but Clint knew when she was struggling to keep her temper. It was impossible to miss the lines of strain around her mouth and the bags under her eyes. She had picked a spectacularly luckless time to work the night shift. If luck had anything to do with it.
He followed her to the car, where Reed Barrows was leaning with his arms folded across his chest.
“You’re not just my wife, Lila. When it comes to law enforcement in Dooling County, you’re the big kahuna.” He held out a hand with a piece of folded paper. “Take this, and get it filled before you do anything else.”
Lila unfolded the piece of paper. It was a prescription. “What’s Provigil?”
He put an arm over her shoulder and held her close, wanting to be certain Reed didn’t overhear their conversation. “It’s for sleep apnea.”
“I don’t have that.”
“No, but it’ll keep you awake. I’m not screwing around, Lila. I need you awake, and this town needs you awake.”
She stiffened under his arm. “Okay.”
“Do it fast, before there’s a run.”
“Yes, sir.” His orders, well meant as they might have been, clearly irritated her. “Just figure out my lunatic. If you can.” She managed a smile. “I can always hit the evidence locker. We’ve got mountains of little white pills.”
This hadn’t occurred to him. “That’s something to keep in mind.”
She pulled away. “I was kidding, Clint.”
“I’m not telling you to tamper with anything. I’m just telling you to . . .” He held up his palms. “. . . keep it in mind. We don’t know where this is going.”
She looked at him doubtfully, and opened the passenger door of the cruiser. “If you talk to Jared before I do, tell him I’ll try to get home for dinner, but the chances are slim approaching none.”
She got in the car, and before she rolled up the window to take full advantage of the air conditioning, he almost popped the question, in spite of Reed Barrows’s presence and in spite of the sudden, impossible crisis that the news insisted was possible. It was a question he supposed men had been asking for thousands of years: Where were you last night? But instead he said, and momentarily felt clever, “Hey, hon, remember Mountain Rest? It might still be blocked up. Don’t try the shortcut.” Lila didn’t flinch, just said, uh-huh, okay, flapped a hand goodbye, and swung the cruiser toward the double gate between the prison and the highway. Clint, not so clever after all, could only watch her drive away.
He got back inside just in time to see Evie “You Couldn’t Even Pronounce My Real Name” Black get a photo snapped for her inmate ID. Don Peters then filled her arms with bedding.
“You look like a stoner to me, darling. Don’t puke on the sheets.”
Hicks gave him a sharp look but kept his Novocain-numbed mouth shut. Clint, who’d had enough of Officer Peters to last a lifetime, did not. “Cut the shit.”
Peters swiveled his head. “You don’t tell me—”
“I can write up an incident report, if you want,” Clint said. “Inappropriate response. Unprovoked. Your choice.”
Peters glared at him, but only asked, “Since you’re in charge of this one, what’s her assignment?”
“A-10.”
“Come on, inmate,” Peters said. “You’re getting a soft cell. Lucky you.”
Clint watched them go, Evie with her arms full of bedding, Peters close behind. He watched to see if Peters would touch her, but of course he didn’t. He knew Clint had an eye on him.
3
Lila had surely been this tired before, but she couldn’t remember when. What she could remember—from Health class in high school, for God’s sweet sake—were the adverse consequences of long-term wakefulness: slowed reflexes, impaired judgment, loss of vigilance, irritability. Not to mention short-term memory problems, such as being able to recall facts from Sophomore Health but not what the fuck you were supposed to do next, today, this minute.
She pulled into the parking lot of the Olympia Diner (MY OH MY, TRY OUR EGG PIE, read the easel sign by the door), turned off her engine, got out, and took long slow deep breaths, filling her lungs and bloodstream with fresh oxygen. It helped a little. She leaned in her window, grabbed her dash mic, then thought better of it—this was not a call she wanted going out over the air. She replaced the mic and pulled her phone from its pocket on her utility belt. She punched one of the dozen or so numbers she kept on speed dial.