“Usually. But Marcks copped to two murders and one of them was done in a national park in Fredericksburg.”
“And thus federal jurisdiction,” Hurdle said. “Okay, well, our model citizen was involved in an inmate-on-inmate fight in the showers this morning at oh-eight-hundred. Looks like he instigated it against a known enforcer, a guy no one screwed with at Potter. Those two facts should give us reason to suspect that this was part of a preconceived escape plan. The fight was designed to put him in a bad way so he’d have to be transported to a nearby hospital.”
“But prison hospitals are usually pretty well equipped,” Morrison said. “How could he be sure they wouldn’t just treat him there?”
“You familiar with Potter Correctional?” Hurdle asked.
“Potter’s older than dirt,” Vail said. “Should’ve been closed decades ago. I’m willing to bet their hospital has never seen the equipment they’d need to treat a serious injury.”
Hurdle consulted the iPad again. “And he supposedly had a head injury and a wickedly fractured arm. That qualifies as a serious injury.”
“So Marcks intentionally got his head beat in just so he could escape?” Walters asked. “A bit extreme.”
“Hard to say how bad he was hurt. I’m told the nurse only did a cursory exam and said it was an emergency, that he needed to be transported to the hospital.”
“Nurse could’ve been in on it,” Vail said. “Not unheard of. That escape from Clinton Correctional in upstate New York wasn’t the first time something like that happened. Woman becomes enamored with a good-looking inmate, he charms her, promises her the world if he can only get out, convinces her he’s innocent and was framed, whatever. She hears what she wants, believes what she wants. Sometimes he’ll reel her in, do the charm thing, and once he’s made her do things that could get her fired or even arrested if they’re egregious enough, he’s got his hooks in her. He can up the ante under the threat of exposure. She feels like she’s got no choice because if he talks she’ll lose her job. So she does increasingly risky things to help him escape.”
“Have they detained her?” Curtis asked.
“She’s dead. Marcks slit her throat.”
“Another man who makes promises and doesn’t keep his word,” Vail said.
Chuckles and muted laughter trickled through the room.
“That’s one of the things we’ll be looking at,” Hurdle said, “to see if she was complicit. Back to the escape. He was taken in the back of a small correctional transport truck. Last communication was at oh-eight-fifty. Driver reported nothing unusual.
“When he failed to check in at the hospital at oh-nine-ten, Potter went into lockdown, we were notified, and an emergency bed book count was done.”
“Bed book?” Vail asked.
Ramos answered. “It’s a book maintained by the cell house correctional officer that contains a quarters card for each inmate. The quarters cards contain a mug shot of each inmate, his cell assignment and job assignment. This helps confirm that the inmate assigned to that cell is actually the inmate standing in front of you. If one or more inmate’s not where he’s supposed to be, it helps the officer quickly identify who’s missing.”
“Like I was saying,” Hurdle continued. “Potter’s off-duty staff was called in and interior and exterior searches of the prison facility were conducted. All buildings. All closets, rooms. The kitchen. Everything. Vehicles were accounted for. Once they confirmed Marcks was the only escapee, Potter staff was assigned to their escape posting in the immediate area inside the city and county limits around the prison. State troopers were dispatched to expand the search and on Route 48 they found the transport vehicle on the west side of the road, just across the border in Virginia, near Strasburg. It crashed and might’ve been moved further into a nearby stand of trees.”
“The transport team consisted of two correctional officers,” Tarkoff said. “Correct?”
“Yes,” Hurdle said. “Driver was shot through the van wall, probably with the other officer’s service pistol. Sanders, the guard who was in the back with Marcks, was stabbed through the eye with what was likely a scalpel. Nurse’s throat was slit, no doubt with that same scalpel. Don’t know who was killed first.”
“What the hell was a scalpel doing on that truck?” Vail asked.