I think back. “Maybe, I guess. But that was a long time ago.”
The guy by the door is beginning to look impatient. This makes me nervous. “Is it possible that you met her family”—Gordon pauses while thumbing through the file—“during your junior year, when you traveled to Palos Verdes to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner at her family’s residence?”
How the hell could he know that?
“Yes, that is possible.”
“Did you visit her home after that?”
“Maybe. Like I said, it was a long time ago.”
“Is it possible that you visited her family’s home on five more occasions?”
“It’s not like I kept a diary,” I say.
He ignores the irritation in my voice. “Did you have a relationship with JoAnne?”
I look down at the table, the metal restraints. Why haven’t they put me in the restraints? Are they meant as a threat? What is the answer that triggers the guy in the uniform to come over and force my wrists into the cuffs?
“A romantic relationship?” Gordon clarifies.
I shake my head. “No,” I say emphatically.
“But you knew her pretty well?”
“Yes, I suppose I did. Many years ago.”
“Before, you said that you hardly know her.”
I glance at the two-way mirror. Who is behind the glass? And why do they care so much about my history with JoAnne? “People change a lot in twenty years. It is, in fact, true that I hardly know her now. After graduation, we both moved on to graduate schools in different states.”
“And you never saw her again until you met up at Villa Carina?”
“Correct.”
“Though it’s possible you may have exchanged a few emails or letters?”
“I exchanged emails with a lot of people I knew in college. I didn’t keep track.”
“When you saw her at Villa Carina, you recognized her right away?”
“Of course.”
“Were you happy to see her?”
“Sure, why not? JoAnne is—was—a great person. It was nice to see an old friend in a strange, unfamiliar situation.”
“When did you see her after that?”
I try not to hesitate. In my mind though, I imagine someone behind the mirror studying my every move. Maybe they even have hidden electronic equipment measuring my heart rate and temperature, assessing my nonverbal cues. “It was at the quarterly party in Woodside.”
“How did she seem?”
“She was with her husband, Neil,” I say evenly. “They seemed very happy together.”
“Do you recall what she was wearing?”
“A blue dress,” I say, and instantly regret it. I know what he must be thinking: Why was I paying such close attention?
“And after that?”
“That was the last time I saw her.” I say this last line with as much detached definitiveness as I can muster. I’ve committed to the lie, right or wrong, and now the only option is to see it through.
Gordon smiles, shuffles the papers, and looks up at the man in uniform. “The last time,” he says, chuckling.
“Yes.”
We sit in silence, my lie hanging in the air between us.
“Is JoAnne here?” I ask finally. Stupid, maybe, but I need to get in front of the questions.
Gordon seems surprised. “As a matter of fact, she is. Would you like to see her?”
Shit. Now that I’ve brought it up, it would seem suspicious if I didn’t want to, wouldn’t it? “Seeing as how I don’t know anyone else around here, yes, I guess I would.”
“Perhaps we could do a short tour,” Gordon tells me. “Then we can get you on the early plane back to Half Moon Bay.”
“Sounds good,” I say, trying not to seem too eager. Does this mean I passed the test? Will I no longer need to do the two-hour session after lunch that was printed on my schedule?
The guy in uniform nods toward the two-way glass and the door opens. This time, the young guy leads, I’m in the middle, and Gordon follows. We pass through a couple of hallways, then step out a door to find ourselves in the exercise yard, surrounded on all sides by prison walls. I take a deep breath of the dry, warm air and blink in the sudden sunlight. There’s a basketball court and dirt track, but not much more. An older blond guy in a blood-red jumpsuit sits on a bench at the far end of the yard. Seeing us, he stands at attention. The uniformed guy walks toward him.
Gordon gives a brief history of the prison as we walk across the yard. “This complex was built in 1983 for the state of Nevada,” he recites. “It housed nine hundred and eighty medium-and high-security prisoners on average for thirteen years. The state of Nevada decided to contract out a large portion of its prison population during the early 2000s, which led to Fernley being shuttered. The location was too inconvenient and too expensive, and there were some unfortunate escape attempts that the inmates did not survive.”
We’ve arrived at the door of another building. I look back to see the man in uniform standing with the guy in the jumpsuit. Not with him, exactly, but behind him. He appears to be putting the guy in handcuffs.
We pass through another door. Inside, a woman sits at a desk behind a plate-glass window. On the wall are dozens of CCTV monitors. She glances away from the monitors and nods at Gordon, then passes a bright orange badge on a lanyard through the slot under the window. Gordon takes the badge and thanks her. “Wear this,” he says, looping the lanyard around my neck.
The woman flips a switch; a steel door swings open. Now it appears that we are in the heart of the prison. There are corridors to our right and left, and one in front of us. Each hallway extends up three levels, and I quickly count twenty cells per level. Although it’s mostly quiet, random sounds tell me that not all the cells are empty.
“Do you want to try a cell?” Gordon asks as we walk through the cellblock.
“Funny,” I say.
“It wasn’t a joke.”
In one cell, a man sits on his cot, reading The Manual. It is a sobering view. There’s something incongruous about the Spartan cell, the blood-red jumpsuit, and the guy’s nice haircut and well-manicured hands.
We arrive at a cafeteria. No one is at the tables, but I can hear the banging of pots and pans. The long metal tables and benches, all bolted to the floor, are clearly from the original prison. The smells seem out of place—I get a whiff of fresh vegetables, spices, grilled chicken.
“The food here is pretty good,” Gordon says, again reading my mind. “It’s all cooked by the inmates. This week, we’re fortunate to have a gentleman here who owns a Michelin-starred restaurant in Montreal. He did a chocolate mousse yesterday that was unbelievable. If you stick around, you won’t be sorry.”
I have the distinct feeling that he’s fucking with me. If I stick around. As if I have some choice in anything that happens to me here.
Suddenly, the kitchen noises subside. The only sounds are our footsteps on the polished concrete floors.
“Did you say JoAnne was here?” I ask nervously.