“Of course, when I saw the video, I knew it had to be her and then I also knew why. And it doesn’t mean as much as it once did, but poison is historically a woman’s method of murder. Both of her victims were poisoned or drugged. The violence was never direct.”

“Was for Anthony Thomas. What about him?”

“I suspected Jones of being involved too. I knew he’d typed the letters to me and Johnson’s request threatening suicide or escape. I didn’t think Strickland had killed Anthony Thomas—and not only because she was in love with him but because it was direct, brutal violence.”

“Yeah, she saved that shit for me.”

“She was disintegrating fast by then. I think she had some torture planned for Maddox, had two of his knives ready for it after she drugged him, but Skipper banging on the door with Thomas made her cut things short.”

“How about Molly Thomas? Who killed her?”

“I think Skipper did it, but I can’t prove it.”

“So Skipper had a prostitution ring, sold drugs, had you beaten up, and has maybe murdered someone, and he gets away with it?”

“For a little while longer maybe,” I said. “He’s being investigated. Word’s out on the compound, so . . .”

42

I was standing at the gate of Potter Correctional Institution staring at him when he was killed.

It was Monday morning of the following week.

Thick clouds had rolled in during the night, replacing the sunny skies of the weekend, the gray day matching the buildings of the institution.

In the sally port, Merrill Monroe was stabbing trash bags with an iron rod on the back of a flatbed truck, his graceful, fluid motion a thing of beauty.

Seeing me at the gate, he paused and waved.

“Somebody say somethin’ ’bout me bein’ a spear-chucker . . . I’a show ’em why my ancestors called that.”

I started to say something but stopped as the most powerful sense of déjà vu washed over me.

When Merrill stabbed the next bag, the rod stuck and wouldn’t give as he attempted to withdraw it.

On his second, more strenuous attempt, Merrill was able to snatch the weapon free, but it came out of his hands and went flying through the air.

Striking the fence nearest me, it splattered the steel and concrete with blood.

Merrill looked at me, slowly shaking his head in disbelief, as the officer in the control room buzzed me through the two gates that separated us.

I rushed over to the vehicle in what felt like a recurring nightmare and climbed onto it with Merrill.

A small pool of blood was seeping outward from the bag.