Patterson hated inmates and made no attempt to hide it. Rumor was there had never been an inmate in his office. I believed it. There were other rumors about why the colonel hated inmates, many of which sounded like war stories, involving riots, gang attacks, and escape attempts, all starring the colonel himself. My theory was that the colonel just needed someone to hate, and since sixty-five percent of the inmate population was black, they made natural targets.

“I want the yard closed, the work crews recalled, and a count taken immediately,” Patterson barked into his phone. “Call the superintendent, and ring him straight through to my office when you get him. Find Inspector Fortner, and get him back to my office with some incident reports.”

If the colonel was upset by what had taken place, I couldn’t tell. He always operated at fever pitch, always yelling orders, always coming on way too strong.

I glanced over at Shutt. He looked as if he’d just killed a man. His whole body, which appeared to be trapped in adolescence, trembled.

“You okay?” I asked him while the colonel reported to the superintendent what had happened.

He didn’t look up, so I repeated the question. When he finally looked at me, he appeared to be in a trance, not knowing where he was.

“Huh?” he mumbled.

His pubescent face was a mask of shock and fear.

When he dropped his head again, I slid my chair over next to him. When I put my hand on his back, it actually shook from the force of the tremors running the length of his body.

“Colonel, Officer Shutt needs to see a doctor,” I said.

“What? No he doesn’t. Do you, son?”

Son didn’t respond. He just continued to stare at the floor.

“Call Medical, now,” I said, employing the colonel’s method of communication.

“Ah, hellfire, Chaplain. He’s been trained. He’ll be all right.”

“Call Medical now, or I will. And if I do, I’m going to declare a medical and psychological emergency. Then you can explain to them why you didn’t.”

The colonel snatched up the phone, pushed three buttons, and yelled into the receiver, “Get Medical to my office now.” Hanging up the phone, he looked back at me. “Chaplain, you need to get a few things straight about the way things work around here. If I wasn’t leaving this afternoon, I’d take you under my wing and make things real plain for you. But the short version is this: I—”

A quick knock on the door was followed by the entrance of the warden, Edward Stone, a deliberate-moving black man in an expensive suit.

“Colonel, Chaplain, Officer Shutt,” he said by way of greeting. His eyes stopped on Shutt. “Have you called Medical, Colonel?”

“Yeah, they should be here any minute,” he said curtly, as if he were talking to a new officer and not his boss.

“He’s obviously in shock,” Stone said. “How you holding up, Chaplain?”