“Panties, pantyhose, perfume. Shit like that.”

“Where do they get it?”

“Buy it off female officers. Even trade some of them sex for it. Funny, ain’t it? Gay guy givin’ sex to womens in exchange for girly stuff for they man.”

It was certainly among the more ironic things I had encountered in here.

“Thing you gots to remember about this place. If an inmate do somethin’, most of the time it because officer or staff allow him to.”

“Most of the inmates trust you, don’t they?” I said.

“I got respect. Not the same thing. Most inmates don’t trust no one. They life say they can’t trust no one, not even the chaplain. You gots mine. Probably get a few others. Not many.”

“If an inmate wanted to escape, could an officer be bought to help?”

“Probably not. They sell you dope, maybe turn they head when you beat up a punk, but they wouldn’t help you get out. Too risky.”

“How well did you know Ike Johnson?”

“Not really at all.”

“What about Jacobson?”

“Yeah, I know him. Watch your back ’round him. Some people say he crazy, but he ain’t. He dangerous. Lot of inmates say they kill before. Most of ’em ain’t. But Jacobson for real.”

“I appreciate you talkin’ to me,” I said.

“Someone else you should talk to,” he said. “Old homosexual on the ’pound. Say very little, but he know a lot.”

“What’s his name?”

“Don’t know his real name. Everybody just call him Grandma.”

6

Ike Johnson had spent the last night of his life in the infirmary. Jacobson had been there too.

The medical building, like every other building at PCI, was gray cinderblock with light blue trim. It housed Dental and Classification also, and its waiting room was always filled with inmates.

When I entered the small, crowded, but quiet waiting room, I was presented with a choice. The locked door to the left led to Classification and Psychology, the locked door to the right, to Medical, Dental, and Pharmaceutical. I chose right—away from Anna, whom I would rather be visiting again—and as I unlocked the medical department door with my key, I wondered how many other staff members carried a similar key. It made sense that a chaplain would. I spent a great deal of time in the infirmary. But who else had one? Who else had access to the victim the night before he died?

Walking down the long hallway toward the infirmary, I passed the nurses’ station where two nurses—one white, one black, both elderly and overweight—sat. Each had an inmate seated across from her and was laboring to check his vital signs.