“I can tell you that Johnson was murdered,” Daniels said with a swell of pride that changed his posture. “The inmate was unconscious before he was ever placed in the bag. ME says he was full of enough chloral hydrate to be dead soon anyway.”

“What is chloral hydrate?” Stone asked.

“Sleeping pills.”

“Couldn’t he have taken them himself?” Stone said. “Maybe to relax during his escape or because he wanted to die?”

“I don’t think so. I think he was drugged by someone who knew that putting him in the trash bag would get him stabbed to death.”

“Did the ME say how the drug was administered?” I asked.

Medical personnel might use a syringe. An officer might put it in food. Another inmate might give it to him as a pill or powder and tell him it’s some other kind of drug.

Daniels’s face turned even redder. It was obvious he hadn’t asked.

“He was unable to say conclusively,” he said. “We should know shortly.”

“What else do you have?” Stone asked.

“He had an abnormal number of lacerations, even for an inmate. A few abrasions that were not related to his death.”

“Where did the fatal blow strike him?” Stone asked.

“Bottom part of his heart. The rod got stuck in his rib cage. Shutt broke several ribs trying to get it free. But that’s not what killed him.”

“What?” Stone asked.

“ME says that the rod scraped the bottom of the heart, but really didn’t pierce it. The loss of blood would have killed him eventually. He lost a shitload of it in a hurry, but it still takes a while. He didn’t die immediately. Died as the result of a blow to the throat that dislocated his windpipe.”

“Could the officer have done that or even known what he was doing?” Stone asked.

“Maybe. I don’t know. Your prime witness is sitting right across from you. Why don’t you ask him?”

“I’ll get to him in a minute,” Stone said with a quick glance in my direction. “What else can you tell us?”

“He was a drug user. There were traces of crack and alcohol in his blood.”

“Crack?” Stone said.

Dust was visible in the shaft of sunlight shining in through the window, specks dancing in it. Amazingly, it seemed to avoid Stone.

“So his death could be drug-related,” Daniels said.

“Aren’t drug screenings done periodically?” I said.

“Yes, they are. He was tested as recently as a week ago, and it was negative. Besides, he was in Confinement most of the time, which makes it virtually impossible to get drugs—or anything else, for that matter.”

“That’s not what I’ve heard,” I said.

“What have you heard?” Stone asked.

“That some strange things go on around here at night. Especially in Confinement.”

Neither man reacted or commented, and Daniels continued.