I thought about all the names that I had come across so far in this investigation. I wanted to ask him about at least one of them.

“Can you tell me who Johnson’s real old man was?” I asked.

“Can’t say,” Jefferson said.

“What about Captain Skipper?” I asked.

“Grandma say he won’t say nothin’ about that redneck son of a bitch,” Jefferson said.

“Okay, what about Allen Jones, the inmate who works in the infirmary?”

Again the whisper, again Jefferson with the response. “Say all he know is he well looked out for. He in love with them nurses.”

“How about a young officer named Shutt?” I continued.

“Must be new, ’cause Grandma don’t know him,” Jefferson said.

“Anything else you can tell me that might help me find out who killed Johnson and why?”

“Grandma say it come down to three things. Sex. Drugs. Rock ’n roll. Everything in here do.”

15

“Who can I get drugs from?” I asked.

“Things already gotten that bad?” Anna said.

She was wearing a colorful jumper with blooming spring flowers all over it. It fit nicely, though not too nicely. Never too nicely in here. Her long brown hair was worn down in long, looping waves.

“If an inmate wants to buy drugs on the compound,” I said, “how does he do it?”

I was seated across from her desk in a blue plastic chair that sloped down to the left.

Behind her, through the window, I could see inmates mowing dead grass. The sun had taken a toll on everything this year, but the grass most of all. The waves of heat made the inmates look as if they were many miles rather than a few hundred feet away.

“Well, let’s see,” she said, narrowing her eyes and tapping her pencil on her forehead. “First he would have to have something to buy them with. This could be cash from an outside account, personal property to trade—say, a watch, a ring, or canteen items—or he could be willing to do something—sex, a hit, a favor.”

“Do many of them have what it takes to buy drugs?” I asked.

“Not many have cash, but nearly all have something of value—we’re talking about the trading of goods and services.”

“Just how available are drugs on the compound?” I asked.

“Not as much as you might think after working here and seeing all the crime, but a whole hell of a lot more than a person on the street would think.”

“How does it get in?”

“Some of it’s homemade. We have chemicals here and a pharmacy. Usually though, the homemade stuff is liquor. Most of the drugs come in because someone brings them in—family and friends during visitation, or COs or staff smuggle it in to sell or trade.”

“What about screenings?” I asked.