Page 29 of The Chain House

“Because you just don’t get what’s right in front of your face, Sam Harper,” Sal screamed at Sam. “I wrote those books. I am Mallard Malone.”

CHAPTER13

THE NEXT HOUR there at the prison, for Sam, was a whirlwind.

Warden Wren had stopped the interview seconds after Sal’s Mallard Malone revelation, after his claim, what everyone in the room had assumed to be a lie, because it made no sense.

Did Sal have the time to write those books? Yes.

But the means and opportunity and outreach? No way.

Sal was quickly escorted from the room by the same guards who’d brought him in, and Sam could tell Warden Wren, as he watched them all go, was wondering—if the Mallard Malone claim was true—which of the guards had been an accomplice. Because Sal couldn’t have managed it alone.

After Sal was gone, Warden Wren stood stupefied and seething; it was obvious he’d been duped. To which Jennifer had said, “Do we believe him … sir?”

“Whether we believe him is irrelevant now,” said Warden Wren. “I’d convinced myself he was finished playing games.” He left the room, slamming the door behind him.

The news crew was next to leave, and Shaffer Swanson, the WDRB news anchor, promised Sam they’d be in touch soon and asked if he could keep them informed of any new developments.

Sam agreed, still stunned and speechless, as a guard escorted them from the building. Just like that, it was over. But it couldn’t be. Sal couldn’t make that claim without proving it. The next thing they knew, Sam and Jennifer were swarmed by the rest of the news outlets with questions. Sam, on instinct, reached out his hand to Jennifer and she took it, and together they navigated through the crowd. They couldn’t have been outside for more than a couple minutes when the crowd began to part and another prison guard approached.

“Sam Harper,” the guard shouted. “Warden Wren needs you back inside.”

Sam stopped, and then gently tugged Jennifer that way.

“Only Mr. Harper this time,” said the guard.

Sam said, “What is this about?”

“He didn’t say. But he was adamant I find you before you left the premises.”

“Sam, it’s fine.” Jennifer pulled her hand free from his grasp. “Go on. I’ll find Carl. We’ll wait in his truck.”

Sam watched her disappear into the crowd and then followed the guard back into the prison, where he’d been waiting for the past ten minutes, alone, inside Warden Wren’s tower office overlooking the prison yard, without any explanation as to what he was doing there.

How had this happened right under Warden Wren’s nose? A man known for running a tight ship. If it was true, Sam thought, how had this prison harbored perhaps the most popular novelist of their generation without anyone knowing? If it was true, then someone had to know. Someone helped. Someone from the prison. Maybe more than one someone.

The door opened.

Sam sat up from his slumped position in the cushioned chair as Warden Wren entered his office and closed the door behind him.

“Sorry about the confusion, Sam.” The warden took a seat behind his desk and motioned for Sam to scoot his chair closer. “I urgently need to get to the bottom of a few things, and for that I need answers from Sal, and Sal … and I don’t know why this surprises me anymore … said he, and I quote here, ‘won’t say another word to anyone about anything unless Sam Harper is present.’ So here we are.”

“Me?” Sam said. “Why me?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps it’s the same reason he picked you to begin with.”

“Dead man walking,” a prison guard shouted from the yard outside the tower office.

“He’s on his way,” Warden Wren said.

Sam turned in his chair to see Sal Batise moving across the yard between two armed guards. “They really say that? ‘Dead man walking’?”

“Yes, they do.”

Sam’s nerves ratcheted up again while he awaited Sal’s arrival for the second time of the morning. There was an empty chair on the opposite side of Warden Wren’s desk Sam assumed was for Sal. A minute later, the guards escorted Batise inside and he sat in the chair as casually as a dear friend might. The warden was furious at Sal, Sam could tell, be he also sensed a deeply hidden connection that bordered on camaraderie between the two men. While Sal had a history of obnoxious and often toxic behavior during interviews, Sam knew Batise otherwise had never been a problem in his two decades here, with Warden Wren having been quoted in the newspaper calling him a model prisoner. It was immediately clear to Sam that away from the cameras, Sal seemed like a different person. The larger-than-life persona was still there, but now that it was just them, he’d clearly dialed down the antics.

Sal sat with his hands folded. Hash-mark tattoos ran like train tracks across the top of every knuckle. He’d been on record saying each mark stood for a year his father spent in prison, with a total of twenty-three hashes on Sal’s skin. He must have noticed Sam looking, because he moved his hands closer, so the marks were more visible. “He didn’t do it, Sam Harper.”