Page 30 of The Chain House

“Who didn’t do what?” Sam asked.

“My daddy,” Sal said. “He didn’t kill that man like they said he did.”

“He didn’t rob that store?” Sam asked. He knew the history. “He didn’t put the gun to the back of the clerk’s head and pull the trigger?”

“No. They got the wrong man. And my daddy spent most of his life behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit.”

“That’s not why we’re here, Sal,” said Warden Wren.

Sal scooted back in his seat and interlocked his fingers on his lap. “He was the one staring, Warden Wren. Just wanted to let the boy know two things.”

“What two things then, Sal, and then we’re getting down to business.”

“That my daddy was innocent,” he said. “And that maybe if he hadn’t been so unfairly incarcerated for most of my childhood, mayhap I would have turned out a little different.”

Warden Wren wasn’t having it. “You get that out of your system, Sal?”

Under his breath, Sal started singing Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time.” After he must have realized the warden wasn’t amused, his words faded to silence.

Warden Wren leaned forward, elbows on his desk. “I don’t know what game you’ve started, Sal, but I’m getting to the bottom of it. We’re going to start with this: Why are you insisting Sam join us?”

“Because it’s Sam and Sal, Warden. Sal and Sam. Sam and Sal. You dig?”

“Stop wasting my time,” said Warden Wren.

“And stop wasting mine,” Sal said in retort. “I got another book to write.”

“So we’re starting there?”

“No … in fact,” Sal said, “we’re ending there. Last book of the series and all.”

“Prove you are Mallard Malone, Sal. Quit fucking around and tell me what I need to know. If this is true, I need names. I need to know how and when you wrote those books and how you got them out of my prison without me knowing.”

“Without anyone knowing, Warden Adrian Wren. Not just you.”

Sam’s eyes flicked back and forth, mesmerized by the exchange. Couldn’t believe he was here for it. His mood changed from nervous anxiety to a buzzing opportunistic delight. He only wished Jennifer was by his side to witness it.

Sal continued: “The when is easy. I got all day in my cell. I don’t think I need to remind you, Warden Adrian Wren, that—”

“Could you stop that please, with the full names?”

“Sam Harper here doesn’t mind. Ain’t that right, Sam Harper? You don’t mind if I call you Sam Harper, do you, as that is your name?” After a beat, he said, “Or is it?”

“It’s my name,” Sam said with a quick glance toward the warden, hoping he didn’t come off as taking Sal’s side. “And I don’t mind.”

Because Sam and Sal. Sal and Sam …

“Good,” Sal said, before finishing for the warden. “I spend twenty-three of my twenty-four hours a day in lockdown inside my cell. By myself. In isolation.”

“And how?” asked the warden.

Sal made typing motion with his fingers. “Like this.”

“I’m not opposed to moving your execution up a few hours.”

“If there is an execution.”

Warden Wren clenched his jaw. “You’re dying on schedule, Sal.”