Page 75 of The Chain House

“Because I think back then, at trial, she truly had something to say … but was afraid to.”

“And now?”

“Now, given what’s going on with our state’s First Lady, I’m hoping she can help us out.”

“Us, meaning?”

“The authorities,” Jennifer said. “The FBI.”

“Of which you are neither,” stated the warden.

“Correct,” Jennifer said. “But—”

“I know who you are, Ms. Daley, which is why I even took the time to reach out to inmate Tanner in the first place. I thought perhaps she’d have a soft spot for you. None of Sal’s “Angels,” although they’ve been model prisoners, no doubt knowing they’re all inches away from death row instead of lifers, have ever agreed to any interview over the past twenty years.”

“That isn’t what this is about,” Jennifer said, thinking about the documentary. “I promise.”

“I understand,” said Warden Bates. “Which is why I’ll allow you a few minutes. But all three women, their only visitors have been family and a few friends, and even those have dwindled over the past two decades. Inmate Tanner hasn’t had a visitor for nine months, and of those on her short list of visitors, most haven’t visited within the past five years. Look, I understand the urgency, and perhaps Nancy Tanner does, too, and maybe she still has some of her soul left … she only pondered it for a few seconds before telling me she’d see you.”

And here Jennifer was, sitting on the opposite side of a glass partition, about to have a no-contact visit with a woman tried and found guilty of multiple murders inside the Hawthorne mansion that fateful night, her body shaking in anticipation and from the strenuous security checks to get here.

A minute later, a door in the room opposite opened, and escorted inside by a tall male prison guard was Nancy Tanner, wearing a khaki short-sleeved uniform, handcuffs, and a chain around her ankles that made her gait short and clunky as she approached Jennifer’s window. Her long blond hair of yesteryear had been cut short and was all gray now. She took her seat on the opposite side of the glass, rested her cuffed hands on the small ledge in front of the opening, and leaned into Jennifer’s view.

Jennifer, on instinct, learned back in her chair, which drew a short chortle from Nancy Tanner on the other side of the partition.

“Ugly up close, isn’t it?” said Nancy, her voice deeper than what Jennifer remembered from past videos.

But she was right, it was ugly up close, the skin-puckered mass of wounds and scar tissue on the left side of her otherwise perfect nose. Jennifer had forgotten about the left eye, or the lack of one. And the reason it had been plucked out twenty years ago in the first place, in the days after the trial where she’d mistakenly invoked the name of Justice Minks on the stand.

Losing the eye had been her punishment for talking then.

Jennifer couldn’t help but think what Nancy’s punishment might be now.

CHAPTER37

SAM DIDN’T KNOW what kind of room he was in, a lobby, an office, or whatever, other than it didn’t have any windows but had a weird number of chairs and a stupid number of doors.

Four of them, in fact, one door for each wall, and other than the one he was facing now from his cushioned chair against the far wall, he didn’t know to what or where any of the other doors led. But this was the room they’d taken him to after his outburst of aggression toward Sal Batise, what seemed like hours ago, but had been only a matter of minutes. He’d texted Jennifer, but when she didn’t respond he texted Carl, and when Carl said that Jennifer was currently in a visit with Nancy Tanner—the Nancy Tanner—Sam didn’t know what to think. Or what to do. They were out there with wings and he, for the first time all day, felt trapped. But his urgency to leave the prison paralleled his intense need to stay. After pushing Batise like he had, he doubted they’d even let him in the same room again.

For the fifth time since being escorted into this room, Sam got out his phone and stared at his dad’s contact. At least, who he thought had been his dad, but now didn’t know what to think or who to believe. During his flurry of texts with Carl, he became convinced, just as Jennifer and Carl evidently were, that Sam himself had been that fifth kid on the Freedom Ranch, the fifth stick figure represented on and then erased from that closet wall. And that Trevor Harper—the so-called Raven—had been on the ranch as well.

Although Sam remembered none of it. Or maybe he did, and perhaps, in the past had, but he’d confused it all with nightmares and dreams.

He finally hit the call button and paced the room as it rang on the other end. It went to voice mail; his next decision was whether to leave a message or not. He wanted to yell at Trevor but at the same time needed to know if he was okay. When Trevor Harper’s voice came on asking the caller to leave a message at the beep, Sam nearly hung up, and then nearly said, Dad, call me, before swallowing the first word whole and going with, Call me, it’s Sam, we need to talk.

And then he ended it, felt better for having done it.

The door to his left opened. He turned to find Agent Givens approaching. Sam said, “Did something happen?”

“No,” Givens said. “But we did learn a little bit. I think we found someone who could be our Oliver Crown.”

“What’s his name?”

“That’s where it gets a bit tricky,” Givens said. “As you know, Batise was in and out of prison throughout his teens and twenties. During his longest bit, he was at Eddyville, two years, out on good behavior, and then he started The Collective soon thereafter. Anyway, we’ve always had a feeling if Minks did exist, that he’d possibly spent time in prison with Batise.”

“They never found that connection before,” Sam said.

“Yeah, but I think we might have now,” Givens said. “And the guy is like a wisp of smoke, Jesus. We did find, at the same time Batise was there, a man named Jeffrey Justice. He got out five years ago after a twenty-year bit for armed robbery and vehicular manslaughter. This was flagged twenty years ago when the FBI investigated it, and Jeffrey Justice was questioned then, but didn’t have much to say, and honestly it was flimsy to begin with. All the man had was a last name that matched our mystery man’s first. They scoured the prison inmates for someone named Minks, thinking maybe our guy borrowed both names, but never found one, and soon the theory that Justice Minks might have been in prison with Sal Batise went by the wayside.”