Page 2 of Girl, Unmasked
Washington looked at the badge first.Then the paper.Her face changed when she got to the signature at the bottom.‘This real?’
‘Very.’
Nobody sees him.Not since the sentencing.'
‘I know.’
Washington picked up her desk phone, punched three numbers and waited.'Need Huskins in reception.'She listened to something on the other end.'No, right now.We got FBI here with federal clearance for Creed.'She hung up.Looked at Ella through the glass.'Deputy Warden's coming down.You can wait over there.'
Ella nodded her thanks and took a seat.
It was time to find out the truth, and if she couldn’t do that, then she might just make good on Director Edis’s request.
Three days ago, Edis had called into his office for one last meeting before his retirement.He'd handed her the affidavit – his parting gift, he'd called it.He’d told her that when the host died, the parasite died too, and the implication had been crystal.If Creed was orchestrating the murders of Ella's friends from his cell, then putting a bullet in him might be the only way to stop it.
Which was why she had a Glock 17 in her jacket pocket.
***
Ella had heard people on the outside talk about prisons being too soft.Three meals and a bed, they'd say.Cable TV and exercise yards.It was like a summer camp with bars.
But walking behind Warden Huskins as he led Ella through the corridors, she pitied people who thought places like this were anything but hell.Noise from every angle.Screaming for no reason, prisoners flushing toilets in unison to block the pipes, people singing loudly while others shout for them to shut the hell up.Twenty-three hours a day in a concrete box, with one hour to remember what sky looked like.Men went mad in here.They cut their own throats with filed-down toothbrushes just to get five minutes in the medical ward.
‘Creed’s in isolation, because if I leave him out here in gen pop, he’d go the same way as Jeffery Dahmer.’
‘I’m sure he would.’
‘I’d have no problem if Creed miraculously shuffled off his coil, but the problem is that most times the other prisoners don’t go all the way.That means hospital visits and medication and tax payer money wasted on keeping a serial killer alive.’
‘Does Creed get much mail correspondence?’
Huskins let out a hearty laugh.‘You’d think he was Father Christmas with how much mail he gets.It baffles me.’
‘Do you read every letter?’
‘Every single one.Half of them are from journalists, reporters, that kind of thing.’
‘And the other half?’
They reached what Ella assumed was the meeting room.The door was an eight-foot steel monster with a handle that Huskins had to grip with both hands.He peered over his shoulder and said, ‘Groupies.’
‘All of them?’
In a feat that took all of his effort, Huskins planted his feet and yanked.The door moved an inch or two, but once it gained momentum it swung wide to reveal a windowless concrete box beyond.There was already a female armed guard inside, and she was standing to the side of a metal table.If someone had have asked Ella to picture a female prison guard, she’d never have imagined one that looked like this.She was a well-proportioned blonde woman, probably early thirties, but without the dry skin and grey roots that their mutual insisted upon them.
‘Sorry.Precautions.This is one of our safe rooms.’
‘Understood.’
Huskins ushered her inside, then said, ‘Yeah, mostly groupies.I say this as a married man with three daughters: women are insane.’
The air in the meeting room was just above freezing.Ella had never known the south to be anything but roasting, but January in Louisiana was proving her wrong.‘You think?’
‘Oh yeah.Mental cases.You never get any men writing to Creed, but women treat him like he’s kind of heartthrob.’
‘Only the women who write to him.Ask any woman on the street and they’ll say he should be put to death tomorrow.’Ella seated herself at the table with the guard to her left.She looked over at her.‘You know, I don’t need security for this.It’s fine.’
‘Protocol, miss,’ the guard said.
