Page 5 of Go Now
'For the next four decades, your grandmother referred to your father as 'that Irish hooligan.I don't believe you, by the way, Kate.'
That was Catherine’s style: float like a butterfly, sting like a guided missile. Tack the killer point on the back of a joke or a story and fire it so fast, your target barely realises they’re hit.
'OK, I did, genuinely not want to leave the dogs at that place.But, also, I don't seem to get the nightmares here.'
Her mother looked at her with concern.‘Why do you think that is?’
‘This house keeps me awake.I don’t mean in a scary way. I like it.It’s big and old, Ma. It settles down at the end of the day.Creaks and sighs.And I like that, it’s like a person.My apartment’s completely silent.And in the silence… it’s like everything bad comes back.Badder.And bigger.’
‘Stay then.Move back here.I won’t get in your way.I’ll go out if you… you know, want to have a boy over.’
‘Mom, seriously?A boy over?’Kate cringed.She took a deep breath. Her mom wasn’t trying to embarrass her.She was actually being very kind. ‘Mom, I can’t,’ she said, gently.‘I have to get over what Denton did to me.Denton and then his disciple, Cox.And there has to be a better solution to the nightmares than… insomnia.’
‘I think the only solution is time, but I understand why that might not sound very comforting. Take it from me, though, Kate, you grow stronger and more confident every day.I can see it.’
‘Thank you for saying that. I think I… I can feel that sometimes, then something happens.A reminder from a new case or I just get a sense of how far I’ve still got to travel.And then I just think – how can I?How can I keep on putting one foot in front of another?’
‘You’re forgetting, though, that you were doing a very good job of it, until Denton’s execution date came up. You can do it, because you know you have.’
‘Isn’t that an alternative way of saying: I can fake it for short periods of time, before something happens to make it abundantly clear that I can’t?’
Her phone rang.The screen said A.D.Winters.Boss.She answered the call.
‘Cox has just been moved to the State Prison in Sherborne.’
‘I was just discussing him with my mother.’
‘Not a nice topic, find another one.’ That wasn’t a joke on Assistant Director Victoria Winters’s part.She just didn’t do small talk.She continued without further preamble, sounding as if she was running from one high level meeting to another, with her shoes in her hand, which she probably was.‘Tomorrow a.m.he’s got pre-trial assessments with the psych team. Might be helpful in terms of preparing for your turn in the witness box.Equally sharing any psych-based insights with the prosecution team.’
‘You want me to attend the assessment?’Kate clarified.Winters tended to assume everyone was on the same page as her, although frequently, that was impossible.She was at least ten pages ahead.
‘Attend and observe,’ Winters replied.‘Then brief me Tuesday afternoon.It’s good to have you back, Kate.’
Click.
‘Seems I’m not the only person who believes you can do it,’ said Catherine, quietly.
CHAPTER TWO
They put prisons in the nicest places.This was a widely known and accepted fact amongst everyone who worked in law enforcement, to the point where one individual – rumored to hold high office in the Department of Justice – even operated an anonymous blogsite devoted to the hidden beauties of the U.S.penal system. You could search it by prisoner names, crimes committed, or even the type of view you wanted to see. Whoever owned and updated it clearly spent a lot of time on it; possibly more time than they devoted to upholding U.S.Law.
Kate reflected on this as she drove north along Route 1, the morning sunshine casting soft shadows over the winding highway. Maybe, she thought, there was an element of cruelty to it: as the prisoners were carted off in chains to some fortified unit of concrete blocks and slamming doors, they were offered one last glance of the world they’d forsaken.Isn’t it beautiful? Too bad you can’t stay.
The scent of pine drifted through the open window of her black sedan, and Maine’s vast wilderness rolled out before her, hills blanketed in spruce and fir, still lakes reflecting the sky, with the distant form of the Appalachians shimmering at the horizon. It was a rugged, untouched beauty: at once comforting and isolating.
And that was the real point, she thought, as her car slowly climbed a ridge, and a flock of birds shot over the scene in a perfect V.Prisons were tucked away in the Great American Wilderness because people didn't want them in their towns and cities.Near their schools, retirement communities, and playgrounds.And who could blame them?Men like Elijah Cox had forfeited their right to live amongst others.
As the road banked inwards, she caught a sudden, reviving glimpse of the Atlantic, shimmering between groves of cedar.How could the world contain such beauty, she thought, alongside the horrors committed by men like Elijah Cox and Robert Denton?
She tightened her grip on the steering wheel.Tried to focus on the road, the sky, the stunning scenery.It gave her little comfort, not when she thought about what lay ahead.But she was ready for it.
Soon, she turned away from the coast and started driving through a thickly wooded area.Lumber trucks thundered past her, and apart from the occasional mill or yard, the signs of habitation grew rarer, further apart.Then the view gave way to fences, wire-topped, twenty-feet high. And pretty soon after that, there was a barrier and a man in a booth with a gun.Then she was swallowed up by the hulking prison and its system: much like airports and hospitals, these places have a secret way of stripping you bare.You become bewildered, helpless, you go where the people point you to go, and they are, deliberately, not too clear about that.So they bark at you, and they pat you, and they push you, they fix labels on you as if you were a parcel.They take your prints, take your photo, make you stand there, stand here, sit right where you are, pass through this scanner.You cease being you and become a unit; a unit within a unit.
Kate was used to it all.She went someplace else in her mind, away from the buzzers and the attack alarms, beyond the smells – detergent, distant cooking - and the ever-clanging doors. After greeting her in a small, tidy sub-office, a ruddy, sturdy, friendly-seeming guy like a farmer showed her where she could sit with a view of the two-way mirror.
'He can't see you,' he said, more than once.She was grateful, not so much for the assurance, just for him treating her like a human, and not as luggage.She took out her notebooks, switched her phone to record.The guard flicked a switch, and the mirror became a window. A pair of psychiatrists were seated either side of a table: on the left, a man who looked as if he was playing the part of a psychiatrist in an H.B.O.drama.Bushy dark beard, thick spectacles, tweed coat, nicotine-stained fingers.As if to balance out the cliché, his opposite number looked like the bass player in an all-girl grunge band.Black jeans, black undershirt, heavy on the mascara.And was that a pentagram round her neck?Cox was going tolovethat.
‘Father, mother, first sexual encounter,’ said the man.
