Page 8 of Fade Out
We went backand forth like that for a couple of hours. Eventually, Gardner got bored and took a break. I got to sit in the room all alone for another hour. It was close to dinnertime and someone brought in the bologna sandwich I’d been promised. It was dry and disgusting, but I ate it anyway.
It wasn’t Rita. That I was sure of. It couldn’t be. I also figured out that she was trying to frame me for her death. I mean, it was obvious. And smart. She was on the run. People would stop looking for her if she was dead, right? And, of all the people looking for her, I’d kind of proven I was the one most likely to find her (probably because I was the only one actually devoting time to it). So, framing me for her death was an elegant solution to her problems.
If I was right, it did leave important questions with no answers. Who was the girl in the box? Who killed her? Was it Rita who killed the girl? Or did she have her minion do it? And why was Hamish Gardner going along with this? If I could figure it out so could he, right?
Gardner took another stab at getting me to confess after dinner, but I decided I’d said enough and started keeping my mouth shut. I was sure I’d managed to find out all I could from him. His blood pressure rose with each question. I mean, they were the same questions so I started saying, “I already answered that.”
“Answer it again. ”
“No, thank you.”
I was thwarting a basic police technique. He wanted to see if he could catch me in inconsistencies, that was easy enough to figure out. But “I couldn’t physically have done this” was pretty easy to stick to. It was true, after all.
Eventually, I was left alone for a few more hours. Well, maybe more than that. Finally, a uniform came in, cuffed me—in front this time, much more comfortable—and took me to the bathroom. He watched me pee. That was a delight. Then he led me downstairs and out the back of the station. It was night. Midnight? Maybe later. There was a paddy wagon parked there with its doors open. Inside, five men sat on two metal benches. They were young, old, black, white and brown. They were high on something. Every last one of them.
The uniform pushed me into a spot next to the nearest guy—tall and white with bad skin. Then he shackled my feet to the floor and slammed the doors shut.
Almost immediately, the smell of stale booze and vomit in a small space was overwhelming. That bologna sandwich nearly made a second appearance. In a few minutes we were off. We were on our way to Cook County Jail. I knew that from my days as a CPD officer. I’d loaded people into the back of a paddy wagon myself. Many times. Once or twice I had to clean up after a drunk or a hype.
That left me thinking back to my days on the job. Honestly, it was pretty shitty. Dirty. Thankless. So why had I been so upset when I got forced out? That was almost seven years before and I could barely remember the person I was then. He was very different from me. He was rigid and stubborn and angry, very angry, and I was… well, I was still some of those things. But my lifewasdifferent now. Very different. For one thing, I was the one being shoved into the back of a paddy wagon.
I probably should have asked for my phone call, but who would I have called? I used to have a lawyer friend, but now I wanted nothing to do with him. Didn’t trust him. I could have called a stranger, I suppose. A lawyer I didn’t know personally. But that was awkward. I could just imagine myself saying, “Hi, you don’t know me but I’ve been accused of murder so I thought I’d call.”
The ride down to 26th and California took about a half hour. There wasn’t a lot of traffic in the middle of the night. None of us spoke. I was sure we were all wondering how we got into this mess and how we’d get out—or maybe not. Maybe we were finding it hard to want. No, that wasn’t true. They all wanted something, another drink, another fix. I was the only one who didn’t want. I didn’t want anything.
There were no windows, just a grate that opened onto the front cab so that the driver could hear if there were any problems. I lost all sense of where we were. He stopped at red lights. Took a few turns. Finally we came to a full stop. I heard the front door open and shut when the driver got out. Then we waited.
One guy, a black guy, started to moan like he might throw up. The guy next to him threatened to cut his balls off if he did. Showing incredible restraint, the first guy didn’t puke. Abruptly, the doors opened and a guard stood there in an intimidating black uniform. A CPD officer stood behind him. The guard didn’t tell us his name, he just started talking.
“When I call out your last name, I want you to answer with your first name. Rodriguez.”
“Here.”
“Here? Here Rodriguez? Did your mother have a sense of humor?”
“Sorry, Johnny.”
“Sorry Johnny Rodriguez. That’s still a funny name.”
“Johnny.”
“Thank you. Willis.”
“Edgar.”
The guard continued calling out names. I looked behind him trying to get my bearings. I’d been to Cook County Jail before. To visit. It was a big place tucked behind the main Courthouse where I’d been a lot more often. I knew there had to be some logic behind the different buildings. This one for female prisoners, that one for male. One for the more dangerous criminals. But I had no idea which was which.
The guard called out everyone’s name but mine. Then he told the others to get out of the wagon. The uniform stepped forward and closed the door on me. I was going somewhere else. Probably maximum security. I mean, it made sense. They did think I’d killed a woman and divided her into parts. That made me at least a little bit dangerous.
We drove for a few minutes and then stopped again. The uniform got out of the front and then I waited again. When the doors finally opened, I saw that the paddy wagon had been backed up to a loading dock. There were two guards standing there. One held a clipboard and the other the plastic bag I’d filled with my belongings back at Town Hall Station.
The uniform leaned in and unlocked the shackles at my feet and then undid the cuffs. Then he backed up.
“Come out of there,” the guard with the clipboard said.
I climbed down out of the paddy wagon. As I did, I glanced at the name tags the guards were wearing, Winger and Tagget. Winger was holding the clipboard while Tagget held my pathetic plastic bag.
“Welcome to Cook County Jail,” Winger said with a certain amount of sarcasm. “Whether you’re here for a few days or a year, you’d be well advised to learn the rules, follow the rules, keep your head down and your mouth shut. Big surprise, we don’t want to be here anymore than you do. The easier you make things for us the easier they’ll be for you. Follow me.”
