Darkness, Take My Hand

  The left wall supported a small table and three captain’s chairs bolted to the wall. As the RV lurched into traffic, I fell into one and rested my hand on a small fridge.

  “You take this thing on camping trips?” I said.

  Bolton ignored me. “Agent Erdham, you have that writ?”

  Erdham handed him a piece of paper and Bolton slipped it into his inside pocket.

  He sat beside me. “You’ll be going into the meeting with Warden Lief and the chief prison psychologist, Doctor Dolquist. They’ll brief you on Hardiman, so there’s very little I can bother adding except to say that Hardiman is not to be taken lightly, no matter how pleasant he may seem. He’s suspected in three murders behind bars, but no one in the entire population of a maximum-security pen will come forward with evidence. These are multiple murderers and arsonists and serial rapists, and they’re all afraid of Alec Hardiman. You understand?”

  I nodded.

  “The cell in which the meeting will be held is completely wired. We’ll have both audio and video access from this control booth. We’ll be watching you every step of the way. Hardiman will have both legs manacled and at least one wrist. Even still, tread lightly with him.”

  “Hardiman gave you consent for the audio and video?”

  “The video isn’t up to him. Only the audio infringes upon his rights.”

  “And did he give consent?”

  He shook his large head. “No, he did not.”

  “But you’re doing it anyway.”

  “Yes. I’m not looking to take it into court. I could need to consult it from time to time as the case goes on. You have a problem with that?”

  “Can’t think of one.”

  The RV lurched again as it swung past Haymarket and made the turn onto 93, and I sat back and looked out the windows and wondered how I’d ever gotten myself into this.

  Doctor Dolquist was a small but powerfully built man who’d only meet my eyes for a moment before glancing away at something else.

  Warden Lief was tall, with his black head shaven so smooth it gleamed.

  Dolquist and I were left alone for several minutes in Lief’s office while Lief met with Bolton to hammer out surveillance details. Dolquist looked at a photograph of Lief and two friends holding a marlin by a stucco hut under a blazing Florida sun while I waited for the silence to become less uncomfortable.

  “You married, Mr. Kenzie?” He stared at the photo.

  “Divorced. A long time ago.”

  “Kids?”

  “No. You?”

  He nodded. “Two. It helps.”

  “Helps what?”

  He waved a hand toward the walls. “Dealing with this place. It helps to return home to children, to the clean smell of them.” He looked at me and then away.

  “I’m sure it does,” I said.

  “Your work,” he said, “must bring you into contact with a lot of what’s negative in humanity.”

  “Depends on the case,” I said.

  “How long have you been doing it?”

  “Almost ten years.”

  “You must have started young.”

  “I did.”

  “Do you see it as your life’s work?” That quick glance again, skipping across my face.

  “I’m not sure yet. How about you, Doctor?”

  “I believe so,” he said with extreme slowness. “I do believe so,” he said unhappily.

  “Tell me about Hardiman,” I said.

  “Alec,” he said, “is an unexplainable. He had a very proper upbringing, no history of child abuse or childhood trauma, and no early indicators of a diseased mind. As far as we know he didn’t torture animals or display morbid obsessions or act out in any notable way. He was very bright in school and quite popular. And then one day…”

  “What?”

  “We don’t know. Around the time he was sixteen or so, trouble started. Neighborhood girls who claimed he’d exposed himself to them. Cats strangled and hung from telephone wires near his house. Violent outbursts in the classroom. And then, nothing again. At seventeen, he reverted to an appearance of normalcy. And if it weren’t for the falling out with Rugglestone, who knows how long they would have gone on killing.”

  “There had to be something.”

  He shook his head. “I’ve worked with him for almost two decades, Mr. Kenzie, and I haven’t found it. Even now, to all outward appearances, Alec Hardiman seems a polite, reasonable, perfectly harmless man.”

  “But he isn’t.”

  He laughed, a sudden harsh sound in the small room. “He’s the most dangerous man I’ve ever met.” He lifted a pencil holder off Lief’s desk, looked at it absently and set it back down. “Alec has been HIV positive for three years.” He looked at me and for a moment, his eyes held. “Recently his condition has worsened into full-blown AIDS. He’s dying, Mr. Kenzie.”

  “You think that’s why he called me here? Deathbed confessions, last-minute change in morals?”

  He shook his head. “Not at all. Alec has no morals. Since he’s been diagnosed, he’s been kept out of general population. But I think Alec knew he’d contracted long before we did. In the two months leading up to his diagnosis, he raped at least ten men. At least ten. It’s my firm belief that he did this not to satisfy his sexual urges, but to satisfy his homicidal ones.”

  Warden Lief stuck his head back in. “Show time.”

  He handed me a pair of tight canvas gloves, and he and Dolquist donned pairs of their own.

  “Keep your hands away from his mouth,” Dolquist said softly, his eyes on the floor.

  And we left the office, none of us speaking as we took a long walk down an oddly hushed cellblock toward Alec Hardiman.

  22

  Alec Hardiman was forty-one years old, but looked fifteen years younger. His pale blond hair was plastered wetly across his forehead like a grade-schooler’s. His eyeglasses were small and rectangular—granny glasses—and when he spoke his voice seemed as light as air.

  “Hi, Patrick,” he said as I came into the room. “Glad you could make the trip.”

  He sat at a small metal table bolted to the floor. His frail hands were cuffed and looped through two holes in the table and his feet were manacled. When he looked up at me, the fluorescent seared the lenses of his glasses white.

  I took a seat across from him. “I heard you could help me, Inmate Hardiman.”

  “You did?” He slouched loosely in his chair and gave off the impression of a man completely at ease with his surroundings. The lesions that covered his face and neck seemed raw and alive, their surfaces carrying a sheen. His pupils seemed to emanate brightly from recessive caverns in their hollow sockets.

  “Yes. I heard you wanted to talk.”

  “Absolutely,” he said as Dolquist took the seat beside my own and Lief took up position against the wall, eyes impassive, hand on his nightstick. “I’ve wanted to talk to you for a long time, Patrick.”

  “To me? Why?”

  “You interest me.” He shrugged.

  “You’ve been in prison for most of my life, Inmate Hardiman—”

  “Please call me Alec.”

  “Alec. I don’t understand your interest.”

  He tilted his head so that the glasses, which had been sliding down his nose, righted themselves.

  “Water?”

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  He tilted his head to indicate a plastic pitcher and four plastic glasses on the table to his left.

  “Would you like some water?” he said.

  “No, thank you.”

  “Candy?” He smiled softly.

  “What?”

  “Do you enjoy your work?”

  I glanced at Dolquist. Career seemed to be an obsession behind these walls.

  “It pays the bills,” I said.

  “But it’s more than that,” Hardiman said. “Isn’t it?”

  I shrugged.

  “Do you see yourself doing it at fifty-five?” he asked.

&nb
sp; “I’m not sure I see myself doing it at thirty-five, Inmate Hardiman.”

  “Alec.”

  “Alec,” I said.

  He nodded the way a priest will in a confessional. “What other options do you have?”

  I sighed. “Alec, we didn’t come here to discuss my future.”

  “That doesn’t mean we can’t, Patrick. Does it?” He raised both eyebrows and his skeletal face softened with innocence. “I’m interested in you. Humor me, please.”

  I looked at Lief and he shrugged his wide shoulders.

  “Maybe I’ll teach,” I said.

  “Really?” He leaned forward.

  “Why not?”

  “What about working for a large agency?” he said. “I’ve heard they pay well.”

  “Some do.”

  “Offer a benefits package, health insurance, the like.”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you considered it, Patrick?”

  I hated the way he said my name, but I wasn’t sure why.

  “I’ve considered it.”

  “But you prefer your independence.”

  “Something like that.” I poured myself a glass of water and Hardiman’s bright eyes fixed on my lips as I drank. “Alec,” I said, “what can you tell us about—”

  “You’re familiar with the parable of the three talents.”

  I nodded.

  “Those who horde or are afraid to answer to their gifts, ‘are neither hot nor cold’ and shall be spewed from the mouth of God.”

  “I’m familiar with the tale, Alec.”

  “Well?” He sat back and raised his palms against the cuffs. “A man who turns his back on his vocation is neither hot nor cold.”

  “What if the man isn’t sure he’s found his vocation?”

  He shrugged.

  “Alec, if we could just discuss—”

  “I think you’ve been blessed with the gift of fury, Patrick. I do. I’ve seen it in you.”

  “When?”

  “Have you ever been in love?” He leaned forward.

  “What’s that got to—”

  “Have you?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Are you now?” He peered into my face.

  “Why do you care, Alec?”

  He leaned back, looked up at the ceiling. “I’ve never been in love. I’ve never been in love and I’ve never held a woman’s hand and walked on a beach with her and talked about, oh, domestic things—who will cook, who will clean that night, if we should call a repairman for the washing machine. I’ve never experienced such things and sometimes when I’m alone, late at night, it makes me weep.” He chewed his lower lip for a moment. “But we all dream of other lives, I suppose. We all want to live a thousand different existences during our time here. But we can’t, can we?”

  “No,” I said. “We can’t.”

  “I asked about your career goals, Patrick, because I believe you’re a man of impact. Do you understand?”

  “No.”

  He smiled sadly. “Most men and women pass their time on this earth without distinction. Lives of quiet desperation and all that. They are born, they exist for a time with all their particular passions and loves and dreams and pains, and then they die. And barely anyone notices. Patrick, there are billions of these people—tens of billions—throughout history who have lived without impact, who may as well not have been born at all.”

  “The people you’re talking about might disagree.”

  “I’m sure they would.” He smiled broadly and leaned in as if he were about to tell me a secret. “But who would listen?”

  “Alec, all I need to know here is why—”

  “You are potentially a man of impact, Patrick. You could be remembered long after you die. Think what an achievement that would be, particularly in this disposable culture of ours. Think of it.”

  “What if I have no desire to be a ‘man of impact’?”

  His eyes disappeared in the wash of fluorescence. “Maybe the choice isn’t yours. Maybe you’ll be turned into one whether you like it or not.” He shrugged.

  “By who?” I said.

  He smiled. “Whom.”

  “By whom, then?” I said.

  “The Father,” he said, “the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Are you a man of impact, Alec?” Dolquist said.

  We both turned our heads, looked at him.

  “Are you?” Dolquist said.

  Alec Hardiman’s head turned back slowly to face me, and his glasses slipped halfway down his nose. The eyes behind the lenses were the milky green of Carribbean shallows. “Forgive Doctor Dolquist’s interruption, Patrick. He’s a little on edge lately about his wife.”

  “My wife,” Dolquist said.

  “Doctor Dolquist’s wife, Judith,” Hardiman said, “left him once for another man. Did you know that, Patrick?”

  Dolquist picked at some lint on his knee, concentrated on his shoes.

  “And then she came back, and he took her back. I’m sure there were tears, pleas for forgiveness, some minor snide remarks on the doctor’s part. One can only assume. But that was three years ago, wasn’t it, Doctor?”

  Dolquist looked at Hardiman and his eyes were clear but his breathing was slightly shallow and his right hand still picked absently at his pant leg.

  “I have it on good authority,” Hardiman said, “that on the second and fourth Wednesday of every month, Doctor Dolquist’s Queen Judith allows penetration of her every orifice by two former inmates of this institution at the Red Roof Inn on Route One in Saugus. I wonder how Doctor Dolquist feels about that.”

  “Enough, Inmate,” Lief said.

  Dolquist looked at a point somewhere over Hardiman’s head and his voice was smooth, but the back of his neck bore a swath of hard bright red. “Alec, your delusions are for another time. Today—”

  “They’re not delusions.”

  “—Mr. Kenzie is here at your behest and—”

  “Second and fourth Wednesdays,” Hardiman said, “between two and four at the Red Roof Inn. Room two seventeen.”

  Dolquist’s voice faltered for just a moment, a pause or an intake of breath which wasn’t quite natural and I heard it and so did Hardiman, and Hardiman smiled slightly at me.

  Dolquist said, “The point of this meeting—”

  Hardiman waved his thin fingers dismissively and turned his full attention to me. I could see myself mirrored in the icy fluorescent light that ran along the upper half of both lenses, his green pupils floating just below my melting features. He leaned forward again and I resisted the urge to lean back because I could suddenly feel the heat of him, smell the torpid, fleshy stench of a decayed conscience.

  “Alec,” I said, “what can you tell me about the deaths of Kara Rider, Peter Stimovich, Jason Warren, and Pamela Stokes?”

  He sighed. “When I was a boy, I was attacked by a nest of yellow jackets. I was walking along a lake, and I have no idea where they came from, but then, like a mirage, they surrounded me and swarmed my body in this great big cloud of black and yellow. Through the cloud I could just make out my parents and some neighbors rushing down the sand toward me, and I wanted to tell them it was all right. It was fine. But then the bees stung. A thousand needles pierced my flesh and drank from my blood, and the pain was so excruciating it was orgasmic.” He looked at me as a drop of sweat fell from his nose and landed on his chin. “I was eleven years old and I had my first orgasm, right there in my swimsuit, as a thousand yellow jackets drank my blood.”

  Lief frowned and leaned back against the wall.

  “The last time it was wasps,” Dolquist said.

  “It was yellow jackets.”

  “You said wasps, Alec.”

  “I said yellow jackets,” Alec said mildly and looked back at me. “Have you ever been stung?”

  I shrugged. “Probably once or twice when I was a little kid. I can’t remember.”

  There was a silence the
n which lasted several minutes. Alec Hardiman sat across from me and looked at me as if he were considering how I’d look laid out in sections on a piece of bone-white china, forks and knives and a full service tray at his disposal.

  I looked back, aware that he’d refuse to answer any questions I had at the moment.

  When he spoke, I didn’t see his lips move until afterward, in memory.

  “Could you adjust my glasses, Patrick?”

  I looked at Lief and he shrugged. I leaned forward and pushed them back up to Alec’s eyes and he tilted his nostrils toward the space of bare skin between my gloved palm and shirt cuff, sniffed audibly.

  I removed my hand.

  “Did you have sex this morning, Patrick?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I can smell her sex on your hand,” he said.

  Lief came off the wall just enough so that I could see the warning in his face.

  “I want you to understand something,” Hardiman said. “I want you to understand that there are choices. You can make the right one or the wrong one, but the choice will be presented. Not everyone you love can live.”

  I tried to get some saliva working through the sand stiffening in my throat and against my tongue. “Diandra Warren’s son is dead because she put you away. That one I get. What about the other victims?”

  He hummed, softly at first, and I couldn’t recognize the tune until he lowered his head and the volume rose slightly. “Send in the Clowns.”

  “The other victims,” I repeated. “Why did they have to die, Alec?”

  “Isn’t it bliss?” he sang.

  “You brought me here for a reason,” I said.

  “Don’t you approve…”

  “Why did they die, Alec?” I said.

  “One who keeps tearing around…” His voice was thin and high. “One who can’t move…”

  “Inmate Hardiman—”

  “So send in the clowns…”

  I looked at Dolquist, then at Lief.

  Hardiman wagged a finger at me. “Don’t bother,” he sang, “they’re here.”

  And he laughed. He laughed hard, his vocal cords booming, his mouth wide and spittle forming at the corners, and his eyes even wider as they remained on me. The air in the cell seemed to go into that mouth with him, as if he were sucking it down into his lungs until it filled his whole body and we’d be left airless and gasping.