“Muehlenhaus isn’t going to like this,” I said.
A TV reporter asked a question. “Is it true that you relied heavily on the services of an informant during your investigation and the subsequent arrests?”
Lieutenant Weiner leaned in and whispered in Tuseman’s ear. Tuseman nodded and said, “I cannot comment on that at this time. The investigation is ongoing, and we expect to make more arrests during the coming days.”
It sounded like “Yes” to me.
I couldn’t believe the change in Merodie. After just a few days of sobriety, a balanced diet, and plenty of sleep, Merodie Davies looked ten years younger. ‘Course, that meant she still looked a decade older than her chronological age, but what would you expect? She had been in jail only a week.
She greeted us when we entered Interview Room 109. “Good afternoon, Ms. Bonalay, Mr. McKenzie.” Her smile was bright and warm.
“Good afternoon to you, Merodie,” G. K. replied. “How are you holding up?”
“Oh, I’m getting along just fine. People have been very nice to me.”
G. K. pulled a red plastic chair out from under the wooden table and sat across from Merodie. She set her briefcase in front of her. I found a spot on the wall and leaned against it.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” G. K. warned. “I intend to get you out of here as soon as possible.”
Merodie smiled again. “I’d appreciate that,” she said. “So, what’s new?”
“You tell us,” G. K. said. “What’s all this about you being isolated from your fellow inmates?”
“Not all of them,” Merodie said. “Just one.”
“Which one?” I asked.
“Linda.” She said the word as if it were a sexually transmitted disease. “What happened was, I’m having breakfast. They serve breakfast here at 7:00 A.M. whether you’re hungry or not, and who eats at 7:00 A.M.? Usually, I eat breakfast at, I don’t know, noon. But the screws, they don’t care. Eat or don’t eat, it doesn’t matter to them. Only no raiding the refrigerator later. So I’m like sitting there, trying to choke down this, this—I don’t know what it was—oatmeal, I guess, and this woman sits next to me that I’ve never seen before, and the first words out of her mouth are, ‘Those bastards don’t care about us,’ which is what I’m saying, okay? So I start talking to her. Linda was her name. Turns out she was my new roommate, which kinda surprised me cuz it’s not like the jail is overcrowded. There are twenty-two cells in the housing unit—that’s what they call it, a housing unit—but four of the eighteen cells that have one bed, they’re empty, and so are three of the four cells that have two beds. So why do I have a roommate, cellmate, whatever? Only Linda, she seemed all right. She was polite and considerate, a good listener, so I’m like, ‘Okay.’ ”
“What did you tell her?” There was genuine alarm in G. K.’s voice.
“Nothing,” said Merodie. “I said—Linda wanted to know about Eli, and I told her what a swell guy he was and that I loved him to death.” G. K. and I both cringed at the word. “She wanted to know if we ever fought. She said she and her old man fought all the time. I’m like, ‘That wasn’t the story with me and Eli.’ I said we would yell at each other sometimes, but we never hit and we never stayed mad for long. You just couldn’t stay mad at Eli, no way. Only Linda, she wouldn’t leave it alone. She kept saying, ‘You never clobbered him?’ She said she heard that I clobbered him. She said she heard that I clobbered him over the head with a bat. I’m like, ‘That isn’t true,’ but she kept pushing me and pushing me and so finally I pushed her.”
“Pushed her?” I said.
“We were in the common area. That’s this place where we can sit at these tables and chairs that are anchored to the floor so you can’t move them. And Linda just wouldn’t stop talking about Eli, about how he must have been a jerk or something for me to hit him with a bat even though I kept saying I didn’t hit him with a bat, so I pushed her over a chair—and a table—maybe I slapped her a couple times, too. And the guards, the detention deputies, they’re leaning on this railing on the second floor above us. They see us, and all of a sudden they’re hitting alarm buttons and spraying Mace at me. Next thing I know, they’re dragging me off to segregation or isolation or whatever they call it.”
“Merodie,” said G. K.
“Yeah?”
“When they let you back into population . . .”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t talk to Linda again. Don’t even say hello to her.”
“Why not?”
“She’s either an undercover cop,” I said, “or more likely a police informant who’s trying to generate evidence to use against you.”
Merodie looked like a child who had just discovered how hot dogs are made. “Can they do that?” she asked.
We assured her that they could and often did.
“That sucks,” she said.
We agreed.