Falling For The Enemy. Dawn Stewardson

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СКАЧАТЬ media shots she’d seen of him he’d been a dapper and confident-looking man. Not surprisingly, he was far less imposing in drab, prison-issue cotton. His bearing, however, said he was a man used to issuing orders and having them followed.

      The C.O. caught Hayley’s glance and said, “I’ll be right outside if you need me.”

      After nodding to him, she looked at Fitzgerald again. “I’m Dr. Morgan, Mr. Fitzgerald.”

      “Billy,” he said, giving her a smile. “Call me Billy.”

      She returned his smile and gestured for him to sit, thinking that even though he’d lived in the Garden District before he landed in Poquette it wasn’t where his roots lay.

      He spoke with a slight accent that was almost Brooklynese, almost movie gangster—typical of the Irish Channel part of New Orleans, where, generations earlier, a rough, tough collection of Irish immigrants had settled.

      As he sat down across the desk from her, she opened his folder. The top document was a photocopy of his request for a transfer.

      “Wishes to enter a rehabilitation program” was all that was typed as the Reason for Request.

      She flipped through the routine incarceration documents until she located the original of the intake evaluation she’d studied yesterday.

      “I have your initial psychological assessment records here,” she told him. “You’ve been at Poquette so briefly I don’t think we need to spend time going over the same things again. Why don’t we just talk about why you want a transfer.”

      “Sloan Reeves spoke to you about that, didn’t he?” Fitzgerald’s tone was carefully nonconfrontational. He sounded like a man simply seeking information, nothing more.

      “Yes, he came by my office yesterday. There was one question I didn’t think to ask him though. Is there any particular prison you’d prefer to be transferred to?”

      “Not really. Any one with a rehab program would be fine.”

      “I see.” It had occurred to her that there might be some way he could arrange for special treatment at a specific prison, but his answer shot down that theory.

      “Why don’t you tell me, in your own words,” she suggested, “the reasons you’d like to be in one of the programs.”

      He nodded, the picture of cooperation, then proceeded to recite from the same script Reeves had used. He had a problem with the isolation; he wanted more human interaction; he needed something to occupy his mind.

      Fitzgerald’s explanation was pat and polished. Hayley didn’t buy it from him any more than she’d bought it from Reeves.

      She’d spent years in classrooms studying human nature, followed by more years in the real world doing the same. And she was absolutely certain Fitzgerald had no more desire to get into a rehab program than she did.

      He obviously figured he had something to gain from a transfer, but the longer they talked, the more apparent it became that he wasn’t going to tell her what it was. Finally, she concluded the interview and opened the door to tell the correctional officer. they were finished.

      “Thank you,” Fitzgerald said when he rose to leave.

      He gave her another of his charming smiles and extended his hand with an uncertainty she doubted was real.

      “I’m not up on prison etiquette yet, Dr. Morgan, but on the outside...”

      She reached over and shook hands with him, guessing that his was damp because he was far more anxious than he’d let on.

      After the C.O. escorted him out and their footsteps had faded into silence, she sat staring at the blank evaluation form in front of her for a few minutes. Then she picked up her pen and began to write.

      Once she was done, she tucked the form into her briefcase. Then, after gathering up the file on Fitzgerald, she returned it to Records and headed for Armstrong’s office.

      The instant she arrived, his assistant buzzed the warden and ushered her in.

      “Dr. Morgan.” Armstrong half rose behind his desk and gestured for her to sit. He was a large, beefy man with a ruddy complexion that made her assume he liked his bourbon.

      “I understand you arranged to see Fitzgerald first thing.”

      “Yes. I’ve just come from the interview.”

      “And what are you recommending?”

      She handed him the form. He skimmed what she’d written, then jotted down something on a different form, scrawled his signature and looked at her once more.

      “That’s it,” he said. “Mr. Fitzgerald stays where he is.”

      “May I ask a question?” Hayley said before he had a chance to dismiss her.

      “Sure.”

      “Why did you want to get this done so quickly?”

      He shrugged. “Fitzgerald’s like a lot of executive-suite prisoners. They’re used to wielding power on the outside, and they come in here expecting to do the same. I like to give them a dose of reality as fast as I can.”

      “Ah.”

      “Anything else?”

      When she shook her head, he picked up the two forms and escorted her out of the office.

      His assistant looked up expectantly as the door opened.

      Armstrong handed him the papers, saying, “Make sure Fitzgerald’s advised of my decision.”

      

      SLOAN REEVES ANSWERED his phone on the first ring. It was the call he’d been waiting for.

      “She recommended against a transfer,” Armstrong’s assistant said quietly. “And the warden’s turned down the application.”

      Sloan swore under his breath. “Thanks for letting me know.”

      “No problem.”

      Right. Few people had a problem dispensing information if enough money changed hands.

      Hanging up, he slowly shook his head. Why the hell couldn’t she have just gone along with them? Done what he’d asked and said a change of scenery would benefit Billy’s mental health?

      It wouldn’t have made Armstrong approve the application. They’d known he wouldn’t do that. But if Hayley Morgan had simply said what they’d wanted her to, she’d have given them the perfect ammunition to go straight to the governor’s office and make a case there about getting Billy out of Poquette on the cruel-and-unusual-punishment angle. Since this was an election year and the governor counted on the support, or at least the noninterference, of the Irish Mafia, Billy would have been on his way to another prison in no time.

      Now, though... Sloan knew only too well what Billy would say now.

      It СКАЧАТЬ