Chapter 3 - THE CRIME WALTER NEVER COMMITTEDThe next morning Walter Mercer disappeared.
His bunk was empty at count.
His breakfast tray remained untouched.
By recreation period, rumors moved through C Block faster than contraband.
Medical emergency.
Protective custody.
Transfer.
Segregation.
Dead.
Derek pretended not to care.
He failed.
At noon he cornered Officer Pike near the laundry room.
"Where is he?"
Pike kept walking.
"Move."
"Where's Mercer?"
"Administrative segregation."
"For what?"
Pike stopped.
"Contraband was found in his locker."
"What kind?"
"A cell phone."
Derek almost laughed.
Walter still asked other inmates for help using the library's electronic catalog.
"No chance."
"Doesn't matter what you think."
"Someone planted it."
Pike's eyes told him everything.
Derek lowered his voice.
"Rusk?"
"Go eat lunch."
"Pike."
"Go. Eat. Lunch."
Derek stepped back.
Pike walked away.
For the first time in years, Derek found himself wanting to help another inmate for reasons that offered him absolutely nothing.
He disliked the feeling.
By evening Solomon had heard.
The enormous lifer sat at the edge of the basketball court tying his shoes when Derek approached.
"They put Mercer in the hole."
"I know."
"You're not doing anything?"
Solomon looked up.
"What exactly would you like me to do? Storm the administration building?"
"Everyone says he saved people."
"He did."
"Then why is everyone sitting around?"
Solomon stood.
"Because prison teaches men a specific kind of cowardice."
Derek bristled.
"You calling me a coward?"
"I'm calling all of us cowards."
Solomon walked toward a bench.
Derek followed.
"When you've lived long enough with people controlling when you eat, sleep, shower, speak, and breathe fresh air, eventually you stop asking whether something is right. You ask whether resisting it will hurt."
He sat.
"That's how bad systems survive."
Derek thought of Walter's words.
You're afraid someone might discover you're ordinary.
"What did Mercer do to get convicted?"
Solomon looked toward the fence.
"Fraud."
"That's vague."
"Government procurement fraud. Conspiracy. Obstruction."
"He guilty?"
"No."
"How do you know?"
"Because the man he supposedly conspired with was dead six months before the first alleged transaction."
Derek stared.
"And nobody noticed?"
"Someone noticed."
"Who?"
"Mercer."
The story unfolded slowly.
After retiring, Walter had worked as an independent compliance consultant. He reviewed contracts for companies supplying federal prisons.
Three years earlier he found irregularities in a food services contract.
Millions of dollars were being billed for goods never delivered.
The company involved, Northstar Institutional Supply, existed mostly on paper.
Its real purpose was to move federal money into private accounts.
Walter reported what he found.
Then evidence began appearing against him.
Bank transfers.
Signed contracts.
Emails.
Every record suggested he had taken bribes.
Federal prosecutors charged him.
His attorney advised a plea.
Walter refused.
At trial, several key pieces of defense evidence were ruled inadmissible after chain-of-custody problems.
He was convicted.
"Who owned Northstar?" Derek asked.
Solomon's eyes moved toward the administration building.
"Nobody officially."
"Unofficially?"
"Company belonged to a network of shell corporations."
Derek waited.
Solomon shook his head.
"I don't have proof."
"But?"
"But one of the prison officials Mercer investigated twelve years ago had a nephew."
Derek already knew the answer.
"Calvin Rusk."
Solomon nodded.
Derek sat beside him.
"So Rusk framed him."
"Maybe."
"And got him sent here."
"Maybe."
"Why here?"
Solomon gave him a look.
"Why do you think?"
To control him.
To frighten him.
Or to make sure something happened to him.
Derek spent that night remembering his own arrival at Graystone.
He had been twenty-nine, furious, convinced everyone else had caused his life to collapse.
The prosecutor.
The undercover officer.
His girlfriend who testified.
The friend who cooperated.
Anybody except Derek.
He had received eighteen years for armed robbery and conspiracy.
Nobody had framed him.
Nobody had altered evidence.
He had done exactly what the jury said he had done.
And for years, he treated guilt like a reason to become worse.
Walter, apparently innocent, had somehow managed the opposite.
The contrast irritated him.
Maybe because it hurt.
At breakfast the next day Derek saw Deputy Warden Rusk speaking with guards near the exit.
Derek stared too long.
Rusk noticed.
He walked over.
"Mr. Sloan."
"Deputy Warden."
"Something interesting?"
"No."
Rusk smiled.
"You've developed admirable concern for Mr. Mercer."
Derek shrugged.
"Just wondering how a man who barely knows what Wi-Fi is ended up hiding a smartphone."
Rusk's smile faded by half a degree.
"Careful."
"About what?"
"Making accusations."
"Didn't make one."
"You implied one."
Derek leaned closer.
"You worried?"
The cafeteria quieted.
Rusk stared at him.
"I know your history, Sloan. Assault reports. Extortion complaints. Suspected contraband distribution."
"Lots of suspected."
"Yes. Unfortunately."
Rusk lowered his voice.
"Men like you occasionally forget something important. Influence inside a housing unit isn't power. It's permission. Permission can be withdrawn."
He turned away.
Derek called after him.
"What happens if someone stops asking permission?"
Rusk paused.
Then kept walking.
That afternoon Derek received a note.
No name.
No explanation.
Just three words.
LIBRARY. HISTORY. 347.
He waited until evening movement.
Book 347 in the history section was a thick biography nobody appeared to have checked out since 2009.
Derek opened it.
Inside the back cover was a folded sheet of paper.
At the top:
NORTHSTAR INSTITUTIONAL SUPPLY.
Below it were dates.
Payments.
Account numbers.
Names.
One name had been circled three times.
CALVIN RUSK.
Derek's pulse quickened.
At the bottom Walter had written a sentence by hand.
If I am isolated, this needs to leave Graystone. Trust Elena Ward. No one else.
Derek knew that name.
Every federal prisoner did.
Elena Ward was an investigative journalist whose reporting had exposed corruption in two state prison systems.
Derek folded the paper and slipped it into his waistband.
Then the library door locked.
He turned.
Deputy Warden Rusk stood on the other side of the glass.
May you like
Watching him.
And smiling.
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