CELL 8 by Anders Roslund, Börge Hellström Read Free Book Online Page A

somehow always been present, right from the start.
    It wasn’t that he was frightened of it, not at all; it was just that it had always been there, he’d lived with it, worked with it. As a child, he’d often sneaked down from their apartment upstairs and between the wooden banisters on the stairs watched his father receive clients in Marcusville’s only funeral parlor. Then, as a teenager, he’d become part of the family business, another pair of hands to help with the cleaning, arranging, and dressing of bodies that lacked life. He’d learned to give it back, if only for a while—the undertaker’s son knew that with makeup and a professional hand you could create the illusion of a living person, and the nearest and dearest, when they looked into the coffin, weeping, to say good-bye, that was what they wanted.
    He looked around.
    Walls that were more than thirty years old. The prison was starting to look worn.
    Nearly fourteen hundred inmates who were to be punished, imprisoned, and occasionally freed. A little more than half as many employees, somewhere between seven and eight hundred. An operational budget of fifty-five million dollars, approximately forty thousand dollars in expenses per prisoner per year, one hundred and seven dollars and sixty-three cents per prisoner per day.
    His world: he knew it, was secure in it.
    Life, death, in here too, but in another way.
    He passed central security and gave a brief nod to one of the new employees who’d been sitting reading some magazine but hastily put it to one side when Vernon approached, and now sat with a straight back studying the images on the various security cameras.
    Vernon Eriksen opened the door to the corridor in East Block.
    Death Row.
    Twenty-two years as senior corrections officer among people who had been convicted and sentenced for capital murder, who were counting the days and would never live anywhere else.
    There were one hundred and fifty-five prisoners in Ohio, sitting there waiting for death.
    One hundred and fifty-four men and one woman.
    Seventy-nine African Americans , sixty-nine Caucasians , four Hispanics, and three who until recently had a separate statistical column under other , but which now had been broken down into two Arab Americans and one Native American .
    Sooner or later, most of them came here.
    Either they were already serving their sentence in one of the cells along the corridor where he was standing, or they were transported here, with only twenty-four hours to live. It was here, in Marcusville, that those sentenced to death in Ohio were executed.
    They’re here with me, he thought.
    I know them all, every single one. My life, the family I never had, every day, like any other marriage.
    Until death do us part.
    Vernon stretched his long body. He was still slim, in relatively good shape, short fair hair, thin face with deep creases in the middle of his cheeks. He was tired. It had been a long night. Trouble with the Colombian, who made more noise than usual, and the new guy in Cell 22, who hadn’t been able to sleep, understandably, crying like a baby, like they usually did at the start. Then it had got cold. This damn winter was the hardest in south Ohio for many years and the radiators had never really gotten going before they broke down; the whole system was going to be replaced but the bureaucracy was slow, and, most important, it didn’t work here, therefore it wasn’t cold.
    He walked slowly down the middle of the corridor. A kind of peace had fallen, regular breathing from some of the cells, deep sleep now just before the dark evaporated.
    He passed cell after cell. A quick glance, left, right, quiet on both sides.
    As he got closer, he moved away from the line that was painted down the center of the corridor and walked along the row of metal bars to the right, looked into Cell 12 and saw Brooks lying there on his back, into Cell 10 at Lewis with one arm under the pillow and his face right up against the wall.
    Then