The Night Crew by Brian Haig Read Free Book Online Page B

me.”
    “Life in prison. Is that what he said?”
    “’Ceptin’ I’m innocent.”
    The photographs screamed otherwise, but maybe she had a plausible explanation that would easily clear everything up; maybe the girl in the photos was her evil twin. “What was your assignment at the prison?” I asked her.
    “Clerk. Worked at the Personnel Administration Center for the 215th MP battalion.”
    “I see.” I thought about this, then stated, “Obviously, though, you were occasionally placed on guard duty inside the prison.”
    “Oh . . . no, sir.”
    “Never?”
    “Nope . . . never.”
    “But those photographs, they were taken inside the cellblock. Correct?”
    “That’s right, sir. My boyfriend . . . well, he had a job there. Danny Elton. MP.”
    “Then you worked inside the prison as well? Maybe as part of the administrative staff?”
    “No, sir.”
    “Well . . . where did you work?”
    “Around the prison was this big FOB—a forward operating base, it’s called. An infantry unit, a battalion of MPs, some military intelligence folks, a buncha civilian contractors . . . we wuz all livin’ there. Sorta stuffed together, real tight, in this huge tent city.”
    I smiled. “What we call a clusterfuck.”
    She smiled back. “You said it like that, sir. Also there was way too many prisoners to fit inside the prison. So they had this big area that was roped off with high fences and barbed wire where seven or eight thousand more prisoners wuz kept. They wuz livin’ in tents, like us.”
    “Then you lived outside the prison?”
    “Yes, sir. Most ever’body lived outside—in tents. The older officers, lot of ’em stayed in these air-conditioned trailers. The heat got to ’em somethin’ awful. Even most of the guards lived outside the prison.”
    “Then what were you doing inside the cellblock?”
    “Oh . . .” She stared at me for a long time before she answered, “Well . . . Danny, he invited me.”
    “ Invited you?”
    “That’s what I said . . . sir.”
    “In a professional capacity? A social capacity? What?”
    “No, I . . . See, Danny and the MPs, they worked round the clock, pretty much ever’ day. Only way we could see each other was if I went’n visited with him.”
    “I see . . .” Not . Perhaps I’ve been spoiled but prison is not my idea of an ideal place for a date. But maybe I was missing something, so I asked, “Did you visit him often?”
    “Plenty . . . yes, sir.”
    “How often? An approximation will suffice.”
    “Near ever’ night, I guess . . . ’less I came down on the duty roster, or felt sick, or was havin’ my monthly,” she informed us, without any evident unease or embarrassment.
    I exchanged looks with Katherine. What I could safely read into her admission was that she and Danny were . . . well, fucking.
    In any regard, I was surprised and I think my face showed it, though it had nothing to do with the occasional absences caused by her monthly periods—it was her casual confession that she was in the cellblock nearly every night.
    She looked at Katherine, then back at me. With a loose shrug, she added, “Most days, usually got my job done by four or so. Wusn’t really much to do at nights. Iraq’s pretty boring.”
    “Did you have official permission to be in the cellblock?”
    “Like I tole you—Danny invited me.”
    Either she was being deliberately obtuse, or we were talking past each other. So to clarify, I stated, “This cellblock contained male prisoners. Presumably only males—is this correct?”
    She looked confused. “I guess.”
    “Did this cellblock have a designating name or number?”
    “Cellblock One. But they wuz all real hard cases in there. The badass wing . . . ever’body called it that.”
    I explained, “In military prisons, the policy is that female guards are excluded from duty inside male wings. Nor are female soldiers or guests allowed to enter, and they are certainly not permitted to wander