Scents and Sensibility by Spencer Quinn

Author:Spencer Quinn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books

SEVENTEEN

* * *

Sure you want to do this?” said Assistant Warden Stackhouse.

The ponytail woman—whose name turned out to be Trish, if I’d understood the conversation on the way into the building, not something you’d want to put a lot of money on—nodded her head in a forceful way. “Got to,” she said.

Stackhouse opened a door. “The weight room.”

We went inside—me, Bernie, Trish, Stackhouse. I’d been in weight rooms before, especially around the time of the Roidman Rafferty case. Roidman! He’d flipped the Porsche—this was several Porsches ago, all newer and less dinged than the one we had now—right over with his bare hands! But he ended up getting grabbed by the pant leg in the usual way. Back to the weight room here at the farm, which was on the small side, with a few benches, bars and plates, rigs and racks, plus a heavy scent of human male sweat on everything, some of it fairly fresh, some going way back. Everything was tidy except for one little area against the far wall, where a bench lay on its side, the front part resting on a barbell with big plates on both ends. The two stands for racking the bar also lay on the floor in a scattered kind of way. We stood around the messy area. Stackhouse pointed to the barbell.

“Benching two fifty,” he said. “Someone reported hearing noise. A CO looked in and found him lying on his back with the bar across his throat. He freed him up and started CPR, but it was too late. Sorry to say, ma’am. Death by asphyxiation. It’s a risk that comes with the bench-press exercise, which is why we encourage the use of spotters.”

Trish covered her mouth with both hands, but still a high little cry escaped. Her eyes filled with tears, although they didn’t flow, sort of like she’d bottled them up, too.

“He was alone?” Bernie was saying.

Stackhouse nodded. At the same time, he touched Trish’s shoulder in a comforting way. She didn’t exactly shrug him off; more like she just drifted back a step or two and leaned against the wall.

“What time was this?” Bernie said.

“CO made it zero six forty-five,” said Stackhouse.

“So less than two hours before his release from a fifteen-year stretch he was in here pumping iron?” Bernie said.

“You know gym rats,” Stackhouse said.

This conversation was hard to follow. For one thing, there were no rats anywhere nearby. For another, Bernie knew no rats of any kind. I began to suspect that Stackhouse might not be on top of things.

“The inmates are locked up at night?” Bernie said.

“Yup,” said Stackhouse. “Cell doors open at zero five thirty, breakfast at six. After that, there’s some free time till work assignments. This is minimum security, Bernie, pretty much everyone here for less than six months. Even the morons don’t screw up.”

Bernie went over to the fallen bar, half-squatted, picked it up, hefted it, seemed to feel the weight. “Two fifty his normal load?”

Stackhouse shrugged. “A decent amount,

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