The Iniquitous Investigator (A Nick Williams Mystery Book 8) by Butterfield Frank W

Author:Butterfield, Frank W. [Butterfield, Frank W.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2017-01-29T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Marin County Jail

Saturday, July 17, 1954

About 5 in the morning

Once I'd realized that neither Carter nor I had been put on any work detail, I talked to him about it. I then asked Fitzsimmons to put me in the kitchen for breakfast and him in the laundry. The super had looked at me like I was crazy, but he'd nodded and said it was fine by him if I wanted to get up before dawn each morning.

My first shift had been on Friday morning. There was a cook from outside, a no-nonsense Mexican lady named Mrs. Gonzalez, who came in and supervised the breakfast and lunch. She also got everything ready for the dinner but left at 2 each day. The rest was inmate labor. It wasn't hard. They only had to produce twenty or so meals per service and the kitchen was well provided for.

The guards and the supervisor usually had their food brought in from a local restaurant. I could understand why. The food wasn't bad, but it had no flavor. After being in the kitchen, I could see what Ben had said about the facilities being in good shape. The county, in spite of their jail supervisor's claims to the contrary, was keeping things running smoothly.

That first day, I'd been given the task of making the toast. It was easy enough. They didn't get sliced bread, so that was part of the job. I also had to make the pats of butter. There was a metal slicer with thin wires pulled tightly across and spaced about a quarter of an inch apart. When I pulled it down over a stick of butter, the wires cut through the fat and made uniform rectangular slices. I put each slice on a piece of white cardboard and covered it with a piece of wax paper that I'd cut in advance. The pats went into a bowl and sat in the icebox until needed. Again, easy enough.

Officer Krauss let me out on Saturday morning at 5 on the dot. We walked down the row and then he stopped in the common room. He said, "I need to frisk you. Assume the position against that wall." He winked as he said it, so I did as I was told without asking why.

As he was lightly patting me down, I could feel him slip something into the right front pocket of my dungarees. Once he was done, he stepped back and said, "You're clear."

Once I was in the kitchen, I saw that the other two inmates were nervously discussing something. As I was washing my hands, I asked, "Where's Mrs. Gonzalez?"

One of the inmates, Tiny, who, for a change, was actually short, said, "She's not here, Slim."

I looked at the clock. It said ten minutes after. "Maybe she's running late."

The other inmate, Johnny K., said, "I been here nearly sixty days and she's never been late once."

I shrugged. "Well, we know what to do. Let's get started."

Tiny said, "She has the key to the walk-in icebox.

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