Читать книгу Some Choose Darkness - Charlie Donlea - Страница 25

CHAPTER 9

Stateville Correctional Center, October 17, 2019

HIS KILLING SPREE DECADES AGO HAD, FOR A SHORT TIME, MADE him a celebrity. But soon after his conviction, the world moved on and had mostly forgotten about The Thief. Only in recent months had his star begun to rise again as journalists relived the summer of 1979 by recounting the women who had been informally counted as his victims. Family members were tracked down. Friends, now gray and wrinkled by age, spoke of long-forgotten kinships with those they lost. Ambitious newscasters replayed old footage in an attempt to recapture the panic of the city during that sweltering summer when The Thief ran loose through the shadowed streets of Chicago, stealing young women never to be seen again.

And now, as his celebrity began its slow ascent, he would need to rely on the one man who had helped him most over the years. He had access to the prison e-mail system, but it was a tedious process to receive and deliver messages, and prison rules placed strict word counts on his e-mails. It was faster and easier to write his letters by hand and send them through the post office, which he had done several times in the last three weeks without a response. The United States Postal Service—jail mail—had always been his swiftest form of communication. Faster even than a phone call, which required him to make a formal request, wait for approval, and then schedule a date and time to use the prison pay phone. It had always been his preference when he needed to get ahold of his attorney to simply pen a letter, stuff it in an envelope, and drop it in the mail. But after two weeks without a reply, he decided to petition for a phone call. With his final parole board hearing fast approaching, his attorney had been in constant contact with him regarding the details of his impending release. But for the last two weeks, his attorney had been silent and unreachable.

The Thief lay on his bunk now and folded his hands across his chest as he waited. There was an imbalance in the universe. He could feel it in his gut. Passing time had never been a challenge. At least, not for many years. But of late, since the parole board had stamped him approved, time became something more difficult to manage. His sentence was coming to an end, and he allowed himself to taste what waited on the outside. It was a dangerous practice to entertain thoughts about the freedoms that might soon come to him. It was especially dangerous to imagine the satisfaction of finding her. Still, despite the hazards, he closed his eyes as he lay on his bunk and imagined finally coming face-to-face with her. What a joyous moment it would be. The woman who had put him here would finally receive retribution.

“Forsicks,” the guard said, interrupting his thoughts. “You got phone privileges today?”

He sat up quickly and stood from his bed.

“Yes, sir.”

The guard turned his head and in a booming voice yelled down the length of the cell block. “One-two-two-seven-six-five-nine-four-six.” His voice echoed off the walls and conjured prisoners to the front of their cells, where they stuck their arms through the bars and rested their elbows on the metal as they watched what was transpiring.

Forsicks’s cell door rattled open and the guard motioned for him to take the lead as they walked down the long galley. Seeing nothing exciting, the other prisoners melted back into their cells. A door buzzed as they approached the end of the gangplank and Forsicks pushed through it. Another guard was waiting for him on the other side. He did a quick pat down, and then motioned him toward an isolated pay phone on the wall.

Forsicks went through the practiced routine of navigating the automated prison phone system that allowed outgoing collect calls, dialed the number from memory, and listened to the staticky ring through the receiver. After the eighth loop of buzzing, the call went to voice mail, where he learned that his attorney’s mailbox was full.

The universe was off. Something was wrong. All of his fantasies about finding her began to fade.