Time Served

The call came down right after midnight. Duprey and I had just finished showers in confinement, a four-hour affair most nights that had seemed to take all night tonight. We had kicked our feet up on the desk, prepared to relax a little when the phone rang over the sounds Nickleback that Sergeant Lang was listening to. Lang put down the folder he was going over and paused the music before picking it up on the third ring.

"Confinement, Sergeant Lang speaking."

Duprey cocked an eye at Lang when he sat up a little straighter, but I had already decided that this was likely going to be the death of our rest tonight.

"Warden? Yes sir, yes sir, he's in twenty-two zero three. Yes. Yes sir. You...you want him so late? Of course, no, sir. No, I would never question your orders. We'll bring him right over."

As he slid the phone back into the cradle, he glanced over at us with a look of regret.

"Sorry, guys. Looks like the Warden wants to see Slatten."

I made a disgusted noise, "At midnight? Can we even do that? It's hard enough to pull inmates out of confinement during daylight hours, and he wants us to move this guy in the dead of night?"

Lang just shrugged, "Wardens orders."

Duprey got up, his boots slapping the floor.

I, however, was not convinced, "Are they sending anyone to help us?"

Lang shook his head, "He seemed to think that you and Duprey could handle him."

"You're joking, right? Slatten's pending transfer to another facility for assault on staff."

It was a little more than that, though. Slatten was our newest celebrity here at Stragview. He had crisscrossed the south, Louisiana to West Virginia, robbing banks and raising hell. He had finally messed up, killing three hostages in a robbery before the cops drove his get-away vehicle into a ditch and caged this hell-raiser. Seven life sentences served consecutively with no chance of parole would have humbled lesser, but Slatten was not one of them.

He had been here for three weeks, and in that time, he had assaulted five inmates, tried to sexually assault a nurse, and then assaulted two staff members when they went to stop him. Slatten was charged accordingly and sent to confinement, and while here, he had assaulted his roommate, flooded his cell, thrown feces at two officers, and threatened to hurt himself unless he got to talk with the captain.

It appeared that he was going higher than that, though.

Lang shrugged again, "Wardens orders."

We had little choice but to go get the little sociopath.

He was asleep when we arrived, but he perked up as we approached his door. He had set his back to the wall, and if it weren't for the smile, I would have thought he was scared. He looked ready to fight.

"Settle down, Slatten. The Warden wants a word."

He perked up then. It appeared he understood that he was going straight over the Captain's head and all the way to the top of the totem pole. He dug his blue out from under the bed, slid on the soft shoes we game them to wear in here, and turned around as he stuck his hands through the flap to be cuffed. Five minutes later, we were making our slow way towards the security building to see the Warden. It's funny how night changes the compound. I could see the hallows around the street lamps, clouds of bugs hovering in slow circles as they followed its mesmerizing light.

We came too quickly to the Admin building, and it looked a little forlorn and spooky at twelve-thirty at night.

This is where plans deviated.

"Head on in; I wanna have a smoke before we go see the Warden," Duprey said, taking a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of his pocket.

I looked unsure, "You sure? What if he wants to..."

Duprey waved me off, "He ain't gonna do shit. He's ambled along, fine as milk toast, cause he's getting what he wants." He turned to Slatten and fixed him with an even look.

Duprey was six foot five and solid muscle; he was good at even looks.

Slatten settled his face into what he must have thought was a sorrowful look, but I could still see the mischief dancing behind his half-crazy eyes, and I didn't like it.

Duprey nodded and sparked the end of his cigarette, and we stepped into the long hallway. It was dark, all the offices closed and locked for the night, but one office cast a lonely light across the linoleum. The words WARDEN hung in block letters across the floor, and though Slatten seemed eager to make his way down the hall, I was suddenly unsure. All my alarms were going off now, and I was suddenly wondering why we had agreed to this?

Slatten was getting away, though, and it was too late to think about it now.

The Warden invited us in as I raised my hand to knock. I had never seen his office before. It was a simple, neat little room with a desk, a chair for guests, and a chair for the Warden. He sat behind the desk, fingers steepled in front of him like someone contemplating the arcane. He invited Slatten to have a seat before turning to me.

"You can leave if you want. I have some matters to discuss with Inmate Slatten."

"I think I should stay, sir. Inmate Slatten has multiple counts of violence against other inmates and staff. Cap would flip out if he knew I'd left him in here alone with you."

The Warden shrugged, "Your choice. All I ask is that you stand quietly and don't interfere."

I nodded, taking my spot by the desk so I could intercept Slatten if he decided to get froggy.

The Warden turned his full attention to the inmate then, and Slatten did not seem to like being the recipient of such scrutiny.

"I have brought you here to offer you a deal." The Warden said, setting a black book between them which must have been on his lap. I found my eyes rooted to that book and, as I watched it, it seemed to breathe and shift on the calendar that sat over the top of the Wardens desk. I wasn't sure what to make of it, it looked like a thousand ledgers or family bibles I had seen in my lifetime, but I knew institutionally that it was like nothing I had ever set my eyes on.

It was wrong somehow.

"It has come to my attention that you have decided to make life difficult for my staff and for yourself. You have caused more trouble in the short time you've been here than most inmates cause during their whole stay."

"That's cause I don't want to be here." Slatten cut in, "I told my damn lawyer that I wanted to be in the facility near Alto, not this spook house. So I want a transfer to Arendale State Prison, or I'm prepared to spend the next seven lifetimes making life hell for you and your boys."

The Warden only smiled.

"Oh, no need to make threats. I have decided to commute your sentence to time served and release you from this place this very night."

Slatten looked like, of all the things he had expected, this was the one contingency he hadn't counted on.

"You... you're foolin me. I ain't no dummy. You ain't no judge, and you sure ain't God, so I know you can't just turn me loose."

"Quite the contrary. I am prepared to release you from bondage this very night."

I opened my mouth, wanting to protest, but the Warden gave me a look, and I suddenly found myself unable to continue.

The Warden opened the black book and spun it around to face Slatten.

"All you have to do is sign this book."

He offered Slatten a pen, a fancy silver thing that looked like it cost a fortune, and Slatten reached for it with trembling hands.

He stopped though as sanity trying to reassert itself, "No foolin? I sign this, and I'm free?"

The Warden spread his hands, "Free to go wherever the wind takes you."

Slatten couldn't put his name down fast enough, and his chains jingled merrily as he signed. He slid it back to the Warden when he'd finished, pen sitting in the spine, and he grinned his mouth full of broken teeth at the smiling Warden. He held his cuffs out to have them removed when a strange look crossed his face suddenly fearful face.

It looked like a goose had suddenly walked across his grave.

It happened suddenly. He sucked in a breath, his throat rattling like someone with a bad pneumonia, and that's what drew my attention. His arms shook as he stared at the man with the strange smile, and I saw him pitch forward as he lost his balance. I reached out, meaning to catch him, and had just enough time to see his face gaining spider webs of wrinkles. When my hand caught his chest, I had half a second to register the frail bones and slack skin of an old man beneath his prison blues. Then my hand broke through his chest and he just sort of turned to powder before he crumbled to the floor.

His chains made an angry clunk as they hit the ground a half-second before his clothes.

Then, true to his word, Slatten was free to go where the wind took him.

I stood over the pile for a few seconds as I tried to process what had just happened. I was currently standing in the Wardens office with the remains of a deceased inmate and no one but the Warden and his creepy book to say that I hadn't had a hand in it. I was going to be in a lot of trouble when I didn't come back with Slatten. What was I going to tell Sarge? What was I going to tell the Captain?

"Relax," the Warden said as he closed the book and slid it back into his desk, "the paperwork says day shift found him two days ago dead in his cell. You have nothing to worry about."

"What...what the hell happened?" I stuttered.

The Warden shrugged, "His sentence was commuted, his time served."

"You...you told him you would release him."

"And I did. Slatten served seven life sentences in a matter of seconds. Funny what that does to a body."

I could feel myself getting ready to hyperventilate, the sight of all the dust wafting around making me light-headed. That dust had been a person, it had been a living person, and the Warden had taken his life from him. He'd taken more than that, I supposed. He'd taken his humanity too.

The Warden once again indicated the chair, but I shook my head, and he shrugged.

"I have a promotional opportunity for you if you're interested. The Work Camp needs a new sergeant, and I think you'd be perfect for the job. I'd say it comes out to about an extra twenty thousand a year if you know where your loyalties lie." he added the last bit with a big cartoon smile.

I had only to look at the pile of man bits wafting across the floor to have my answer.

"Can I talk it over with my Captain before I abandon my shift?"

"You may," he said, but as I moved towards the door, picking up the cuffs and trying not to shudder as my hands touched the pile of dust.

He called my name, though, and brought me up short.

"It goes without saying that if I ever hear Slatten's name spoken again, your name will be going into that book next to his."

I nodded, leaving his office for the last time.