The Record Keeper by Charles Martin

Author:Charles Martin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2022-07-05T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

The huge man sat, folded his hands on the table, and asked Clay, “How you doing? You look good.”

“It’s what freedom do to you.”

The man smiled. His face was kind and movements slow. Like a man with all the time in the world. Clay asked him, “You remember when they had us on grave detail?”

The man nodded.

Clay looked at the man but thumbed at me. “You mind telling him what you told me?”

The man spoke deliberately. “I been here a long time. And there were a lot of lifers like me—”

I held up my hand. “I’m Murphy Shepherd.”

Another smile. “Mister Murphy, I’m Larry Rogers. ’Round here they call me R273469518, or Stumps for short.”

“Thanks for meeting with us.”

He glanced over his shoulder. “Anytime.” He continued, “Stay here long enough and you serve your sentence. Your life runs out.” A shrug. “Prison ain’t easy on a body. Especially when you get old. So they send me and Clay out to dig the holes. Cemetery was old and they couldn’t get a Bobcat through the wall. We got pretty good at it too. Prided ourselves on square corners, and sometimes that ain’t easy in Alabama clay. Anyway, the cemetery ran alongside the road that led to the new high-tech prison. It’s got more barbed wire, lights, cameras, and armed guards than a POW camp. It’s where they put the most evil of us. Had one whole block of nothing but solitary, but whoever built that place was smart ’cause they put it several stories underground. Which was true of much of the prison.”

He pointed in the direction of the prison. “You can see a couple floors up top, but there’s far more below. While the old prison was a state prison, the new one was privately owned. Prison for profit. Anyway, they liked us old-timers. Thought we were harmless. And since they were private and always cutting costs, they brought us over to do menial stuff. Empty the trash. Mop. Whatever. We didn’t mind. Got us out of our cells. Plus, they had A/C. So they put us on trash detail. Which, personally, I kind of liked. Let me stretch my legs. We just pulled out the old bag and put a new one in its place. Nothing to it. And we got to ride the elevator. Seven floors total.

“On the bottom floor, they had this glass room filled with computers. The glass was three to four inches thick and outside sat an armed guard. Which I always thought strange. Who in their right mind was going to try to break in down here? Never made no sense to me. Anyway, me and Clay kept to ourselves. Minding our own business. Did what they told us. Once a week, they opened the glass door and slid out this cart filled with these thick, black plastic bags and cardboard boxes. We never dug through it ’cause much of the trash was either soiled linens or medical, and I don’t like needles. Once we collected it, all the trash went into the incinerator.

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