Drizzle had turned to sleet when we parked and got gut of the car. I followed Marino past a Dumpster, then ramp leading to a loading dock occupied by a number of cats, their insouciance flickering with the wariness of the wild. The main entrance was a single glass door, and stepping inside what purported to be the lobby, we found ourselves behind bars. There were no chairs; the air was frigid and stale. To our right the Communication Center was accessible by a small window, which a sturdy woman in a guard’s uniforms took her time sliding open.
“Can I help you?” Marino displayed his badge and laconically explained that we had an appointment with Frank Donahue, the warden. She told us to wait. The window shut again.
“That’s Helen the Hun,” Marino said to me. “I’ve been down here more times than I can count and she always acts like she don’t know me. But then, I’m not her type. You’ll get better acquainted with her in a minute.”
Beyond barred gates were a dingy corridor of tan tile and cinder block, and small offices that looked like cages. The view ended with the first block of cells, tiers painted institutional green and spotted with rust. They were empty.
“When will the rest of the inmates be relocated?” I asked.
“By the end of the week.”
“Who’s left?”
“Some real Virginia gentlemen, the squirrels with segregation status. They’re all locked up tight and chained to their beds in C Cell, which is that way.”
He pointed west. “We won’t be walking through there, so don’t get antsy. I wouldn’t put you through that. Some of these assholes haven’t seen a woman in years – and Helen the Hun don’t count.”
A powerfully built young man dressed in Department of Corrections blues appeared down the corridor and headed our way. He peered at as through bars, his face attractive but hard, with a strong jaw and cold gray eyes. A dark red mustache hid an upper lip that I suspected could turn cruel.
Marino introduced us, adding, “We’re here to see the chair.”
“My name’s Roberts and I’m here to give you the royal tour.” Keys jingled against iron as he opened the heavy gates. “Donahue’s out sick today.”
The clang of doors shutting behind us echoed off walls. “I’m afraid we got to search you first. If you’ll step over there, ma’am.”
He began running a scanner over Marino as another barred door opened and “Helen” emerged from the Communication Center. She was an unsmiling woman built like a Baptist church, her shiny Sam Browne belt the only indication she had a waist. Her close-cropped hair was mannishly styled and dyed shoe-polish black, her eyes intense when they briefly met mine. The name tag pinned on a formidable breast read “Grimes.”
“Your bag,” she ordered.
I handed over my medical bag. She rifled through it, then roughly turned me this way and that as she subjected me to a salvo of probes and pats with the scanner and her hands. In all, the search couldn’t have lasted more than twenty seconds, but she managed to acquaint herself with every inch of my flesh, crushing me against her stiffly armored bosom like a wide-bodied spider as thick fingers lingered and she breathed loudly through her mouth. Then she brusquely nodded that I checked out okay as she returned to her lair of cinder block and Liron.
Marino and I followed Roberts past bars and more bars, through a series of doors that he unlocked and relocked, the air cold and ringing with the dull chimes of unfriendly metal. He asked us nothing about ourselves and made no references that I would call remotely friendly. His preoccupation seemed to be his role, which this afternoon was tour guide or guard dog, I wasn’t sure which.
A right turn and we entered the first cell block, a huge drafty space of green cinder block and broken windows, with four tiers of cells rising to a false roof topped by toils of barbed wire. Sloppily piled along the middle of the brown tile floor were dozens of narrow, plastic covered mattresses, and scattered about were brooms, mops, and ratty red barber chairs. Leather tennis shoes, blue jeans, and other odd personal effects littered high windowsills, and left inside many of the cells were televisions, books, and footlockers. It appeared that when the inmates had been evacuated they had not been allowed to take all of their possessions with them, perhaps explaining the obscenities scrawled in Magic Marker on the walls.