CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
Welfare Island was located on the East River and had been given something of a bad reputation because of the prison and mental facilities that were situated on the island. It was the sort of New York City location that Ava had often heard Clarence talk about but she had never visited. Until now, she’d simply had no reason to step foot on the island.
The prison looked like it belonged on the backside of some old, ruined castle in the wilds of England. Called quite simply City Prison, it looked both foreboding and quite boring. Looking at it from the back of the cab, Ava was relieved to find she had no more second thoughts. If anything, she was anxious to get inside.
She showed the driver her badge. “How long can you wait here for me? I didn’t exactly see a lot of cabs swarming the island.”
“Pretty lady like you, I can give you half an hour. I’m going to need you to pay now, though.”
She’d expected as much and gave him the fare for the ride in without argument since he was willing to kill half an hour of potential fare time. She then got out of the car and headed to the front doors. When she walked inside, she was instantly overcome by the smell of dust, dirt, and sweat. As she moved in closer to a small foyer that was closed off by prison bars, she also caught a slight, pungent odor that she thought might be years of poorly cleaned urine.
An overweight officer sat behind the bars in the foyer. He looked very confused to see a woman stepping inside such a place and even more confused still when that woman showed him her police badge.
“I’m Detective Ava Gold, and I’m here to meet with one of your prisoners. I also don’t have much time, so I’d appreciate it if I could see him quickly.”
“I’ll be,” the man said with a smile. “Ava Gold. I’ve heard a lot about you. Knew your husband a bit, too, if you don’t mind me saying. Hell of a good man.”
“Thank you,” she said, hoping this little bit of fame might work in her favor.
“Which inmate do you need to speak to?”
“A man named Kenny Sanderson.”
“Yeah, well, he’s here alright,” the overweight cop said. “One second.”
She waited on the other side of the bars as he flipped through an old, well-worn ledger of sorts. He scanned a page near the back with a pudgy finger and eventually pointed. “Yeah, Cell 46.”
“Is there a room where I could speak to him?”
“Best I could do is the cafeteria. But they’ll be prepping for dinner soon, so you won’t have much time.”
“That’s perfectly fine.”
“Alright then, let’s get you down there. Come on back.” With that, he pulled a ring of keys from his belt loop, unlocked the bars that separated the foyer, and pushed them open, revealing a door that had been well-hidden within the grid of bars. He led her down a thin hallway that smelled even worse than the foyer. After several feet down, he stopped by a door that was partially open.
He poked his head in and spoke to a man inside. “Hey, Hattie! We need to get Kenny Sanderson down to the mess hall lickety-split. Can you do that for me?”
“A-yuh! Give me ten minutes,” another voice called out.
Ava figured she could continue trying her luck. She moved in behind the overweight officer and peered inside the room. She saw the older gentleman sitting at an old desk and smiled at him. “Can you make it five?” She also showed her badge for extra motivation.
“Sure thing, ma’am!” the older man, Hattie, exclaimed.
They left the room as a trio, the two officers splitting up at the end of the hallway. Ava’s escort led her down a set of stairs that looked like they could very well lead to a dungeon. The stairs ended in a large room made entirely of concrete. Concrete walls, concrete floors, and only a single, large light hanging from the ceiling. A single window looked outside along the back, low to the ground and showing only the backside of the prison, a flat expanse of gravel that gave way to the murky-looking river. Roughly twenty tables were set out along the floor, each with a handful of chairs positioned at them. To the right was a small alcove she assumed served as the kitchen, where the line of prisoners would rotate through for their dinner.
“Have a seat wherever you like,” the overweight officer said. “Now, I hope you’ll understand, I have to stay in here with you. Security, you know.”
“I understand.”
She took the seat closest to her and waited. She could sense the officer wanting to speak to her, to maybe ask questions about why she needed to speak with Sanderson, but he remained mercifully quiet.
Less than five minutes later, two more men joined them. One was another officer, a younger man this time, with a build roughly resembling the side of the prison—a form of security much more fitting than Ava’s escort. She assumed the other man, dressed in a dingy prisoner’s uniform, was Kenny Sanderson.
Sanderson smiled and even started to laugh a bit when he saw her. But he was also looking at her in a devious, hungry way that made her skin crawl.
“Y’all brought me a treat!” Sanderson said.
“Shut your face and sit down,” the new, large guard said.