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“I’ll call the warden, see when we can come up and hang out. You want a king or two doubles in your cell?”
    The warden was a pro, not a bureaucrat, and said we’d be welcome anytime. We pointed the Crown Vic north. Two hours later, we were checking into prison.
    Warden Malone was a big, fiftyish guy with rolled-up white sleeves and a tie adorning his desk instead of his neck. His hair was gray and buzz-cut. Loop a whistle around his neck and he’d have been Hollywood’s idea of a high school football coach. We sat in his spartan office overlooking the main yard.
    â€œI had the visitor logs checked,” Malone said, patting a sheaf of copies. “T. Franklin was here on Wednesday before last, nine a.m. She designated herself as Media, representing WTSJ. Ms. Franklin spent twenty-one minutes with Leland Harwood. It appears to have been her sole visit to the prison.”
    â€œWhat’s Leland Harwood’s story?” Harry asked.
    Malone leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “Low-level enforcer type, leg breaker. A couple thefts in his package, assaults. He bought his ticket here last spring, when he shot a guy dead in an alley behind a bar. A fight.”
    â€œThe guy he killed was in Mobile?” Harry asked.
    â€œHarwood and some other moke got into a tussle in a Mobile bar. Went outside. Bar patrons heard a shot, found the other guy dead. Come court day, everyone in the bar swore the other guy started the fight. The prosecution let Harwood plea to man two, light time.”
    â€œMaybe that’s how it went down,” Harry said.
    â€œMy boy’s an attorney in Daphne,” Malone said. “Prosecutor, naturally. He knows a lot of folks at the Mobile Prosecutor’s Office, including the lady who handled Harwood’s case. She says the patrons weren’t so in tune with Harwood’s story on the night of the action. Only when they hit the stand did they sing his innocence. Note for note, too. Like they’d had some choral training, you know what I mean.”
    â€œPaid performances,” I said.
    â€œSure sounded like it,” Malone said, tossing the file back on his desk and looking between Harry and me.
    â€œHarwood’s a white guy. Thirty-three years old. Probably establish a better bond with Detective Ryder. I’d suggest the visitor room, not the interrogation facility. He’ll clam in an interrogation room. But Leland’s a talkative sort in a visitor-room environment. Probably yap your ear off.”
    â€œOutside of chatty,” I asked, “what’s Harwood like?”
    â€œAn eel,” Malone said. “Or maybe a chameleon.”
    â€œWhatever he needs to be,” Harry said. It was a common trait in the con community.

CHAPTER 9
    â€œI have a new girlfriend here in the joint, Detective Ryder. She likes for me to use Listerine. You use Listerine, Detective? My little girlie thinks the Listerine keeps me kissing-sweet. Fresh, you know?”
    I looked through an inch of smeared Plexiglas at the face of Leland Harwood, babbling into the phone. It was a short-distance call: three feet to the visitor’s phone in my hand. Harwood had a scrunched face set into a head outsized for his body, like his mama birthed the head a couple years before the rest of him dropped out, the head getting a head start on growing.
    â€œThere’s only one problem, Detective Ryder….”
    I shifted my gaze to Harwood’s hands. Scarred and ugly, tats scrawled across them, the classic LOVE on one set of knuckles, HATE on the other. Couldn’t these guys ever think of something different: DAMN / DUMB or LOST / LIFE or FLAT / LINE ?
    â€œThe Listerine kinda burns when I rub it on my asshole.”
    Harwood started laughing, a start-stop keening like the shower scene from Psycho . He laughed with his mouth wide, showing a squirming tongue and the black ruination of his molars. He tapped the