The office stunk like yesterday's lunch. And the chair Kramer delegated to him wobbled and squeaked. To top it off, Vic was nowhere to be found. Things weren't looking good.
"What do you know about the canisters?"
"Canisters? Oh, you mean the ones I was guarding?"
"Don't get cute with me! I know your pal Vic DiMarco had something to do with the disappearance. Nothing stays a secret for long around here."
"I don't understand the problem. They're back now." Stan tried to attach a smile to the statement. But he wasn't fooling anyone, least of all Bud Kramer.
Bud lit a cigar and blew smoke in Stan's face. "But one is missing," he stated between puffs, exhaling angry hot air at the other fellow. His breath reeked of hot peppers.
"One short? I didn't know that. I was told to guard them, not count them."
"Is that so? And I suppose you had no reason to count them--no personal reason." He hissed rather than spoke the words. When the guard sat silently, showing no reaction to the question, Kramer threw up his hands in disgust. "Get the hell outta here!" he roared.
Once Stan was gone, the Medical Examiner burst out of the office and stomped across the hall to the superintendent's tiny cubicle. That man looked up in alarm as Bud Kramer burst in.
"I want you to get me all the information you can on Stan White, the guard at block 6. Everything! Including talking to prisoners. I want to know everything anybody saw or heard on the day that fetus was found in a barrel, especially as concerns that guy. Got it?"
The startled super nodded his head.
"And don't let his buddy, Vic DiMarco, know what you're doing either."
The super murmured his obedience. Nobody in their right mind would cross Bud Kramer.
Over at her place, Jessica chugged a shot of whiskey. The booze belonged to Stan. He kept at her place for whenever he stopped by. He didn't come often; but when he did he wanted his whiskey. Their trysts in the pantry at work was the only reliable time they got together. That being said, he had been coming more often since the miscarriage. God only knows what story he thought up to tell his wife.
But she wanted to be left alone. Something very precious had been taken from her and it hurt. It burned like hell in the heart. She was draped in despair, and its blackness was calling the shots. Going to work was a nightmare. She could barely make it there, and the workday slopping grease onto inmates' plates seemed never ending. Stan had asked her to meet him in the pantry, but she refused. She wouldn't want to go through all of that again. She was done with men...forever. For that matter, Stan could consider himself lucky she didn't act out her anger toward him.
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