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and west a couple of miles. We got off 640 onto Washington Pike and angled
northeast for maybe five miles. This corner of Knox County had been farm
country for most of my twenty-five years in Knoxville, but I noticed that even
here, condos and subdivisions were sprouting like fungus amid the weathered
farm houses.
DeVriess slowed and signaled a left, and we turned onto Maloneyville Road and
threaded a small pocket of ranch houses. Then we came to an S-curve, and the
road wound down into a wide valley. On the right, behind a fence of chain link
and barbed wire, stood the old Knox County Penal Farm, a barracks of ancient
concrete with a rusting tin roof and a square brick smokestack. Ahead below
and to our left sprawled a new golf course and, just beyond it, a huge,
multiwing complex. There were no guard towers, and there wasn t a perimeter of
high razor wire, yet it was unmistakably a correctional facility. Confronted
with the grim, tangible reality of it, I felt my stomach clench.  Jesus, I had
no idea it was so big, I said.  How many prisoners are in there?
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 Right now? No idea, said DeVriess.  The capacity is 667. Any more than that,
they re violating a federal cap. See that new cell block they re building
right beside the golf course? That ll bring the maximum to nearly a thousand.
He sounded sad as he said it. I glanced at him and he looked thoughtful, a
word I had never associated with Burt DeVriess.  Did you know, Doc, that two
million Americans are behind bars right now? Biggest prison population on
earth. I did not know that.  We also have the highest incarceration rate of
any nation. Six times higher than China, a place we like to believe is far
more oppressive than we are.
 You sure about that statistic, Burt?
 I study this stuff the way you study teeth and bones, Doc. The US of A is
home to only five percent of the world s population, but one-quarter of the
world s prisoners. Something s wrong with that.
He was right, though I didn t know precisely how.  Well, let s hope you can
keep me from becoming prisoner number two million and one.
The main entrance was a large driveway to our left, marked by a seven-pointed
star on a grassy embankment. The star was eight or ten feet across, labeled
KNOX COUNTY SHERIFF. DeVriess continued past the driveway, past the main
building, and turned behind a smaller building, a two-story barracks set
inside a high fence. A basketball court was tucked into the angle formed by
the L-shaped building. Just beyond this building, we bore left onto a one-lane
driveway which circled back toward the central complex. The building s main
entrance was actually at the front of the second floor; we were heading for a
large garage door notched into the ground floor, almost like a basement
garage. An unmarked Crown Victoria sat idling to one side. When DeVriess
approached in the Bentley, the Crown Vic pulled up to a speaker and John Evers
leaned out and spoke as if he were ordering fast food in a drive-through lane.
With a thunk and a whir, the big garage door began rolling upward. Evers edged
forward, into the dark opening, and DeVriess followed, practically on his
bumper. When both cars were inside, the door whirred and clunked down again.
Three uniformed officers stepped from a curb to our right. One walked around
to meet Detective Evers as he emerged from his car; the other two positioned
themselves beside my door. Evers handed over a form the capias, I guessed to
the officer I assumed was in charge, and then motioned to me to get out. As
DeVriess and I opened our doors and got out of the Bentley, the two deputies
stepped to either side of me, each grasping an arm. DeVriess started around
the front of the car, saying,  Hey, hey, that is not called for. You take your
hands off of my client. The two officers responded by tightening their grips.
Their supervisor hustled around and laid his palm on Burt s chest none too
gently.  You listen up, he barked,  this is our facility. Our rules. We are
extending every possible courtesy to Dr. Brockton, but he has been charged
with murder, and we will not risk the safety of our officers. If he does not
cooperate fully if you do not cooperate fully all deals are off, we put him in
restraints and stripes, and we treat him exactly like every other prisoner. Is
that clear?
 Burt, it s okay, I said.  They re doing their job, and they re doing it
right. This isn t a battle we need to fight. DeVriess looked unhappy, but he
nodded and kept quiet, and the officers relaxed their grips a bit.
 Thank you, Dr. Brockton, said the officer in charge.  I m Sergeant Andrews,
by the way, the shift supervisor. We need you to step over here to this wall,
please, so we can pat you down. The deputies steered me toward the spot he
had indicated.  Please place your hands against this blue safety pad, shoulder
height, far apart. I assumed the position I d seen on television many times,
and the deputies four hands gave me a thorough going-over. One of them
removed the small leather case clipped to my belt; he looked surprised and a
little sad when he saw what was inside. It was my consultant s badge from the
Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. I d worn it partly as a gesture of vain
pride, partly as a not-so-subtle message to the people booking me, and partly
as a desperate effort to hang on to my sense of who I was and what I stood for
in this world.
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Once they were sure I wasn t carry ing any concealed weapons, Andrews told me
to empty my pockets, remove my watch and belt, and take off my dress shirt,
leaving me in my T-shirt. On a clear plastic bag labeled INMATE PROPERTY BAG,
he wrote my name, date of birth, Social Security number, and the date and
time. Then he listed every item, including my TBI badge, and sealed them in
the bag with a self-adhesive strip along the bag s top flap. Then he had me
sign the bag to indicate that the inventory was right. Down below, I noticed
another line where I would sign presumably within an hour when they gave me [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]