Rivers to Blood Read Online Free Page B

thinks that.”
    “Doesn’t mean it’s not true,” she said.
    “What’s not true?” Bat Matson, the new warden said, walking into my office without knocking.

Chapter Eight
    L isa tried to speak, but nothing came out.
    “A lot of things,” I said.
    “I know you two are probably discussing an inmate you’re both working with,” Matson said, “but I really need to talk to the chaplain.”
    “I was just about to leave,” Lisa said. “We were finished.”
    “Well, then,” he said, “my timing is even better than I thought.”
    Lisa left and Matson took her seat across the desk from me.
    Before coming to PCI a little less than a month ago, Bat Matson was the warden of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, the largest maximum security prison in the country. Known as the Farm, Angola was named after the home of African slaves who used to work its plantation. The site of a prison since the end of the Civil War, Angola’s 18,000 acres houses over 5,000 men, three-quarters of whom are black, 85 percent of whom will die within its fences.
    Matson had been brought to PCI by the new secretary of the department who the governor had recruited from Texas as part of his crackdown on crime platform. He was a fleshy man in his early sixties with prominent jowls and thick gray hair swooped to the side. He had the reputation of being tough, straight shooting, and very religious.
    He was just one of many changes taking place at PCI, including the relocation of death row into a newly constructed facility that housed both the row and the chair.
    “Sorry I haven’t gotten by here sooner, Chaplain,” he said. “I’ve been tryin’ to meet with all the department heads individually but it’s taken longer than I would have liked.”
    “No problem,” I said, not sure what kind of response he was looking for.
    “I want you to know that the chapel program is very important to me,” he said. “Every man here could benefit from a good dose of old-time religion.”
    Uh oh. I was the last chaplain who could give them that.
    “I know you’ve been without a staff chaplain since you’ve been here,” he said, “and that’s one of the first things I’m gonna take care of. I can promise you that. I’m sure as soon as we get you some help in here a lot of the things that have gone undone will get squared away right away.”
    I wondered what he was talking about, but was afraid to ask. I often felt guilty for spending as much time as I did investigating, but never felt derelict in my duties as pastor of my parish.
    “I’ve got big plans for PCI,” he said.
    He wasn’t the only one. With a full-size institution, an annex, and two work camps, PCI was already the largest prison in the state, but having death row here would change everything in ways none of us could begin to imagine.
    “Things are going to be very different,” he said. “I’m a warden that backs up his staff, but I expect them to back me up as well—especially my department heads. All the changes will take some getting used to, but I expect it. I expect it or I expect your resignation.”
    He paused for a moment, his eyes narrowing as he considered me.
    I didn’t say anything.
    “I’m telling that to everybody,” he said, “not just you. What I will say to you is that I expect my chaplain to be a chaplain—nothing else. I understand your dad’s the current sheriff, that you were a cop in Atlanta, and that you sometimes help the institutional investigator. I’ve met him and I can see why. But he’s about to go back to coaching, and his replacement, a real investigator, won’t need any help from the chaplain to do his job. You got any questions for me?”
    “They found the inmate that escaped yet?”
    He shook his head, then frowned, and looked at me the way you would a stubborn child you pity for how hard he makes life for himself.
    “You see?” he said. “That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about right there. You shouldn’t be