here since before Mr. Duskin was transferred here and in all that time I believe he’s only had one other visitor.”
Nolan and I share a look, and he jumps into the conversation.
“You wouldn’t by chance remember who his visitor was, would you, ma’am?” he asks politely.
“Oh, heavens no!” she replies with a chuckle. “It was so long ago that the log books for that time have already been sent down to storage, otherwise I’d look it up for you. The only reason I remember is because we keep reports on which inmates receive the largest or the least number of personal visits, and every month for eighteen years, Mr. Duskin is always at the bottom of the list with just that one visitor in all this time.”
She moves away from the counter, busying herself with getting our visitor badges in between answering the phone when it rings. After a few minutes, she hands us the badges and quickly runs down the list of rules we’ll need to follow when they call us, such as remaining only in the designated visiting area, no talk of the prisoner’s treatment or questions about his daily habits in the facility, no conversations that will anger or upset the prisoner in any way, and when our thirty minutes are up, we must end our visit immediately without any trouble or we will never be permitted back.
I’m sure we’ll have no trouble following the rules, but even if we can’t, it’s not like I plan on coming back here to visit Tobias again anyway.
Nolan and I pin the visitor badges to our clothing and then take a seat in the hard plastic chairs pushed against the wall until our names are called.
“Do you know what you’re going to say to him?” Nolan asks softly as we watch a few more people enter the building and go up to the counter to check in.
“I guess I’ll just get right to the point and ask him if he knows he’s my father,” I reply. “That’s the only question I care about getting an answer to right now.”
If I had more than thirty minutes with him and if Nolan wasn’t here with me, I might ask him why he killed his parents and a handful of strangers. I’d ask him if he thought about it beforehand, dreamed about it, craved it, and it just became too much, and he had to do it before the thoughts in his head drove him crazy. Basically, I’d ask him if that was something I had to look forward to, since we share the same bloodline.
“Visitors for Duskin?”
Nolan and I stand up from the chairs when a guard holding a clipboard announces our name. We follow him through a door leading away from the waiting area and down a long hallway, stopping in another small room. We’re asked to remove any items we might have in our pockets so they can be inspected. Nolan removes his wallet and keys, placing them on the table, and we wait while another guard quickly checks them over, passing Nolan’s wallet back to him and informing him he can pick up his keys after the visit.
Moving out of the room, we continue on down the hallway, coming to a closed door. The guard unlocks it and then holds it open for us. In the middle of the stark white room is a long wooden counter that runs from wall to wall. There are booths separated by wooden walls attached to the counter, two metal chairs inside each booth and a glass partition running right down the middle.
“Duskin will be in booth number eight, right down there,” the guard tells us, pointing to the booth at the very end that has a sign taped to the inside wall with the number eight written on it. “When he is escorted to the booth, you can pick up the phone on your side of the counter to communicate, and he’ll do the same on his side. You will have exactly thirty minutes from the time he sits down.”
Without another word, he turns and exits the room. I walk slowly toward booth eight, glancing at the booths we pass, all currently occupied by other people visiting prisoners, the low hum of conversation filling the room. Nolan pulls out a chair for me and I take a seat, clasping my hands together in front of me on the counter, staring at the empty chair on the other side of the glass.
Nolan wisely