Birdy Waterman 01 - The Bone Box

reservation, years behind bars—more years than he’d lived free—had stolen that from him. It wasn’t merely that his jet-black hair had receded or that his once-clear skin was now loose and somewhat sallow. His eyes nestled in dark hollows. It was also obvious from across the poorly lit visitation room that whatever charisma he’d had, whatever inner light had radiated through him, was gone. Pfft. Out like a soggy match .
    Birdy Waterman almost had to steady herself when she saw Tommy. While she realized that two decades had come and gone, she hadn’t expected Tommy to look so old. Certainly in her job, she’d been around prisons and jails all her adult life. Most inmates seemed to make the best of their time on the inside by pumping iron in the yard. There wasn’t much else to do. They looked like health-club regulars. Tommy, by contrast, seemed alarmingly frail.
    She walked toward him, quickly so as not to show any hesitation. He was, after all, family.
    Tommy, in a dingy gray T-shirt and off-brand dungarees that seemed a size too big for him, stood to greet her. “You look almost the same,” he said, a broad smile of recognition coming over his face. It was disarming, the way she remembered Tommy Freeland could be. Maybe a part of him is still there, somewhere hidden under the hard veneer of prison life?
    Tommy nodded for her to sit, and Birdy slid into a bolted-to-the-floor steel frame chair. “You too. But you’re a liar,” she added, trying to hide her obvious surprise.
    Tommy eyed her, taking in everything. It was a fast and unequivocal search, the kind of once-over that an inmate might employ to figure out that instant of life or death in the laundry room, in deciding who to trust.
    “Well, you have filled out,” he said. “Not in a bad way. But you know, you’re no longer Birdy Legs.”
    Birdy’s face reddened. No one had called her that in eons, and it made her feel good. It was funny how the mention of a once-hated nickname elicited fond memories. Back on the reservation it had been a nickname meant to torment her. Time changes everything.
    “Thanks,” she said, changing the subject. “I’m glad you asked me to come.”
    He frowned slightly. “You were never not invited, Birdy. It hasn’t been like you didn’t know where I was.”
    “That isn’t fair,” she said.
    “Well, from my knothole, there isn’t anything about the last twenty years that has been particularly fair.”
    Birdy nodded. There was no arguing that.
    “Do you want a pop or something? I brought quarters,” she said offering up her Ziploc bag of quarters.
    Tommy smiled. Actually, it was not really a smile, but a kind of grimace. “No. I’m good. I’ve learned to do without. You know, without friends, family. Pretty much without a life. A lot of people played a part in making that happen.”
    He left those words to dangle in the air of the visiting room.
    “I didn’t lie,” Birdy said, her tone more defensive than she’d intended.
    Tommy leaned back and crossed his arms. As he did, Birdy noticed a series of jagged scars, some faint, others far more recent. Her eyes hovered over the scars, but she didn’t remark on them.
    “No,” he said, biting off his words. “You saw what you saw, but God, Birdy, you know me . You know I couldn’t have hurt Anna Jo. It isn’t in me to hurt anyone, least of all her.”
    “Why didn’t you say so?” she asked, though she knew he had. At least to her. He had told her on that sodden trail just after it happened.
    “You mean take the stand to testify? Like anyone would believe an unemployed drug user like me? That would have been pretty useless, don’t you think?”
    Birdy wanted to disagree with her long-lost cousin just then, but she knew he was probably right.
    “Do you hear from your family?” she asked, regretting the question almost the instant it came from her lips. Birdy hadn’t meant it to hurt him, she just wanted to know. Tommy’s mother, her aunt, had pretty much iced her out of that side of the family—payback for her testimony.
    He looked away at a little girl playing a card game with her father and Birdy answered for him.
    “I’m sorry. I thought ...” she said.
    “Mom’s been married twice now. Somewhere along the way she’s been too busy for me,” he said. “Not like I’m a kid anyway.”
    Birdy didn’t say so, but she understood. “I think I’ll get a Coke. Sure you don’t want one?” She looked at Tommy and a guard one table