SHADOWS AND LIGHT
CHAPTER 1
A partnership of weak men
Does not give strength.
Weakness multiplied by weakness,
Equals naught...
Elbert Hubbard
The lights were dimmed at either end of the
corridors.
The junior guard on duty dozed in his chair
with a half opened newspaper draped over his chest. The whisperings from inside
the locked room halfway down the hall went unheard amid the uneven snoring of
other inmates.
Jack Peters was senior guard on the night
shift. As he rounded the corner the slouched figure of the sleeping guard came
into view. Peters shook his head wearily then nudged the slumbering man in the
leg with the toe of his shoe.
The young guard slipped sideways then sat up
with a jerk startled, but awake again. He looked up at his supervisor
sheepishly.
Jack said nothing to the guard, he didn’t need
to. Peters stooped to pick up the fallen newspaper, handed it back to the young
man then walked on to check the rest of the floor and the remaining guards stationed
in other halls on that level.
Bowden was a small, medium security prison, but
it hadn’t always been so. When Jack Peters first started working there thirty-seven
years before, it had been a correctional center for young and first time
offenders to get counseling and finish high school. Back then all of the
offenders had been in their early and late teens. But that changed over the decades. Slowly each
of the rooms had been refitted with new doors as well as heavy metal doors
between all adjoining corridors.
The windows had been sealed with heavy wire
mesh. A security fence that surrounded the grounds outside the perimeter of the
buildings - was wired to an alarm system with floodlights powered by the
prison’s generator. The guards were required to carry guns.
By nature Jack was a gentle man. He liked
people and his years at Bowden even with the changes in the inmate population
hadn’t hardened him. And he was liked and respected by inmates and fellow
guards. Or more accurately, he was liked by those inmates capable of such
feelings.
However Jack’s years at Bowden did cause him to
view the prison system like a quilt thrown over rumpled bed sheets. The bed was
covered, but the lumps were still there just below the surface. And a few
inmates at Bowden were extremely nasty lumps.
There were five cons who Jack believed should have been in a maximum security
prison like Spy Hill, but who so far had either been clever enough, or lucky
enough to end up at Bowden.
He stretched just before he passed through
another set of locked doors, nodded to the guard working on a crossword puzzle
then moved on to the last section.
Static whisperings were followed by a faint
scratching sound that came from behind the third locked door of Section ‘A’.
The novice junior guard ceased dozing and once again slipped into a deep sleep.
A thin slight shaft of metal was maneuvered
expertly into place to slide the bolt just far enough so the door could be
jimmied opened with a quick almost soundless pop not triggering the alarm. The
fine, delicate boned hands of Guy Lester worked patiently. At precisely the
right moment the strong meaty hands of Bruce Morgan pushed the door,
ever-so-slightly.
This was strictly a two-man escape and neither
Lester nor Morgan wanted to awaken any other inmates.
The newest guard in their section had been like
a gift. New guards at other stations had dozed off occasionally during an
evening shift, but none with the predicable regularity of young Dennis Hall.
As the two men glanced cautiously down the
corridor in the direction of the guard’s booth, they saw at once that their
timing had been perfect.
Morgan and Lester were about the same height,
but everything else was a distinct opposite. Guy Lester was five feet eight
inches, fine boned, and extremely thin. He barely tipped the scales at one
hundred and forty-five pounds. Bruce was an inch shorter, but far stockier.
Bruce Morgan resembled a football player with muscles that bulged like padding.
He was another thirty-two pounds heavier than his reckless partner, not an
ounce of which was fat.
Morgan paid about the same level of attention
to detail as that of a grazing dairy cow. Lester’s mind on the other hand
trapped all information on anything as if it were a valuable leverage tool.
With the paper thin metal retrieved and tucked
into Lester’s shoe the door reclosed behind them. They dropped to their knees
and crawled hugging the wall with the top sheet from each of their bunks tied
around their waist. Lester carried a coat hanger between his teeth.
The crawling figures reached the center of the
narrow connecting corridor between ‘A’ section and ‘C’ section. Bruce Morgan
stood first and walked over to the wall below an upper and lower panel of
windows then braced his back against the wall.
Guy Lester stood next checked both directions
then joined Morgan. Wordlessly Morgan bent down cupping his hands to form a
foothold for Lester. In one effortless movement, Bruce Morgan raised up as
Lester stepped onto his shoulders. They’re practice made perfect.
Deftly maneuvering one end of the coat hanger,
Lester pulled an upper window latch sideways releasing it. The window swung
down toward him held by heavy bras hinges. Lester pulled his body up gripping
the lower edge of the opened window frame and slipped through as easily as a
letter in a mail slot.
Then awkwardly bent forward, he straddled the
window sill and untied a single sheet from around his waist and retied one end
of it around the drainpipe from the roof.
Morgan quickly knotted one end of his sheet to
the free end of Lester’s. Beads of nervous perspiration formed across his
forehead and along his upper lip. He wished to hell this was over. He gave the
knotted linens a slight tug then pulled himself up the side of the wall with
his feet pressed against the narrow space between the lower windows that were
wired to the alarm system.
By the time Morgan reached the open window
Lester was already waiting on the ground below. But Morgan only managed to get
his head, upper shoulders and left arm through the narrow opening. His heavily
developed chest became wedged. The more he struggled the more difficult it
became to breathe. Nervous sweat glued his shirt to his skin. He was on the
verge of panic.
“Guy!” Bruce’s voice was a raspy whisper. “I’m
stuck in this shitin window! Can har-dly bre-athe!” He winced as the edge of
the casing dug deeper into his ribs.
Lester really wanted to leave Morgan just where
he was, but he knew Morgan would bring down the entire prison. He had no choice
except to help him get through the opening somehow.
Quickly he climbed back up the side of the
drainpipe then leaned over to grip Morgan’s free arm and pulled. Morgan’s body
gave a little, but Lester’s grip around the drainpipe slipped and he started
sliding back down.
With considerable effort Lester worked his way
up the pipe again, the muscles in his arms stung from unaccustomed strain. This
time when he leaned over he pulled the tied lengths of sheet through the open
window.
“Can’t shit-in bre-athe…” Morgan panted his
face muscles knotted in pain.
“Shudup!” Lester snapped, his tone a hiss more
than a whisper. “Don’t talk and fer piss ass sake keep it tugether.”
Lester looped the free end of the sheet around
Morgan’s upper left arm then with one hand, fumbled awkwardly to tie it in a
knot. “Grip tha sheet wit yur uther hand here.”
He pointed to a place a short distance from the
knot. “I’ll swing down and hang frum the sheet cause it’s gonna take all ma
weight to pull ya through. Let out all the air frum yur lungs and grab the edge
of the winder when I say so. Got it?”
Morgan nodded weakly.
Grabbing the sheet part way down, Lester swung
away from the pipe with a jerk. “Now!”
With what little air left in his lungs
expelled, Morgan grasped the sheet weighted by Guy Lester’s body. He was moved
just enough to get his right arm free.
With both arms out and taking only shallow
breaths Morgan gripped the upper outside window ledge then tugged again on the
sheet a second time with Lester still acting as a human weight. He felt a
sudden sharp stab in his left side with the second tug that freed his upper
chest and back.
Lester let himself drop to the ground.
Exhausted Morgan lay bent over the window sill
like a wet towel draped on a hook. It hurt to breathe even though he was free.
“Shit Mo cum on. We ain’t got a gawd dam week!”
Morgan eased further through the window enough
to get his left leg out and straddle the sill. His left side felt on fire as he
unknotted the sheet then let them both drop to the ground. Reaching the drainpipe Morgan winched with the
effort it took to hold on with his left hand and reclose the window using the
end of the coat hanger.
On the ground beside Lester, Morgan shivered
with the chilled air against his sweat soaked T-shirt under his jumpsuit.
Lester rolled up both sheets for their next hurdle.
Crouching close to the ground Lester and Morgan
were shrouded in shadow as they moved away from the northeast corner of the
main building. The only outside lights were fixed and mounted to each roof on
the front corner guard towers. Each tower was a bullet-proof glass enclosed
platform twenty feet from ground level. The only rotating flood lights were
activated if the alarms sounded.
The cons watched both guards for a full minute.
One guard had his head down intently writing. The second guard at the opposite
corner of the front yard, wore headphones and swayed, bobbed then twirled in
shaky movements.
Morgan tapped Lester on the shoulder pointing.
“Shit, one’s writin his gawd damn memoirs and the other’s fartin aroun to
music.”
Lester nodded. He wasn’t surprised. The
converted reformatory wasn’t built for hardened adult criminals. Many of the
guards at Bowden were original staff not expecting much in the way of trouble.
Bruce and Guy separated working their way to
the front gates from the opposite direction. Morgan moved slower gripping his left
side as a sharp pain jabbed.
They kept close to, but not touching the
electrified high-wire fence. When they reached the gate Morgan held his side
and it was obvious to Lester that Morgan wouldn’t be able to give him a leg-up
over the top of the gate first.
Instead he rechecked the positions of both
guards then refolded his sheet with Morgan’s then threw them over to cover the
top of the gate with multiple layers. This time Lester fit his hands together
in a toehold clasp.
When Morgan stepped into Lester’s hands and he
tried to straighten up. Lester staggered and nearly fell, as Morgan grabbed for
the sheet covered gate then hauled himself over the top on his right side and
down the front of the gate out of the compound.
The sheets overlapped and draped just enough to
cover the top and down either side of the gate as protection from the
electrical current. Even so, Morgan had felt a slight tremor that left him a
little shaky after dropping to the gravel.
By this time his left side felt as if it might
explode. The pulsating pain was so intense it was as if his blood had been
brought to a boil inside his ribcage.
Lester’s nerves were shreds. As flat to the
ground as he could get, he watched the guards.
If he fumbled his attempt to get over the top
he’d either be fried, or spotted, or both. The guard in the northeast tower was
still seated with his head bent down in exactly the same position and the guard
in the southeast tower was still dancing to music.
He jumped up and sprang to grab the top of the
eight-foot gate, pulled his body over taking the sheets with him. A slight
shiver of current went through him as his hands gripped the top of the gate,
but after he landed on the road on the other side he was fine.
Morgan had moved to the side of the road out of
sight.
Lester ducked down again and made one quick
parting check of the guards. The seated guard in the north tower was stretching
his arms high above his head and the guard in the south tower was removing his
head phones.
Lester joined Morgan and stayed low half
walking, half crawling toward a farmer’s field to the north of the prison. It was 1:12AM. The breakfast
headcount was not until eight. They had an impressive almost seven hour head start.
CHAPTER 2
Fickle mirrors reflect our lives
Reality comes and goes.
Images appear radiate then yield –
To Light and to Shadows…
s.t.b.
One year earlier…
Jim Baker listened to the sound of his whirring
tires as he sped under the Elbow River Bridge and past a stand of poplar.
It was so much easier and faster to take the
bike paths between home and work. This way he only needed to cross eight
streets that shuffled congested vehicle traffic.
He expected Laura would be surprised to see him
this early in the afternoon. He’d left in such a hurry he hadn’t even changed
from his dress shirt and tie before leaving the office. He also anticipated
she’d be excited about his latest promotion and their transfer opportunity to
Nova Scotia from Alberta.
He smiled to himself imagining the expression
on his wife’s face while he pointed his bike toward the gate that opened out
onto the neighborhood street six blocks from their restored 1926 bungalow.
The Canada Post driver was running late. Taking
a shortcut he maneuvered up the hill and around the corner of the quiet,
vintage neighborhood.
A broken tree branch obscured a faded stop sign
just before a bend. As the driver accelerated out of the turn the blur of a
speeding cyclist emerging from the park became the sound of a hollow thud
against his front right fender.
………..
Sergeant Neil McKenzie found the address and
stopped his unmarked police car at the curb. He took a deep breath checking the
home address on the driver’s license of the deceased a second time. He noticed
that he and the late Jim Baker were the same age. The family photo in the
wallet of the traffic victim made this part of his job and what he needed to do
next a task he dreaded.
He removed his nightstick and revolver, locking
them in the car trunk then headed up the brick walk and onto the wide front
porch.
The woman who opened the front door had
sweetest smile he had ever seen. She reminded him of the Walt Disney drawing of
Snow White with pale clear skin, dark
shoulder length hair, dark lashes and expressive dusty blue eyes.
Neil McKenzie wished he could run, instead he
swallowed hard and did his job. “Mrs. Baker?”
“Yes I’m Laura Baker.” Her expression was
completely open and trusting. “May I help you?”
“I’m Sergeant Neil McKenzie, Alberta ‘K’
Division of the RCMP. I have some news Mrs. Baker may I come in for a few
minutes?”
The woman opened the door wider indicating a
chair just inside the living room to the right of the front entrance. As he
scanned the room Sergeant McKenzie heard the laughter of young children playing
in the backyard.
The uniformed officer didn’t sit, but handed
Laura her late husband’s drivers’ license. “Is this your husband, James Matthew
Baker ma’am?”
Laura nodded then tilted her head looking back
at the officer confused.
“It is with deep regret I must inform you that
James Baker was killed this afternoon.”
She frowned then stared unable to absorb the
officer’s words. “What?” And then in a heartbeat it hit her. Jim was late and
this man was in her living room and Jim’s driver’s license was in her hand…
Sergeant McKenzie caught Laura Baker in his
arms before she hit the wood floor. And he was carrying her to the sofa when
her children came running from the kitchen through the swinging dining room
door.
“Mom! Mom, guess what…?” Megan and Matthew
Baker burst through the doorway just as a policeman laid their mother down on
the living room sofa.
“Who are you?” Megan frowned.
“I’m Sergeant Neil McKenzie with the Royal
Canadian Mounted Police.” He responded formally, judging their ages to be about
four or five. “I came to talk to your mother. She just fainted.”
“Where’s your gun?” Matthew moved cautiously
from the corner of the dining table across the front entrance hall and into the
living room. He peeked over the arm of their leather sofa to check on his
mother.
McKenzie pointed out through the living room
window. “It’s there, in the trunk of my car. Is there a neighbor one of you can
call for me? Your mother shouldn’t be alone.”
“Is she sick? Dad will be home soon.” Megan
joined her brother at the end of the sofa.
Sergeant McKenzie cringed inside.
“Our Aunt Susan just lives down the street on
the corner. Her business office is in her house.” Matthew offered. “I’ll get
her.”
………..
Sergeant McKenzie had watched for the funeral
announcement in the newspaper, but was conflicted about attending the gravesite
service. When he checked the duty posting for the first week of June and
discovered he had that day off, he decided he would drive by the cemetery, but
park away from the funeral procession.
The expression on Laura Baker’s beautiful,
innocent face was still vivid in his memory.
He deliberately arrived late hoping that no one
around the gravesite would notice him, but as he came up the hill behind a
lilac hedge almost all of the attendees were returning to their cars except
Laura Baker, her daughter Megan and Laura’s sister Susan. He looked, but didn’t
see the little boy Matthew.
“Hi Mr. Sergeant.” Matthew landed on his feet.
“Where did you come from?” Matthew Baker
startled McKenzie.
“I climbed up in that tree.” The small boy
pointed to a mountain ash that grew at the end of the lilac hedge. “You look -
kinda different in a suit. Did you quit bein a RMP?”
Sergeant McKenzie tried not to smile. “No I
didn’t quit. This is my day off. How’s your mother?”
Matthew shook his head. “She’s not doin so
good.”
McKenzie knelt down putting both hands on
Matthew’s shoulders. “How are you and your sister doing?”
Matthew shrugged. “I don’t know. I wish I could
see my dad. He was at his office a lot, but he promised to take me fishing.
Aunt Susan says when someone dies that means they don’t come home again.”
“M-a-t-t-h-e-w.” Megan’s young voice pierced
through the cool morning air.
“I’m over here.” He waved. “I’m talking to Mr.
Sergeant.”
Laura and her sister turned to follow Megan as
she ran in Matthew’s direction. When Laura Baker spotted Sergeant McKenzie, she
gave him a weak wave.
Taking both kids by the hand McKenzie walked
toward their mother and aunt. Laura Baker looked to Neil as if she had lost
weight and her fair skin was even paler, contrasted against dark sunken eyes.
“It’s my day off.” He explained. “I just
thought I’d stop by and see if there was anything I might do for any of you.”
“It’s wonderful that you’d make such an offer.”
Susan took her sister’s arm, cautious and protective. “Sergeant McKenzie, is
that correct?”
Neil nodded. “Neil McKenzie.”
Laura looked up at the rugged, handsome face
that looked back at her with such calm strength, she wanted to ask him to share
his composed authority, instead she said. “I planned to call your office in a
few weeks and thank you for looking after me and my children until Susan
arrived.”
Laura’s voice was almost a whisper. “I don’t
know how often you must give people news like you had to give me, but I’m sure
it doesn’t get easier with time.”
“Mom, can we go now? Can we get some ice
cream?”
Laura’s attention shifted to her son. “Ice
cream? For some reason that sounds like a perfect idea. Will you join us
sergeant, I mean Neil?”
The sound of his name from her voice caused him
unexpected turmoil with an internal warning. “Thank you. That does sound like a
perfect idea, but I have another appointment.” He lied.
“Since you still have my card, call anytime if
you think I can help in anyway.”
He gave both kids a hug and left after walking
Laura and her family back to their waiting limousine.
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