Chapter 13

“-No. The riot was more like an ordinary, gang-up type fight,” Chega was saying, talking about a jailhouse riot that had made the papers a month or so ago.
It was Chega’s belief that the firebombing of Todd Purcell’s home was payback for the way some Gypsy-affilated inmates were treated during the incident.
Todd Purcell was part of an intervention team that broke up the fight.
“The native gangs and Gypsies are at war right across the country,” Chega said. “Mostly in our institutions. The fight broke out on the basketball court. Five Gypsies on three Warriors. By the time the team stormed in and tear gassed everybody, the natives were beat bad. One of them had a pencil they use for keeping score jammed up his nose, all the way. Can you imagine how much that shit hurt?”
“Geez,” Dawe said, wincing. “A pencil?”
“Brain damage,” Chega said.
Digby was anecdotally aquainted with Burnside’s reputation for violence. In many respects, she knew, the provincial jail was more brutal than any federal prison in the Maritimes, even Renous.
The Dartmouth jail had over 250 inmates and was easily home to as many hard offenders, percentage-wise, as a federal institution. Inmates at the jail were often hard-core criminals who just hadn’t been convicted yet of their most recent crime.
Perry Paul Spalding was a good example: The president of the Gyspies Motorcycle Club Halifax chapter, a reputed killer of 13, and perhaps the most dangerous man in the Maritimes, facing two counts of first degree murder, yet here he was languishing in provincial jail, waiting for a trial that would likely go on for years, next to your average gas station robber and pot dealing dipshit.
Something not quite right about that, Digby thought.
She picked up the skinny foam mattress on Spalding’s bed and scanned underneath.
“They dosed everybody,” Chega continued with his story. “They hose ‘em down with gas. Down on the Ground. Move! Then it’s up to the cells, everybody drenched in tear gas. But while the natives are off to the infirmary, the Gyspies get put in their cells for the next 24 hours, without being allowed to shower. Shower or even so much as clean linen. All they had was these tiny sinks to wash their dicks in-” He pointed to the petite hexagonal wash basin in Spalding’s cell. “-They had that Jesus tear gas on their skin all night and all the next day. Now that hurts. That’s enough to drive you nuts.”
He paused for effect.
“That is the new superintendent Doherty, new and improved, since his wife died, I’m sorry to say. God love her. He’s hard core now. He finally sprouted a set of nuggets after all these years...” Chega’s face was red and his eyes were watering. “I’ll tell you something, we guards were just starting to get some morale going around here. Now this happens….” He shook his head in disgust. “You cross a line when you bring our families into it. Something’s got to be done about it!”