Washington Deceased by Michael Bowen

toward them. The only doorway opened to their right, channeling them through a modest lobby furnished with shell-shaped chairs made out of dove-gray molded fiberglass and tubular steel. On the other side of this room was another doorway, this one guarded by a metal detector. Correctional Officer Grade-2 Smith had already bounded out of the Building Security Office and was waiting for them on the opposite side of the metal detector.
    Wendy passed through the device without incident. Michaelson stepped confidently through and was startled when a harsh beep sounded, accompanied by a rasping buzz from the Building Security Office.
    â€œMust have some metal on you,” Smith said as he flipped a switch to cut off the alarms.
    â€œI don’t think so,” Michaelson muttered, genuinely puzzled. “The detector at the Guard House didn’t go off.”
    â€œI crank the ones I’m in charge of up a couple of clicks,” Smith said.
    Michaelson’s belt buckle was leather and his car keys and loose change rested in a plastic tray beside the protesting device. He patted the pockets of his sport coat, felt something underneath the lining of the breast pocket, and sheepishly fished it out. It was a nail clipper, smaller than Wendy’s little finger. He dropped this into the plastic tray and passed again through the metal detector while Smith nodded knowingly.
    â€œWe’re here to visit Desmond Gardner,” Wendy told the guard.
    â€œRoom 104,” Smith said. “Straight down the ground floor corridor, on your left. Inmate Gardner is permitted to receive visitors in his room, in common areas, such as the lounge on the ground floor, and on the grassy area immediately surrounding this building. Don’t go anywhere else. Carry on.”
    Smith went back into his office.
    Their footsteps echoed hollowly as they walked down the corridor. Alternating red and white squares of vinyl tile covered a bare concrete floor that showed through in spots. There was no carpeting. Another video camera gazed down the length of the hall, and Wendy imagined expressionless people in light-brown-and-loden-green uniforms watching her on a TV screen somewhere as she tramped down the brightly lit passageway.
    â€œTo tell you the truth,” Michaelson said, “it reminds me of the graduate center dormitories at Harvard—except that we had to walk a lot farther to play tennis.”
    They paused in front of a wooden door marked 104. Wendy hesitated for a moment, glanced at Michaelson, then raised her hand and knocked tentatively. The sound of two or three steps came from inside and then the door swung open.
    â€œWendy!” Desmond Gardner exclaimed, surprise and delight lighting up his voice. He and his daughter hugged each other tightly.
    â€œI brought someone to see you,” Wendy panted when they had broken the clinch and she had gotten a chance to catch her breath.
    â€œSo you did,” Gardner said, glancing up in slight embarrassment at Michaelson. “I’m very glad to see you, Dick.” He reached out and shook Michaelson’s hand. “Sorry about ignoring you for a moment there. I asked Wendy when we talked Sunday to get in touch with you, but I had no idea she’d manage to get you out here so soon, and I certainly wasn’t anticipating that she’d be able to come along with you.”
    â€œI didn’t expect to get out here so fast myself,” Wendy said. “I didn’t get a chance to phone yesterday until it was too late to get a call through.”
    â€œGood to see you again, Senator,” Michaelson said.
    Gardner stepped back from the doorway so that Wendy and Michaelson could move into his nine by nine foot room.
    â€œI wish it could have been under different circumstances,” Gardner said. “But that’s the way it is. We are where we are.”
    Michaelson glanced around. The room combined the depressing and the pathetic. The walls