The Last Prisoner — Walter Rice

Prison is for the guilty - and sometimes the innocent.

Mitch Souder is a black science teacher serving a 25-year term for the murder of a white high school girl. He maintains his innocence and refuses to show remorse for a crime he insists he didn't commit.

Ten years into his sentence at the age of thirty-eight, Souder learns that his prison has to close because it's a health hazard. Over several months, inmates are moved to other facilities, but Souder remains. When almost all the cells are empty, the warden tells Souder his fate is different. He becomes the last prisoner.

After thinking his appeals and protests have gone nowhere, Souder gets a second chance. The governor, a former prosecutor, has found problems with Souder's trial and so had arranged a special kind of parole. If Souder stays out of trouble for ninety days, his sentence will be commuted. If not, he'll go back to prison.

Souder has two college degrees and would love to teach again, but that's not the arrangement. Instead, he will be a barber, just as he has been in prison. He needs a job, and this is the offer.

He enjoys his freedom but adjusting is difficult. After his wife left him years ago, he finds a woman to love again but can't bear to tell her he's done time. Then there's the job, which is doable but doesn't pay enough to keep him afloat, even in his meager studio apartment with its peeling paint. Christmas is coming up fast, and he fears he'll be laid off and become homeless.
Then two people he thought he could trust offer him a way out. Big money is the payoff, but he'd have to become a criminal to get it. This is Souder's pivotal moment. After years of maintaining he's not a killer, would he commit a felony to achieve financial stability and a decent life?

The answer seems to be a simple yes or no, but what if Souder could find a third way? As he deals with real crime, he finds himself involved with law enforcement, a sultry singer, politicians, millionaires and powerful lawyers. Justice is the ultimate prize, if he can seize it.

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Excerpt from Chapter 14:

Souder's legs carried him back to his apartment without much thought. That was good because his mind was occupied with figuring out how to survive December after he got laid off. Then he'd have to survive January without a job. No, that had to be nonsense. Surely he could pick up something, even part time. Something manual maybe.

He wasn't especially muscular but he was strong enough. He was able bodied. He could lift heavy boxes, bags of cement, iron bars, whatever. And if he weren't tied down at the barber shop, he'd have more time to look for work.

Vikki wasn't going to like the layoff. No way would she take that well. So he thought he probably wouldn't tell her right away. No need to worry her now because he might find other work in the meantime. Then the color of his money would be all the same.

He visualized those heavy boxes someone was going to pay him to lift. Sure, he could do that awhile, but it wasn't a future. He was thirty-eight now and had at least another twenty-five years of some kind of work. But heavy boxes? Even before his hair turned gray his back would have gone out. And then what?

Well, for one thing there was Randy's offer. Two hundred thousand sounded out of this world. Souder could see himself going to the gym and building up his back muscles. He could buy a car, take Vikki to a movie, to dinner. He could live like a real person.

If he didn't get caught.

But how could he give in now and risk losing the chance to have his sentence commuted and going back to prison? And it wouldn't be the dearly departed Bellwood State Penitentiary. It would be a different prison, presumably without asbestos, but a place he didn't know and with people and dangers he couldn't predict.