Текст книги "The Death Sculptor"

Автор книги: Chris (2) Carter

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

Fifty-Nine

Alice Beaumont was getting more and more frustrated. She had spent the entire day researching images on the Internet and waiting for the California State Prison in Lancaster to send her the information she was after. Despite the many phone calls and the urgent requests, they seemed to be in no hurry to oblige.

Her image research had hit a dead end every time. She’d spent hours poring over mythology and cult websites, but she’d found nothing new to add to what she’d found previously.

Alice wasn’t the kind of woman who’d sit on her hands and wait for things to get done around her. She needed to be involved, and she sure as hell was tired of waiting.

The drive from the Police Administration Building to the California State Prison in Lancaster took her just over two hours. She had called DA Bradley, explaining what she needed. Two phone calls and less than fifteen minutes later he had everything arranged. Warden Clayton Laver said that Alice was welcome to go over and gather together the records she needed herself. They could do it themselves, as the warden had said, but they were understaffed, underfunded and overworked, and it could still be a day or two, maybe more, before they got around to it.

Alice parked in the second of the two large visitors’ parking lots and made her way into the reception. She was greeted by Prison Officer Julian Healy, a black, six-foot-four mammoth of a man built like a water dam.

‘Warden Laver sends his apologies,’ Healy said in an unrecognizable southern accent. His vowels were long and drawn out, and there was a laziness about his voice, as if it was too much of an effort to talk quickly. ‘He’s tied up in something else at the moment and is unable to meet you. I was instructed to take you wherever you need to go.’ He smiled while slowly looking Alice over. She was wearing a navy-blue business suit, complemented by a light-gray silky blouse. Its top button was undone, exposing her neck and a delicate white gold chain with a diamond pendant. ‘You’ll have to button up your blouse. And I suggest you button up your suit jacket as well.’

‘It’s Africa-hot in here,’ Alice said, handing him her handbag for inspection.

‘That’s nothing compared to the kinda heat you’ll get if any inmates lay their eyes on you and that thin blouse of yours.’ He looked down at her shoes. ‘Good thing you’re not wearing open-toe shoes.’

‘What’s the problem with open-toe shoes?’

‘You’d be amazed at the number of inmates who have a thing for women’s feet, especially their toes. Double special if they are painted red or any shade of it. It drives them crazy. You might as well be naked. To avoid a libido explosion in general population, visitors aren’t allowed to wear open-toe shoes.’

Alice didn’t know what to say. She said nothing.

‘It says here you wanna check our library?’ Healy asked, reading from the sheet he had with him.

‘That’s right.’

‘Any particular reason?’

Alice regarded him for a heartbeat.

‘None of my business, right?’ Healy smiled. ‘OK. Follow me.’ He guided Alice out of the visitors’ reception area through the back door and across a three-lane road. They were inside the prison compound now. Behind them, the north wall stretched half a mile, with heavily armed guard towers every two hundred yards. The CSP in Lancaster had a design capacity of 2,300 inmates, but a total institution population of more than double that number. It housed both level-I and level-IV prisoners – level IV indicating maximum security, the highest level found in California institutions other than death row. Guarding the CSP in Lancaster was a very demanding job.

They reached the first building in the compound, a rectangular steel-and-concrete block two stories high. Healy swiped his security card at the front door and keyed in an eight-digit number. The heavy metal door buzzed loudly and clicked open. Inside, more armed guards. All of them looked like they were built to withstand a magnitude-8 earthquake. They moved through the building in silence, Healy gently nodding every time they came across another guard. They exited that first block and proceeded through an open-air walkway.

‘The library is in the basement of building F,’ Healy said. ‘There’s a much faster way of getting there, but that involves walking through the internal grounds, and there will be prisoners around. I’m just trying to make things easier for both of us.’

They walked for about three minutes. Healy repeated the process with his security card and keypad as they reached building F and the heavy door buzzed open. Inside, light came only from long florescent bulbs inside metal meshes that ran along the ceiling. They turned left into a long corridor. An inmate dressed in an orange jumpsuit was mopping the floor by the staircase. His tanned, muscular arms were covered in tattoos and scars. He paused and moved to one side, clearing the way for Healy and Alice. The whole corridor sparkled with such a shine that Alice couldn’t help but wonder if the inmate went back to the other end and started all over again as soon as he’d finished mopping the floor, repeating the process from sunrise to sunset.

‘Mind the floor, boss, it’s a bit slippery,’ he said with his head low, keeping his eyes on the floor.

The library was bigger than Alice expected, occupying the entire basement floor. Healy nodded at the armed guard at the front door and guided Alice into a small side room.

‘Please have a seat in here while I go get the librarian. He’ll help you with whatever it is that you need.’

Sixty

The room was a bland, ten-paces-by-six squared box – no windows, one heavy door. There was nothing there but a metal table bolted to the concrete floor, two plastic chairs that would have looked more at home on a patio, and the strong smell of thick bleach. Smell aside, the space reminded Alice of the interrogation rooms she’d seen at the PAB, minus the big two-way mirror mounted on one wall.

A full minute went by before Healy opened the door again. He was accompanied by a man half his size and twice his age. The little white hair he had left on his head was cropped short and neat. His face carried deep, sad wrinkles, testimony to a life spent mostly behind bars. Reading glasses balanced at the tip of a nose that had been broken several times. His eyes looked as though they had once carried a hard, mean look, but now were tired and resigned. He was wearing an inmate’s orange jumpsuit.

‘Our librarian called in sick today. This is Jay Devlin, our assistant librarian,’ Healy announced. ‘Has been so for nineteen years. He knows everything there is to know about this library. If he can’t help you find what you need in here, no one can.’

Devlin nodded politely but refrained from shaking Alice’s hand. He kept his arms by his side and his gaze low.

Healy turned and faced Devlin. ‘If she needs to go to the library floor, call Officer Toledo to escort her, you hear? I don’t want her out there by herself.’

‘No problem, boss.’ Devlin’s voice was a notch louder than a whisper.

‘If you need to use the john,’ Healy addressed Alice again, ‘Officer Toledo will accompany you and make sure it’s empty before you enter it. We don’t have women’s facilities in here, only in the visitors’ block. When you’re done down here, Jay will call up and I’ll come and get you.’

‘Yes, boss,’ she replied with a nod, almost giving him a salute.

Healy’s eyes narrowed and he gave her a look that could sour milk. ‘I hope you find our library to your liking,’ he finally said before exiting the room and allowing the door to slam behind him.

‘He’s not a man for jokes, is he?’ Alice said.

‘No, ma’am,’ Devlin replied, his posture timid. ‘Guards here don’t really care for jokes unless they involve us prisoners.’

‘I’m Alice.’ She offered her hand.

‘I’m Jay, ma’am.’ Again, he refrained from shaking it.

Alice took a step back. ‘What I need is quite simple. I just need a list of all the books an ex-inmate checked out from this library.’

‘All right.’ Devlin nodded, his gaze now moving back to her face. ‘That should be easy enough. Do you have the inmate’s number?’

‘I’ve got his name.’

‘No problem, we can work from that. What’s the name?’

‘Ken Sands.’

Devlin’s eyes fluttered for an instant.

‘I take it you know him.’

Devlin nodded and quickly ran a hand from his mouth to his chin twice. ‘I know every inmate that comes in here, ma’am. I’ve been here long enough. Since this library opened, really. Every different prison block here has an allocated day and time during the week when they can use the library. Not a good idea to mix inmates from different blocks, you know what I mean? But very few ever take advantage of what we have here. A pity, really. Ken, on the other hand, pretty much never missed an opportunity to sit and read. He loved his books. He loved studying. He visited this library more than any inmate I ever knew.’

‘That’s good. So we shouldn’t have much of a problem.’

‘Well, how long do you have, ma’am?’

Alice cocked a smile. ‘Did he read that much?’

‘He read a lot, but that’s not the problem. The problem is our system. It only started being updated and digitized at the beginning of the year. And that process is going real slow. Until its completion, we still have to use the old library-card system to catalogue our books. No computers.’ Devlin bobbed his head from side to side. ‘Which is a good thing for me. When the new system takes over, I’ll have to find something else to do. I’m not very good with them computers, ma’am.’

As part of the District Attorney’s office, Alice understood well why the digitization of prison libraries was moving at a snail’s pace. Everything the state’s government did was linked to a budget. That budget varied every year, and its allocation was supposedly directly related to prioritization. With so many reforms due to take place inside the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the prisoners’-library-system automation, Alice guessed, was pretty low on that priority list.

‘We use a library card for each inmate,’ Devlin continued after a brief pause. ‘Every time they check a book out, the book’s catalogue number gets added to the inmate’s library card together with the checkout date. The inmate’s number gets added to the book’s catalogue card. No names are used.’

Alice’s eyes widened. ‘So you’re telling me that I’m gonna get Sands’s library card, and all it’ll have on it is a whole bunch of numbers, no book titles?’

‘That’s right. You’ll then have to cross-reference that number with the book card to find the title.’

‘But that’s a crazy system. It will take anyone forever to find anything.’

Devlin gave her a shy shrug. ‘Time is the one thing we all have to spare in here, ma’am. Ain’t no use doing nothing fast. You just end up with more time on your hands and nothing to do with it.’

Alice couldn’t argue with that. ‘OK.’ She glimpsed at her watch. ‘Let’s get to it then. Where are all the cards and book lists kept?’

‘In file cabinets behind the checkout counter, ma’am, on the library floor.’

‘Let’s call the guard then. If that’s the system you guys use, I can’t do anything from here.’

Sixty-One

Officer Toledo was a whole foot taller than Alice and as wide as a wardrobe. He had a thick, peppered mustache over thin lips, a shaved head, and sideburns to rival Elvis. He accompanied Alice and Devlin out onto the main library floor and took position to the left of the book-checkout counter – four paces from the main door. There was something in the way his gaze kept reverting back to Alice that made her feel really uncomfortable.

The main library floor had enough seats for a hundred inmates, but at that time there were only a handful of them, scattered around the many Formica desks and tables. Like a scene from an old western movie, they all stopped what they were doing and lifted their heads at the same time to stare at Alice. A quick murmur followed, and it moved around the floor like a Mexican wave. Alice had no interest in finding out what they were saying.

‘What kind of books do you carry in here?’ Alice asked Devlin.

‘A little of everything, ma’am, except crime. We have no crime books of any sort – no crime fiction, no true crime, nothing at all.’ He chanced a smile. ‘As if that would make a difference. We have a big department on religious and school books, you know – math, history, geography . . . all that. Anyone could learn how to read, or complete their lower or high-school diplomas in here . . . if they wanted to. Not many do. We also have a large and up-to-date law section.’

‘What sort of books did Ken read?’

Devlin chuckled and scratched his chin. ‘Ken read everything. He was a fast reader too. But he liked them study books a damn lot. He took them correspondence courses – advanced, college stuff, you know. He had a smart brain on him. Because of them courses, he was allowed to request extra books for his studies. Books we didn’t have here. But because the state bought them, we got to keep them after he was done with them. No one else has ever checked them out.’ Devlin paused, screwed up his face and ran a hand through his short-cropped hair. ‘And then there are the books he read in here, sitting at the corner over there.’ He pointed to a desk at the far end of the hall. ‘The ones he didn’t check out. If books are only read in here, then they won’t go onto an inmate’s card either.’

Alice nodded her understanding.

Devlin showed Alice how the library cards were organized and where they were kept – a long wooden cabinet that ran along the entire back wall. In her mind, Alice was already starting to prioritize things. ‘Do you have a medical-books section at all?’

‘Yes we do,’ Devlin answered. ‘A small one. Let me show you.’

They left the book-checkout counter and moved onto the main library floor. Officer Toledo was never more than three paces behind them. Once again, every pair of eyes in the library looked up. Murmurs came from every corner, but again Alice made a point of not hearing any of it.

They carried on towards one of the bookshelves at the back.

‘This is our medical-book section,’ Devlin announced, indicating a small segment on the top shelf. It was comprised of twenty-four books. Alice made a mental note of its numeric range. ‘The only reason we have all those books is because they were part of one of Ken’s courses,’ Devlin said.

Alice asked to be shown two other book sections – psychology and art. She made a mental note of their numeric ranges as well.

‘OK, I just need some pen and paper and I can start.’

‘I can get you a pencil.’

‘That’ll do.’

They returned to the front of the library. Once back behind the checkout counter, Devlin handed Alice a few sheets of paper and a pencil, showed her the drawer in which she would find Ken Sands’s library cards, and left her to her task.

Ken Sands had ninety-two library cards, all of them packed full of book-catalogue numbers. He must’ve been one of those who could read a book a day. As Devlin said, time was something that every inmate had to spare, and it looked like Sands spent every spare second he had reading. It would take her forever to thoroughly check every card. Alice paused for a moment, her brain pondering the easiest and fastest way to work through them. She had an idea, and started jotting down catalogue numbers.

An inmate with a shaved head, who had been sitting quietly at the table closest to the checkout counter, approached Devlin and handed him a book.

‘This is a good book, Toby. I’m sure you’ll like it.’ Alice was way too busy writing down numbers to notice Devlin furtively inserting a slip of paper between the book’s pages. If anybody could get a message to someone outside Lancaster Prison, Toby could.

Police officers weren’t the only ones who looked after their own.

Sixty-Two

Many connoisseurs will say that the true lover of whisky will drink it with a little water, better still, spring water. Adding a little water to whisky before drinking will prevent its strength from numbing your senses and reducing your enjoyment. Water will also enhance the aroma and flavor of a whisky, bringing out its hidden characteristics. It is widely said that you should dilute your whisky with a fifth measure of water. Connoisseurs also frown upon those who add ice to their Scotch, since reducing its temperature will only freeze its aroma, and dull its taste.

Hunter couldn’t care less for what others said, connoisseurs or not. He enjoyed his single malt with a little water, not because it was considered the correct way of drinking it, but because he found that some whiskies were truly too intense to drink neat. Sometimes he enjoyed his Scotch with one, perhaps two cubes of ice, welcoming the coolness of the liquid as it slipped down his throat. Garcia drank his whichever way it came. Tonight, each had a single cube of ice in their glass.

They were sitting at one of the front tables inside Brennan’s, on Lincoln Boulevard – a dive bar famous for its turtle racing on a Thursday evening, and its jukebox’s classic-rock collection.

Hunter needed a break from his claustrophobic office, not to mention its morbid decoration of bloody crime-scene photographs and the replica body-part sculpture.

Hunter and Garcia both drank their whiskies in silence, each having his own rollercoaster of thoughts to deal with. Hunter had spoken with Doctor Hove on the phone. The toxicology-test results for Andrew Nashorn were in. Their prediction was correct. Traces of propafenone, felodipine and carvedilol were found in his blood, the same cocktail of drugs that was used to reduce Derek Nicholson’s heart rate.

A tall, long-haired blonde with a dancer’s lithe body and a walk that was as charming as it was sexy entered the bar. She was wearing skin-tight blue jeans, light-brown stiletto shoes, and a cream-colored shirt tucked in at the waist. Her surgically enhanced breasts stretched the thin cotton fabric so much the buttons were almost popping off. Hunter’s gaze followed her short walk from the entrance to the bar counter.

Garcia smiled at his partner but didn’t say a word.

Hunter had one more sip of his Scotch before stealing another peek at the tall blonde.

‘Maybe you should go talk to her,’ Garcia said, quickly tilting his head in the direction of the bar.

‘Sorry?’

‘Well your eyes are about to pop out of your head. Maybe you should go and say “hi”.’

Hunter studied Garcia’s face for a quick second before subtly shaking his head. ‘It’s not what you’re thinking.’

‘Of course not. But I still think you should consider talking to her.’

Hunter placed his glass down and stood up. ‘I’ll be right back.’

Garcia looked on, surprised, as Hunter made his way towards the bar and the tall blonde, who had already attracted plenty of male attention. Garcia wasn’t really expecting Hunter to make a move so quickly, if he made a move at all. ‘Now this should be interesting,’ he whispered to himself, shifting on his seat to get a better viewing position before leaning forward and placing both elbows on the table. He’d have given anything to have bionic ears at that moment.

‘Excuse me,’ Hunter said, coming up to the woman at the bar.

She didn’t even glance at him. ‘Not interested.’ Her voice was cold, monotone and a little snobbish.

Hunter paused a fraction. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘I said, I’m not interested,’ she repeated, taking a sip of her drink. Still not even a glance in Hunter’s direction.

Hunter smiled to himself. ‘Well, neither am I. I just wanted to call your attention to the fact that you have sat on some gum, which is now stuck to the back of your jeans like a big blob of green gunk.’ He tilted his head to one side. ‘Not such a great look.’

The woman’s gaze finally met Hunter’s for a split second before moving down. She twisted her body awkwardly, trying to look at the back of her jeans.

‘On the other side,’ Hunter said with a nod.

She twisted her body the other way, her hand shooting straight to her bum. The tips of her carefully manicured fingers touched the gooey mess of gum that ran from her bum cheek down to the top of her leg.

‘Shit,’ she said, pulling her hand away and looking at it with disgust. ‘These are Roberto Cavalli jeans.’

Hunter had no idea what difference that made. ‘They’re nice jeans,’ he said sympathetically.

‘Nice? They cost a fortune.’

Hunter stared back at her blankly. ‘I’m sure if you take it to a laundry service they’ll be able to get it off for you.’

‘Shit,’ she said again, making her way towards the rest room.

‘Well that was subtle,’ Garcia said when Hunter returned to the table. ‘What the hell did you say to her? All I saw was her grabbing her ass and then shooting straight out into the bathroom like a rocket.’

Hunter had a sip of his whisky. ‘Like I said, it wasn’t what you were thinking.’

Garcia chuckled and leaned back on his seat. ‘You’ve gotta work on your pick-up lines, man.’

Hunter’s cellphone rang in his pocket. He placed his glass down on the table and reached for it. ‘Detective Hunter.’

‘Robert, it’s Terry. I’ve got some info for you.’

Detective Terry Cassidy was part of the RHD team. Hunter had asked him to find out whatever he could on the whereabouts of the now-released Raul Escobedo, the rapist Nashorn had beat up before sending to prison.

‘I’m listening, Terry.’

‘Well, this guy you asked me to look into, Escobedo, he’s a bona fide piece of shit,’ Cassidy began. ‘Scumbags-R-us, you know what I’m sayin’? A rapist with a second hard-on for violence. They believe he raped as many as ten women.’

‘I know the original story,’ Hunter interrupted him. ‘What have you got?’

‘OK, our friend did some hard time inside. He got ten years for the violent rape of three women, the only three who’d testify. Now get this, during his spell inside, the barf bag repented. He found God.’ Cassidy paused, either for effect or because he was really insulted by the idea of someone like Escobedo saying that he was now reformed. Cassidy was a real Roman Catholic. ‘Inside, Escobedo started reading the Bible day and night, and took the theology program offered by the prison. He graduated with flying colors. Upon his release two years ago . . .’ another quick pause, ‘. . . you guessed it, he started preaching. Thinks he’s a reverend now, out there to spread the good word and help others repent. Calls himself Reverend Soldado. Named after Saint Juan Soldado, a folk saint revered by many in northwestern Mexico, where Escobedo’s family is originally from.’

‘Saint Soldier?’ Hunter asked, translating the name from Spanish into English.

‘That’s right,’ Cassidy confirmed. ‘I checked it out. The saint’s real name was Juan Castillo Morales. He was a private in the Mexican army. Now check this out, if you please . . . Castillo was executed in 1938 for the rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl from Tijuana. I shit you not, Robert – rape. His adherents believe that he was falsely accused of the crime, and they appeal to his spirit for help in matters of health, criminal problems, family, crossing the US–Mexico border, and other challenges of daily life.’ Hunter heard an uneasy chuckle from Cassidy. ‘Believe it or not, Escobedo named himself after a rapist saint. How’s that for having balls?’

Hunter made no comment. Cassidy proceeded.

‘He runs his own church, or temple, or whatever you wanna call it, in Pico Rivera. Personally, I’d just call it a cult. It’s called Soldiers for Jesus, would you believe that crap? Sounds like a terrorist group, doesn’t it? I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s now convincing the young women who join his group that they should give themselves to him as an initiation or something, making them believe that it’s the will of the Lord, and he’s the new Messiah. If he learned anything in prison, it was how to circumvent the law.’

‘Did you find out about his whereabouts on those dates and times I gave you?’ Hunter asked.

‘Yeah. As much as I already hate the guy, he can’t be the man you’re looking for. On the first date you gave me – June 19th, Escobedo was out of Los Angeles, hosting a service in San Diego. He’s planning to expand Soldiers for Jesus. The second date, June 22nd, he spent the entire day recording two CDs and a DVD. He sells them amongst his followers. He has loads of witnesses who’d testify to that. Escobedo is a cesspit of lies, stinky shit, and blasphemy, but he ain’t your killer, Robert.’

Hunter nodded to himself. Protocol said he needed to check, but he’d never really considered Escobedo as a real suspect. As a psychologist, and then as a detective for the RHD, Hunter had studied, interviewed and apprehended hundreds of murderers, and throughout the years he’d found that usually there was little to separate a murderer from the regular man on the streets. He’d met killers who were handsome, charming and charismatic. Some who looked like kindly grandfathers. Even some who were voluptuous and sexy. The real difference only surfaced once he started delving into their minds. But there were different kinds of criminals – different kind of killers. Escobedo was a rapist – lowest of the low. True, he was violent, but his only interest was in fulfilling his carnal desires. He’d never stalked his victims, simply randomly picking them from whoever was around on a given night. There was never any planning. Hunter knew that criminals like that very rarely changed their MO. Even if revenge were the motive, Escobedo would probably have shot or knifed his victims and fled the scene as fast as he could, not spent hours dismembering them and creating those grotesque sculptures – assigning to each one meanings hidden in the shadows. No, Escobedo didn’t have the knowhow, the patience, the intellect, or the nerve to commit such crimes.

‘Great work, Terry, thanks,’ Hunter said before closing his phone and returning it to his pocket. He told Garcia the news and they both finished their drinks in silence. As they got up to leave, the tall blonde came out of the bathroom and approached their table.

‘Sorry for earlier,’ she said, coming up to Hunter, her voice now charming, with a seductive tone. ‘And thanks.’

Garcia’s facial expression was a picture. ‘You’ve gotta be kidding me,’ he whispered.

‘Not a problem,’ Hunter replied.

‘I know I came across as being arrogant,’ she continued, her smile plastic, rehearsed. ‘I’m not always like that. It’s just that in places like this a woman has to watch herself, you know?’

‘As I said, it’s not a problem.’ Hunter maneuvered around her. ‘Enjoy the rest of your evening.’

‘Listen,’ she called as he turned to leave again. ‘I gotta go home and try to sort this mess out, but maybe we could have a drink some other time.’ She very expertly slipped Hunter a folded napkin. ‘Your call.’ She closed the whole thing with a sexy wink and walked out of the bar.

‘You’ve gotta be kidding me,’ Garcia whispered again.