by Sarah Lovett
"It's okay, Ray," Sylvia said softly. "I'll be okay."
After a moment, Ray nodded. "If you need me . . ."
"Thanks," she murmured. When she was alone with Matt England she pointed at a dark smear on the floor. "Is that his blood?"
"We'll find out. We've already collected samples," England answered. He fingered the keys on his belt while he spoke.
"I wasn't ready for this." Sylvia's voice dropped. The first sight of the damage had left her stunned and feeling violated.
"Do you know who's responsible?" Matt England asked.
"You don't?" Sylvia heard her anger breaking through. "Lucas Watson walked away from St. Vincent's hospital last night. I know it's not your job to make assumptions, but who the hell do you think did this?"
"Matt?" A uniformed trooper appeared in the doorway. He cleared his throat, kept his eyes on England, and said, "We're ready."
England gave Sylvia an appraising glance. "I'd like you to follow me, but don't touch anything."
Sylvia willed herself forward, but her body resisted. Instead, she slumped against the wall and pressed both hands to the cool plaster. The truth was, she didn't know whether she could cope. She wondered if she was coping now.
"Do you need to sit down?"
Matt England's voice sounded far away. Sylvia felt sick, angry, and on the verge of losing control. Only her rage gave her the energy to follow England down the hall.
The destruction was worse in her bedroom. Her bedspread was turned down and wrinkled as if someone had slept on it. In the center of the duvet, Sylvia saw her clothes laid out neatly: her stockings, her black lace brassiere and silk underpants. Red velvet high heels had been placed on the floor. She sniffed something strange—the air was infused with a distinctive metallic odor.
The trooper and a female forensic evidence technician stood near the bed whispering in hushed tones. Sylvia stared at them dumbly. For a few seconds she couldn't swallow. Since entering the house, she had been aware of her own growing discomfort. At first, the sensation was a vague tightness in her stomach, then it seeped up to her chest, and finally, it took her by the throat. Instead of her clothes, it might easily have been her own body arranged neatly, lifelessly, on the bed.
England blocked her further entry into the room and nodded toward the wall at the base of her bed. "He left you a message."
At first she saw only the watercolor in the shattered frame, the carved wooden Día de los Muertos figurines, and the massive armoire. It took her a moment to make out the words written in red lipstick on the armoire's mirrored door. She began to read: "Once you spill the first—"
"Once you spill the first blood, there's no turning back." England's voice sounded unnaturally loud. "Do you know what he meant?"
Sylvia shook her head, but she still couldn't speak. She locked the sentence in her memory and allowed England to usher her out of the room. He stopped at the bathroom door and let her look inside. A lab technician was seated on the edge of the porcelain tub brushing surfaces with dark powder. Sylvia examined her own bathroom as if it belonged to a stranger. The shattered cosmetic bottles and their contents—the creams, the lotions, the shampoos—that were coagulating on the floor formed a Rorschach pattern. Damp towels hung like drapery over the toilet.
Detachment felt safe.
"He took a shower." She registered surprise that her question had come out as a statement. Matt England nodded.
They returned to the living room, and the patrol officer brought coffee in Styrofoam cups. Sylvia gulped the scalding liquid and glanced at her watch. It was already 6 A.M.; sunshine penetrated the east-facing windows and spilled onto the floor. When she kept her eyes on that spot, it was possible to believe nothing was wrong. That square of tile seemed normal, the way the rest of the house had always been before last night. She drank more coffee, sipping this time, and turned to find Matt England watching her. He was seated on the chair again.
Sylvia faced him. "He urinated in the bedroom?"
England rubbed a hand through short graying hair. Deep lines stood out around his eyes; his tanned face looked faded and dull. "You're the shrink, you tell me."
"He marked my clothes and the bed with body fluids—urine and semen. Did you find any shit?"
"No." England reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a roll of Life Savers. A thin ribbon of wrapper trailed from his hand. He knocked a green candy off the roll with his thumb, popped it into his mouth, and then offered the pack to Sylvia. "You must have a pretty good idea what he was after."
She pictured it then, the pouch, leather soft and dark with the oil of fingers and constant fondling. It had been like a worry bead for Lucas Watson, tucked away in the dark corners of his consciousness. It meant so much to him, he would commit violence to get it back. But he hadn't just come for his pouch; his behavior in the bedroom had convinced her of that. The clothes laid out so carefully on the bed, the masturbation, the lipstick message—all impressed her as elements of a private ritual he was acting out.
Matt England's voice disturbed her thoughts like a stone on water. He said, "I'd like to hear about your drive home from Rodeo Nites." He held a small tape recorder in his hand and clicked it on.
"Don't you have better things to do?" Her voice was shrill. She began collecting broken glass from the antique picture frame on the floor near her foot. Her great-grandmother's Italian eyes gazed into space. Sylvia didn't feel the cut until beads of blood collected under the glass fragments in her palm. This was the third time in a week that she had injured her hands.
Matt England set the tape cassette down and began to reach out toward her.
"Don't!" Sylvia froze. She stared at her hand as if someone else had gathered the collection of broken glass.
He didn't speak. Instead he held up a wastebasket and Sylvia emptied her palm. He left for a moment and returned with a wet paper towel. She pressed it against the wound. He questioned her with professional concern. "You going to be all right?"
It was tempting to laugh, or cry, or scream, but somehow she gathered the self-control that had threatened to shatter as cleanly as the glass frame. It covered her now like a second skin. She took comfort in the familiar and repeated the sequence of events as she remembered them from the time she left Rodeo Nites. England held his questions until she was through. What route home did she take? What did the first cop at the roadblock tell her? Had the lock given her trouble before?
"I meant to get it fixed weeks ago—" Her voice trailed off as the realization hit her. When she spoke again, her voice was flat. "He was in the house while I was at the door."
Matt England cleared his throat and bit off a yellow Life Saver from the pack. "That's my guess. He broke a window in back."
"Jesus, I can't . . . can we go outside?" Sylvia stepped out, saw the familiar landscape, scrubbed hills, cottonwoods, and took several deep breaths. The fresh air was jarring and felt clean. Ray was standing near Sylvia's car; his face wore a quizzical expression. She waved at him and followed England into his unmarked Chevy. He started the engine and turned the heat on full. Sylvia aimed the closest vent toward her chest, felt the hot air, and closed her eyes. England looked at the woman seated next to him. She hunched forward in the seat, her face shaded by the visor. England felt his own fury at her emotional defenses dissipate as he realized his courtroom adversary was now another victim. She puzzled him. He knew she wasn't someone who let her guard down easily, and yet her vulnerability was tangible. He felt a twinge of regret for the way he'd treated her at Rodeo Nites.
"What?" Sylvia asked. "You've been staring at me."
"A security guard and a C.O. caught Billy Watson at the hospital. Apparently, he helped his brother escape."
"Thanks for telling me."
"Why don't you tell me about the pouch?"
Sylvia was silent for a moment before she said, "Because Rosie already told you." She crossed her arms.
Matt England spoke quietly. "I don't give a damn about your h
ouse. I'm worried about what he would have done to you. What he still wants to do to you. That message on the mirror was fairly graphic."
"Lucas Watson didn't come here to kill me."
Matt England almost choked on his Life Saver. "You don't think he's dangerous?"
"Oh, he's dangerous; but he came here to tell me something, not to murder me."
The scorn in England's voice was thick. "What did he want you to know . . . that he's from a dysfunctional family unit? His father works hard to keep that fact a secret." Matt was well acquainted with Lucas Watson's father. The senator from District 9 had a habit of using law enforcement when and how it suited him.
"Lucas needs help."
Matt gave a short humorless laugh. "No shit. But I don't think this was just a cry for help, Dr. Strange. I recommend you look into an alarm system for your house. Soon."
Sylvia pressed her forehead against the passenger window. She could smell coffee on her own breath. From the corner of her eye, she saw a patrol car. Another vehicle pulled into the driveway.
"Stay here," England said brusquely. "I'll be right back." He was gone for several minutes. He conferred with an officer, then disappeared inside the house. When he returned he pulled the door open with too much force. "They just apprehended Lucas Watson behind the country club less than a mile from here. Looks like he was on his way back to find you."
WIND SENT CLOUDS scudding across the moon as the van transported Lucas Watson and two correctional officers to pod 3-B North Facility. He'd been questioned all day by the state police, Rosie Sánchez, and others whose faces he couldn't remember. It was almost a relief to arrive at Maximum; at least he'd be left alone. The C.O.s guided him through the medical sally port next to Administration. When Watson stepped out of the van, handcuffed, his first sight was a metal fence and razor ribbon three layers deep. Although he'd heard about North Facility, Maximum, he'd never seen beyond the walls. One C.O. spoke into a radio, and the sixteen-foot-high gate slowly rolled back to reveal a diagonal walkway that was completely encased to form a caged tunnel. Beyond the tunnel, in the yard, a dome of branches was draped with animal skins. It was a sweat lodge used by Indian inmates.
Watson saw a small square building constructed of naked concrete blocks to the right of the yard: the death house.
The three men kept walking.
When they reached the orange steel doorway to the housing unit, the C.O. on Watson's left pressed a black button and stated his business through the intercom. There was a loud buzz and the C.O. pushed the door open. Inside, meshed windows on pod doors revealed a concrete wasteland.
Someone tapped metal on glass, an officer in the control booth overhead. Shoved from behind, Watson entered the strip cage beneath the booth. He felt eyes on him, at least five pairs of eyes, and at the same time, he heard the long thin sound of keening, the sound that passed for music in housing unit 3-B. It rose like a ribbon echoing off ten-inch prefab concrete walls, and, because there was no escape, crashed down again in despair.
Lucas blocked out the sound. He'd never be broken by this place, by these enemies. In every fiber of his body, he knew he'd have his pouch back soon. This escape had failed, but there were other ways.
CHAPTER TEN
WHEN ROSIE PASSED the officer's lounge, the afternoon C.O. shift briefing was in full swing. The lieutenant on duty was announcing a temporary halt to repairs on the roof of North's gym. Civilian workmen had been mending leaks at both the Main and North facilities. "Security clearance will remain as is for the next five days. The workers' names are on the list, and no replacements will be allowed—no exceptions—without written approval from the warden's office."
Rosie groaned; all she needed were more outraged inmates who couldn't get their daily exercise. She blocked out the uninspired drone of the lieutenant's deep voice, caught a glimpse of brown uniforms, bored expressions, and blue plastic chairs, and sighed. She was frustrated by the lack of progress on what she now called the jackal case. She wasn't getting hard information from her standard informants, but the grapevine was simmering: The joint's gonna blow, man. And despite the unrest caused by the missing limbs, despite the pen's population running at an all-time high, the warden had stuck his head in the sand like the governor's ostrich.
Rosie rapped on an open door and entered the office of Colonel Gonzales.
He looked up from the white mountain of reports on his desk and waved a hard square of chewing gum at Rosie Sánchez. "I quit smoking," he announced. He was in his early fifties, a medium-sized man who still packed his uniform with muscle. His hair was brown and thick except where an island of scalp was starting to show on top. The smile was leisurely, but the eyes never slowed.
Rosie sat in the single chair facing his desk. "Does gum help?"
"Nicorette. Nope, it doesn't help a bit." He leaned back in resignation, and his belly pressed over a thin brown belt. "So, what are we going to do about our unhappy campers? I got a bad feeling, a déjà vu from 1980."
"We farm out about two hundred inmates so we're back to normal overcrowding, we separate gang members, we fix the gym. Then we find out who's causing the trouble; who chopped Angel Tapia's finger, and what happened to Swanson's penis. When we do those things and answer those questions, we cool things down." Rosie crossed her legs and drummed the metal arms with her fingernails.
"You got a plan?"
"I'm on my way to interview Bubba Akins."
Colonel Gonzales snorted. "Areeyyyan Brotherhood!" He popped the gum into his mouth and made a face. "That sonofabitch breathes on you, you die. But Bubba was locked up tight in North when Angel's pinkie took a walk."
Rosie smoothed a wrinkle in the ankle of her stocking and nodded. "Most of his Aryan brothers weren't."
The colonel patted his breast pocket automatically before remembering he had joined the ranks of nonsmokers. He frowned and said, "You think his white boys are doing it? Bubba's never been a snitch."
"Why do you think I came to see you?"
"You missed me?"
She put both hands on the colonel's cluttered desk. "Bubba Akins saved your life during the riot. If anybody knows his soft spot . . ." She left the sentence dangling, waiting for Gonzales to push away the memories of his forty-eight hours in hell.
Colonel Gonzales fingered a tuft of dark hair sprouting from the well of his ear. "He's got a squeeze . . . Sugar, or Shug. He's crazy about her. She's trouble—got caught with a coke balloon in her mouth, got her name rubbed off the visitor's list."
"Anything else?" Rosie stood.
"Yeah. He saved my life because I always gave him a fair deal. But he killed at least three inmates with his bare hands. Don't forget, Bubba's an asshole with his own brand of justice." Colonel Gonzales removed the wad of gum from his mouth and tossed it toward a trash can. With a splat, it landed an inch below the outside rim and stuck.
At the door Rosie turned and said, "By the way, José. Was it doctor's orders?"
"What?"
"To give up smoking?"
"Are you kidding?" José Gonzales shook his head thoughtfully. "Who listens to the doctor?" He threw Rosie a rueful smile. "My wife's orders."
THE PERMANENTLY SUNBURNED bulk of Bubba Akins filled the doorway of the examination room of North's hospital. He shot Rosie a puzzled look and slapped his fat thighs. "I thought I was gettin' a shot or somethin'."
Rosie stood and motioned to a chair. She held her breath when Akins sat, but somehow the wood accommodated his great mass. "I wanted somewhere we could talk without interruption," Rosie said.
For a moment there was only the sound of his labored breath. His nose had been pulverized so many times it lay flat against his doughboy face.
Rosie examined him carefully. The perfect white supremacist, she thought: mean eyes, florid skin, the body of a giant oak. A chill ran down her body.
As if he read her thoughts, Akins shot her a lewd smirk. "I can't think of anythin' you and I have to talk abou'. . ." He dropped the phonic at
the end of a word like he was too lazy to keep his lips working.
"Wrong, Bubba," Rosie answered.
Bubba Akins's response was to shrug his thick shoulders and rework his lips into a wet grin.
"You earned yourself a reputation," Rosie said.
Bubba's grin widened.
"Too bad that reputation can't help you on visiting day." She returned his smile. "I hear you've been talking to the compliance monitor."
The smile didn't waiver, but Akins's blue button eyes hardened.
"I thought maybe we could make sure there's no mix-up with Shug." Rosie kept her voice steady, then she crossed her arms and waited for the thought to sink in. She could almost hear the whine of Akins's brain grinding away on all three cylinders. She began slowly, "It's so long ago now, and since I wasn't here . . . I need someone with an accurate memory of the riot."
"Yeah. . ."
Rosie felt her way around the approach to Akins and decided direct was best. "I need to know about el chacal. The jackal." To her surprise, Akins laughed, a breathless snorting hoot.
"Yeah . . . the jacka'. People been lookin' for him for years. You want to know who lifted that pretty little beaner's finger?" Bubba Akins shifted his bulk to the edge of the chair so two legs rose from the floor. "The jacka' shoulda cut off that dirty homie's dick, steada his finga."
"Who is it, Bubba?"
"I ain't no snitch." Bubba Akins shook his head, "That all the problem you got, pretty señorina?" He smiled. "I think the warden after your sweet ass, huh? You don't catch this body snatcha, this hungry ghost, the warden gonna blame you when the riot goes down." He wagged a finger at Rosie. "But, I don't know nothin'. We talk 'bout nothin'. I jus' here for a shot of somethin'."
"Does the jackal exist? Tell me who he is. You could stop another riot."
"Riot? You talkin' to me 'bout a riot?" With a finger digging at his nose, Bubba Akins said, "Talk 'bout my sweet Shug, 'stead. The lady been treated real bad. Hell of a time gettin' in to see her sugardaddy."
