"Every bit of evidence is circumstantial and the prosecution has twisted it to fit their theories. And, ladies and gentleman, that’s all they are, theories. Hypotheticals which can be reasonably and credibly explained. The real killer wore gloves. Of course my client’s fingerprints would be found on household items found in his own house. The DNA test results could have been falsified. It would take a very thorough investigation to scrutinize the State’s chain of custody over the evidence. They’re counting on you not to questioning this. Don’t let them dupe you like that. You cannot be a hundred percent certain—and I mean absolutely certain—that my client committed these heinous crimes. Therefore, by law, you must return a verdict of not guilty. It’s not just your legal duty, it’s your moral duty, to uphold a system designed to protect the rights of the innocent, designed to prevent this country from becoming a police state.
"Members of the jury, you are about to arrive at a verdict that can mean life or death to an innocent man who has already suffered unimaginable loss. Would you join hands with the real killer, wherever he may be right now, and help him finish off his last victim?" Tears had been dried. All eyes in the jury box remained fast on Rachel. "Or would you quickly end this unjust ordeal for my client and urge the state to investigate and find the real killer? It’s all up to you."
Chapter Thirty-Four
Rachel paced around the witness room, her eyes sometimes squeezed shut.
To break the monotony, I asked, "What do you think?"
"It’s really hard to tell." She leaned back against the wall and studied the drop-ceiling panels. I lowered my head, trying to shut it all out: the low-pitched droning of the overhead fluorescents, Rachel’s soles rubbing against the linoleum, and the ding of the elevator down the hall filled my mind, followed by images of Jenn and Bethie. And then there was Aaron.
"We’re going to lose, aren’t we?" I said, rubbing my eyes.
"Honestly? It’d take a miracle—"
"You still believe in them, don’t you?"
She let out a tired breath, deflating before my very eyes. "I thought I did."
"Aren’t you going to pray about this?"
Taking a seat next to me, she held her forehead in her hand and said, "That’s all I’ve been doing since... Anyway, it might be all we have now."
"Yeah."
"Do you mind?"
"Nothing to lose," I said with a shrug.
After a pause and a deep breath, she began. Just as she was about to finish her prayer in Jesus’ name, the clerk rapped on the door.
"Jury’s back." Quicker than we’d anticipated.
It was time.
___________________
No matter what, I would face the verdict with my head held high. Judge Hodges turned to the jury box and welcomed them back. "Juror number ten, it is my understanding that the panel has made a decision. Is that correct?"
"Yes, Your Honor." Juror number ten, the foreman, was a stern looking man about my age with absolutely no trace of emotion, no hint of their decision to be discerned from his face.
Folding his hands, Hodges said, "Would you kindly hand the verdict forms to my bailiff?" I struggled to keep from shaking. Couldn’t breathe, my stomach cramped, but I kept my head up. I clenched my jaw to prevent my face from twitching as the bailiff walked over and took the verdict forms, then went over and handed them to the Judge.
Hodges lowered his reading glasses and stared at it for much too long. Finally, he handed the forms back to the bailiff and said, "each of the forms has been properly executed. Please recite the verdict for the records."
Rachel held my hand tight. She was trembling as well. While the bailiff read from the papers, I held my breath.
"The people of the State of California, plaintiff, versus Samuel Ian Hudson, defendant. Case number SCD 164989. Verdict: We, the jury in the above-entitled case, the crime of murder, in violation of penal code section 187(a), find the defendant Samuel Ian Hudson guilty as charged in count one of the information, and fix the degree thereof as murder in the first degree."
That thin filament on which I hung my hopes, snapped. The entire courtroom stirred with gasps and cries of relief. I had to brace myself against the table when the bailiff read the subsequent charges. Another murder one, special circumstances of rape, battery. It all spun around my head as the din of the crowd crescendoed.
More words exchanged between the judge and the D.A. and Rachel, but I was gone. The next thing I knew, Hodges rapped his gavel, sending a jolt through my body. The bailiff cuffed me and led me to the side exit. With reddened eyes, Rachel said something about an appeal. All I heard was the cacophony of every voice in the courtroom blurring together.
Oscar Lawrence glared at me while Maggie covered her face and wept. Towards the back of the room, young men high-fived each other. I caught Mike Siefert’s eyes and he quickly turned away.
"Watch your step," the bailiff said as we left the courtroom and met a pair of armed guards. There would be a hearing for my sentence later, but it didn’t take Nostradamus to predict the outcome.
I was headed for death row.
PART II
The gates of Hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way;
But, to return, and view the cheerful skies;
In this, the task and mighty labor lies.
— John Dryden
Chapter Thirty-Five
SALTON SEA PENITENTIARY is California’s newest Supermax prison. With the constant threat of overcrowding at San Quentin and Pelican Bay—the prototype on which Salton Sea is based—the logical choice was to build yet another facility. Like its predecessor, it houses some of the state’s most violent offenders.
Situated in the desert between Imperial and Riverside Counties, Salton Sea is an inland saline lake, located in the Colorado Desert. The supermax that bears its name lies miles from civilization, completely severed from the outside world by razor wire, concrete, and armed guards.
I was kept in the Security Housing Unit or the SHU, as the inmates call it, and spent twenty-two and a half hours a day solitary, in my cell, a cramped eight-by-eight. Separated by three locked doors from an armed control booth office I could see no other prisoners. Nor could I see the light of day.
Everything about my cell was concrete: a concrete stool, concrete walls, concrete writing table. About the only thing that wasn't concrete was the toilet and sink. Those were stainless steel. White, heavy gauge perforated metal covered my door. No one in our pod could see outside their cells. I was allowed to shower three times a week, which seemed to effectively slow the rotting process. Unlike the other prisoners, SHU inmates are fed like animals twice a day. Meals are placed on trays and slid through slots in the cell doors.
I was afforded the opportunity to exercise unshackled outside for a maximum of ninety minutes per day in an area known as the dog-walk, a twenty-eight by twelve foot exercise yard enclosed claustrophobically between a set of twenty-foot walls. Any other time I left my cell, they kept me in waist restraints and handcuffs with an armed double escort. Before and after "exercise," I had to stand naked before the control booth for a visual strip search. In full view for all to see. Beyond humiliating, but you get used to it.
In the dog walk, several inmates were separated into different exercise boxes, if you could call it exercise. We'd pace around and around the edge of these concrete yards like caged tigers. I felt more like a forsaken lab rat. Forsaken by time, by society. About the only person I saw on a daily basis was Butch Hurley. And the one constant with him was that stinking toothpick he always chewed on in the corner of his mouth. I wondered if it was the same one from day to day. Never saw him spit it out, never saw him put a new one in. If ever there was a redneck, it was Butch.
Butch was my correctional officer.
He stood about five foot eight. Not huge, but what he lacked in height, he made up for with intimidation. Butch had the magnetism of an armored tank. You see him coming, you get
the hell out of the way. The day I arrived at Salton Sea he said, "While you're here, I am God." It wasn't far from truth.
Life at Salton was on a different plane of reality. The culture, the tacit laws, none of it resembled that of the outside world. One rule, however, quickly leapt to the forefront: stay alive at all costs. Much of that depended on the whims of your C.O.
At meal times, a tray full of half-warmed food slid into the slot under my cell door and if Butch was in a good mood, I might even get a spoonful of Jello. If he was in a good mood. And that was difficult to determine, much less predict.
One morning while in the dog walk, something terrifying happened. The doors of our individual exercise boxes remained open with none of the guards present beyond the locked main gate. A hulk of an inmate stepped out into the open area. Gritting his teeth, muscles about to burst out of his sweat-stained tank top, he looked like Schwarzenegger...on steroids.
Out of the second cage, a tough looking black guy, not quite as muscular but every bit as belligerent, stepped out, snarling and beating his fist into his palm. The two approached each other with caution.
I noticed Butch leaning against the chainlink fence with a shotgun in hand and the ever-present toothpick in his mouth. Watching it all. And from the glint of his teeth you could see he was going to enjoy this.
The other cons stepped back against the wall—blacks on one side, whites on the other. What was going on? I figured it'd be safer to stay with my own kind, meaning the whites.
"Yo, Dog!" one of the black inmates called out. "Kick that cracker's ass!" The inmates in my row shouted just as wildly.
"Rip him a new one, Russo!" The fighters lunged, grabbed at each others' necks. Dog gripped Russo in a choke hold. Russo rammed his fist into Dog's stomach but Dog kept punching his face.
Forget about the C.O. breaking it up, he was in on it. Standing next to Butch now were two other guards, laughing and cheering. Probably betting on who would win. I had heard about prison violence, but never expected this. My palms became slick. I wiped them on my shirt. Oh god, let me out of here.
Heavy thuds of body blows resounded. Fists and faces full of blood now. Russo finally pinned Dog down with his knee. Wrapped his hands around Dog's throat and you could barely hear the black guy gurgling. My own fingers ached from gripping the chain link fence. That's going to be me one of these days.
Russo laughed, while Dog's limbs flailed about. The black guy's eyes bulged, his tongue hung out of his mouth. Russo growled, and thrust his arms down to tighten his grip. "Huh? Ya like that, nigger? Want some more, ya say?" Butch cackled as he collected money from the other two guards. Dog must've been their man. They'd just about seen enough.
But then, Dog reached behind his back, down into his pants, as if he were scratching his rear. That same hand flew right back out and caught Russo in the throat.
Blood splattered down onto Dog's face and onto the floor. Russo let go, sputtered and grabbed his own neck. Blood dripped from his hand. With an abrupt kick, Dog freed himself from under his opponent, who was now writhing on the floor with his throat slashed open.
"Hey!" Butch swore as he opened the gate and cocked his gun. Dog held his bloody hands up, fingers spread. A shiv clinked against the concrete. A stupid grin stretched across his face as the C.O. approached. The two other guards stood back, guns ready.
"You ought to thank me, B," Dog said. I would soon learn that Russo had been the head honcho for Salton Sea's white supremacists gang, The Fourth Reich. Not anymore.
With the butt of his rifle, Butch smacked Dog to the ground. "You have any idea how much paperwork I'm going to have to file because of that shiv?"
"You just mad cuz you lost the pool," he said, smiling at the other two guards. Their own grins vanished when Butch turned around and barked, "Call the infirmary!"
"Too late, B," said Dog. "He dead already. I better be getting my crank for winning, you hear?"
"Shut up!" Dog seemed to know better than to try to get up. He just let Butch cuff his hands and ankles before being yanked up to his feet. When it was my turn to get shackled, I was trembling. This was the first time I actually saw someone get his throat slashed.
I'm not supposed to be here, I thought
Over and over, in my head.
I can't be here. Can't be.
My cuffs started rattling and I realized just how scared I was. I willed myself to stop. Couldn't let the other inmates see. They were already giving me dirty looks.
___________________
Later that evening, Butch came by my cell. "So, enjoy your first SHU brawl?"
I didn't answer.
"Happens all the time, don't worry about it." He then went around from cell to cell, banging on the doors with his rifle. When he came back to me his tone was more stern. "Look Hudson, you ain't said a word to me since you arrived. You got a problem?"
I just huffed.
He slammed his rifle against my door again. This time much louder. "Think you're better than me? You ain't nothing. And nobody out there knows or cares about what I can do to you. So you'd best start showing me some respect!"
I went right up to the mesh and slammed it with the heel of my hand. "All right," I said. "I've got something to say."
"Yeah? What?"
"I want to talk to the warden!" Howls went up and echoed throughout the pod. Butch was laughing too. "Oh, so you want to see the warden, huh? What, you want an upgrade to the presidential suite?"
More laughter.
"I'm going to tell him about the prisoner abuse down here," I said. "About the cock-fighting racket you're running."
"Oh, right. That. Yeah. He'll believe you over at decorated C.O. of fifteen years."
"You can't do this!"
"Right." Another smack against the door and he walked away, spat his toothpick on the ground. "Liked you a whole lot better when you weren't talking." He swaggered away, footfalls slow and fading. "Might just have to fix that."
Chapter Thirty-Six
By the time the beating stopped, I found myself alone on the floor of the shower stall, cold water still spraying my back. Because they jumped me while I had shampoo in my eyes, I never saw my attackers. But judging by the way I was held face down while simultaneously punched and kicked on all sides, there must've been at least three of them. Felt more like twenty.
My last conscious recollection was a crimson stream gathering and spiraling down the drain. I suffered a mild concussion and spent the night in the infirmary with three broken ribs. The message was clear. Don't cross your C.O. That, and keep your big, stupid mouth shut. The stitches and scars would serve as a constant reminder.
Each week, the gladiator fights continued, though Butch made it clear that no one was to be shanked. Try telling the nation's most violent criminals to use restraint. Eventually, the paper work must have become too much of a nuisance. The fighters were now instructed to fight to the death. The winner would sometimes be shot—no doubt the official result of attacking another inmate and disregarding warnings from the C.O. to stop. If anyone outside ever heard of our gladiator matches, they simply would not believe it possible.
Somehow, I managed to avoid becoming one of the contestants. They probably figured someone as soft as me would've been disappointing to watch. No fun watching a guy get wiped out in less than a minute. I earned the nickname "Silkworm."
For safe measure, though, I started working out again. I was up to seventy five pushups a set, even twenty, one-handed. Some of the inmates liked to flaunt their musculature by wearing cutoffs and tanks. I kept it to myself, always wearing a loose fitting California Department of Corrections shirt over my undershirt to hide my progress. The element of surprise might come in handy one day.
Butch and I seemed to have settled into an understanding where we didn't cross each other's paths. But this wouldn't last forever. Simply ignoring me didn't suffice. Eventually, he had to gain the upper hand.
"Here's the deal," Butch said, after I finished shower
ing.
"Do you have to talk to me only when I'm naked?"
He wagged his eyebrows. "I'm going to give you a paper bag. Leave it under the bench in Cage-D tomorrow, during exercise time. That's all there is to it."
I toweled off and wrapped myself. "You want me to smuggle contraband for you?"
"You got a point?"
"Just what side of the law are you on, anyway?"
Butch leaned against the doorframe and chortled. Then he looked me up and down. I didn't like the way he was leering, it made me feel filthy. "Within these walls, Silk, I am the law. Gonna do it or not?"
"Not."
He stuffed the bag back into his jacket. "I'm disappointed."
"You'll get over it." Why did he need me to do this when he could easily have slipped the contraband into whatever cell he wanted to? There had to be something more to it.
"You're looking pretty buff these days, buddy." He pulled out the toothpick and admired its badly mangled end. He put it back between his lips and puckered, making a sick, kissing noise. If Dog or any of the other inmates had made the pass at me, I might only have been repulsed, not surprised. But the thought of Butch...I was going to be sick.
He came closer and yanked the towel off my waist, leaving me more vulnerable than I'd ever felt in my entire life. The gust sent a shiver up my spine.
"Back off!" I was up against a wall, completely naked.
Butch reached over and began to touch my face. "Why can't you just get with the program like the others?"
I smacked his hand away and slid out of his reach. "I'd rather die."
"Careful what you wish for," he said and let out a sigh. Acquiescing with his bushy unibrow, Butch stepped away and dropped my towel on the floor. "One of these days, you'll look back and wished you'd been more... open to possibilities."
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