by Alex Dolan
“Just like Saint Sebastian.” We passed the tree and cut through rows of cars in the parking lot as we drove toward the main entrance.
“Till he looked like a sea urchin. So Rubio renamed the mission to send a warning out to the criminals. Given the history of the place, eventually it turned into a prison.” He pointed to the crenellations by the roof. “The architect that built the new building in the 1920s designed those as a nod to Rubio, a set of nooks where archers could mete out the traditional sentence for a criminal nasty enough to deserve it.”
Two guards waited for us by a parking space that had been kept vacant with orange cones. One of the men waved at Leland as we pulled in. They were huge, bigger than the bearded guard at the gate. Their uniforms were short-sleeve beige tops with forest green pants and gold badges over the left chest, something I’d expect to see on park rangers. Both had smooth faces and shaved heads. In some history class I’d learned that Alexander the Great banned beards in his army so that enemy combatants couldn’t tug them in battle. In the chaos of a prison riot, I supposed it would pay to be clean-shaven. More massive and less defined then the boys I worked with at the fire department, they might have been former football players, former semiprofessional wrestlers, or former bouncers. Their overly serious expressions had the bottomless gaze of sharks cruising for fish.
When we stopped, Leland reminded me, “It can’t stay in the glove compartment.” With no holster and no purse, I had no place to keep his gun on my person, so I opened the glove compartment and gave Leland’s pistol back to him. Watching us through the window, the guards looked confused as Leland reholstered his sidearm.
The one by the driver’s side shook Leland’s hand when he emerged from the car. “Took you long enough.” He had the slightest trace of a Southern accent, rare in the Bay Area. Either he’d been here long enough or practiced long enough that I only heard it in the extended vowels.
Leland gestured to me. “This is she.” To me, he explained, “Meet Leonard Royce and Milton Kearns.” Royce was the one who knew Leland. He stood an inch taller than Kearns with thicker arms. Kearns loitered behind him like a kid brother. Both had shiny scalps, but Royce would have been mostly bald anyway. Kearns might age that way. Both nodded at me, but neither offered to shake my hand, maybe worried if they stuck out an arm I might jab a needle into it.
Royce said to Leland, “You know Helena Mumm was here this morning, paying him a visit.”
“That’s news, but doesn’t surprise me. She probably wants to see him before her time is finally up.” Leland said to me, “Maybe someone reignited the old flame. Wrong love is still love.” I tried to remember what I had said to Helena.
Royce handed me a laminated identification card with my photo on it. “Put this in your wallet.” I barely had time to look it over before he explained, “If anyone asks, you’re agent Frances Kali.” Indeed, the card spelled it out in bold letters. My headshot was the same fuzzy camera-phone snapshot Leland took of me in the Clayton cabin; the same photograph he’d posted on the sex offender registry. My expression worked equally well in the role of a government employee.
The guards led us through the turreted entrance. Through two checkpoints, they talked to the guards while Leland signed us in. I flashed my fake identification a few times. Each hallway was a combination of cinder blocks, stainless steel, and the kind of glass I’d expect could fortify a shark tank. Through every door my stomach twisted a bit, especially when the sunlight vanished and the sounds from the outside faded.
We were on our way to see Walter Gretsch, but I didn’t know what would happen when we saw him. What we could possibly talk about. The uncertainty made me feel as powerless as when Leland had chained me in Clayton. I could have been in a submarine at the bottom of the ocean.
Left, left, right, left, right, right…the prison interior networked into a tight labyrinth of hallways. Turning another corner, I’d gotten foggy on where we were going and simply stared at our escorts’ calves. The hallways collected a lonely alkaline smell with a hint of organic compost, perhaps from the unreachable rat turds behind the walls. Leland handed me a tissue and whispered, “Wipe your forehead. You’re sweating. And keep your head up. Act like you belong here.” Royce gave me a dirty look over his shoulder, warning me that I might blow this, whatever it was.
I hissed at Leland, “This can’t be safe.”
“You’ve taken bigger risks. So have I.”
“I’m fucking serious,” I insisted. Ahead of us, Kearns shot me an anguished look to shush me. He nodded to a camera that clung to the ceiling. I kept my voice down and tried to appear calm enough so that anyone hovering over the security monitors would merely see two federal agents working through a professional disagreement. “Are you leading me through a prison block full of men?”
“I wouldn’t do something like that.”
Royce spoke loud enough to convey that the security cameras didn’t have microphones. “We’re not going through a cell block. We’re headed to the courtyard.” Some of the guys in the fire department had been in the military, and his clipped monotone hinted that he’d had the same training. I admit it did make me feel safer.
We abruptly stopped at the midpoint of a long corridor, dim as a mineshaft. Leland and the two guards huddled by the wall, and Royce pointed to the camera directly overhead. “We can’t be seen here.”
Royce seemed to loosen up. He was cordial, if not jovial. He shook my hand and avoided giving me a bone crusher. “Ma’am, thank you for coming.” Ma’am. I’m a sucker for archaic politeness. This made me want to curtsy.
I confirmed, “Can anyone hear us?”
“No.”
“No security cameras on us at all?” I wanted to be sure.
“When you get to know the compound, you learn there are a few places the cameras never see. This is one of them.”
Leland relaxed a bit too, more comfortable around these guys than he ever was around me. He put on the wry grin I was used to seeing when he goaded me. “I call Leonard the convict whisperer. He has a knack for getting inmates to do what he wants without having to break anything.”
So we were chitchatting now. I tried to play along. “Laws or jaws?”
Royce cracked a smile, but his tone was all business. “I listen to the inmates, so they tell me things.”
“What does someone like Walter Gretsch tell you?” I asked.
“He doesn’t say much. He likes to ask about my kids.” I thought that Royce must hate his job some days. “He found out through the Internet that I have two boys. He called out their names to me and commented on their swim team results. We took away his computer privileges after that.”
Royce waved us forward, and we continued until we reached another steel door. Above it, a grated portal let in a grid of sunlight. “The courtyard’s through there. He’ll be waiting.” He asked me, “Your stepfather is here, is that right?” This might have unsettled me, but he looked at me kindly. I nodded. “But you’ve never visited here.”
“No.”
“Is this your first time at a prison?”
“It is.”
“And your first time with a man like Walter Gretsch.”
Leland said, “You’re making her nervous.”
Royce asked Leland, “You’re sure she’s up for this?” He looked back at me. “I mean no disrespect when I say that.”
“She’s has a knack for adapting,” Leland said.
Royce gave me an iron gaze that, when needed, probably intimidated inmates. “Remember,” he cautioned, “Walter Gretsch is a dangerous man. He might come on quiet, but you’ll see how bad he is if you give him a chance.” He warned Leland and me. “Don’t give him that chance.”
When we walked out into the courtyard, everything bleached to sunburst white. In the twenty minutes we’d trolled through the concrete maze, the sun had burned off the residual fog from the morning. Cirrus streaks draped across a blue sky. Anywhere else, it would have been a nice day.
I could smell the crisp brine of the Bay water, but the prison wall, twice as tall as a basketball hoop and coated in that bird shit paint, blocked our view of the ocean. There was no getting over that thing without a rope or a ladder—a ten-finger boost wouldn’t get you very far. With cellblocks around us, we found ourselves in a playa of asphalt, cracked in places for ambitious weeds.
As my eyes adjusted to the daylight, I saw chain link fences that partitioned the open space into livestock pens. Guards in their park ranger outfits stood on the far sides of these fences and on the rooftops.
Leland scoped out the area, his flat hand an eave at his brow. The guards were mildly curious about us, but none waved. None were close enough to talk. They rested matte black weapons on their shoulders, and while two guards looked straight at the only woman there, I didn’t get the sense that they took an active interest, not any more than I was interested in the flock of Canadian geese that presently flew over us.
I’d expected catcalls from the inmates, but it was quiet. There was only one inmate out there, wardrobed in a red jumpsuit.
He sat within a chain link enclosure the size of a chicken coop, chained to a steel picnic table with his back to us. A guard we hadn’t met let us in with a nod. I didn’t know if this guard knew Royce and Kearns, but Leland didn’t speak to him. Once inside, we approached the prisoner from behind. Cuffs restricted the man’s ankles and wrists. I rubbed my own pink wrists to test how tender the skin was, and they still smarted with pressure.
Walter Gretsch kept his head down. His shaggy clown hair splayed out in all directions, balding around the crown. He’d put on weight since his incarceration. At the trial he was skinny. Now his stomach folded over itself.
Leland stopped to stare at the prisoner, maybe to appreciate the man’s captivity. Walter would have sensed our presence, but he didn’t stir. Out of Walter’s earshot, I asked Leland, “How is he still alive? Pedophiles aren’t supposed to do well in prison, right?”
“He’s a special case. They keep him away from the other inmates.”
“If you want him dead, why don’t you just release him into population? Shouldn’t that take care of things?”
“It’s not as easy as you’d think.”
“It worked for Jeffrey Dahmer.”
“Well, that’s another special case. You can’t just go letting people into population every day. People check. People can lose their jobs.”
“Like Royce?”
“Leonard Royce is a good person, and that’s about as high a compliment as I can give someone. I don’t know Kearns that well, but he seems loyal. I don’t want either of them to get into trouble. They’ve risked their jobs just to arrange this meeting.” Leland looked around the yard at the uniformed men. “I count five guards. Maybe more watching us from a window. Leonard only tells me so much about the staffing and positioning of the guards, so there could be many more watching. You see the cameras too, right?” They weren’t as obvious as in the front, but several cameras perched on the roofs back here too. Leland titled his head back to the guard who let us into the enclosure. “You want to keep your voice down for his sake, but the rest of the guards are too far away to hear anything. This is as much an intimate rendezvous as we could get, but keep in mind people are monitoring us.”
I still wondered what we were going to talk about, but so much adrenaline charged through me—and not the scary kind, the exhilarating kind—that I mainly wanted to see how this would develop. If anyone was going to misbehave, it wouldn’t be me. “Hypothetically, if you were to knife Walter Gretsch right now in this cage, what would happen?” There was the agitator in me acting up again.
I could tell Leland was upset by the question, but he kept smiling, possibly to assure anyone observing us that everything was peachy. “I’d be arrested, lose my job, and go to prison. You’d probably be dragged down with me.”
“Would it give you peace?”
Leland looked at me incredulously. “It would not.”
When we got to the picnic table, Walter Gretsch lifted his head. He didn’t seem surprised to see Leland Moon, but looked at me curiously. Suspiciously. I was too something for him—young, white, female. Whatever it was, he withdrew from me. His face had deep frown lines around the jowls, which I remembered from his trial photos. The unhappiness he’d carried with him forever. The creases cut his face the way Hanna-Barbera had outlined five-o’ clock shadows in The Flintstones. More than anything, he stank. Maybe he refused to wash as a form of protest. When I’ve smelled body odor like that, it’s been from shut-ins and clients who’ve sworn off hygiene. Not the same kind of smell, but as strong as the FlyNap.
“Walter. How are things?” Leland faked confidence well, but a twitch at the corner of his lips betrayed him. He loathed the man.
Walter rasped like he hadn’t drunk water in days. “It’s good to get out. I don’t see much sunlight. But you know that.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” chided Leland.
“What’s her name?”
Leland answered for me. “Kali.”
Walter wouldn’t address me directly. I made him uncomfortable. “Cally, like California?”
“That’s it.” Leland looked about at the various guards. “Walter, can we sit?” He treated the man more respectfully than I would have predicted.
“Of course.” Some strength returned to his voice.
Walter’s hands tested the chain when we sat down. Even though he hadn’t reached toward me, the snap of the chain made me brace myself. Walter saw me flinch and smiled for a tic, then wiped off the smirk in case Leland caught it.
I could tell Gretsch was shorter than me, but he was stocky, and I didn’t know if prison had toughened him up or taken the fight out of him. I kept my hands on the table and prepared for a quick hit if he came at me. I’d go for the bridge of the nose. The chain allowed Walter to place his folded hands on the table. He angled himself toward Leland.
Walter spoke plainly. “How’s Veda?”
Leland didn’t rile easily. Clearly Walter had jousted with him before, and it seemed like Leland had gotten used to questions like this. He even joked back, even though his eyes simmered. “He just got drafted by the 49ers.”
“Doesn’t surprise me. He was fast, like me.”
Leland leaned in my direction. “Kali, you must have questions. Ask away.”
Walter didn’t look at me. He addressed Leland. “She’s a child.”
“Not your kind of child,” I returned. Walter grimaced when I spoke to him but didn’t acknowledge me.
“You’ll want to talk to her,” Leland urged. Again to me: “Kali?”
Geezum, he could have prepped me better. Until twenty minutes ago I didn’t know we would see Walter Gretsch today. I certainly wasn’t prepared to speak with him. Leland looked at me insistently. Christ, what did he want from me? The brat in me thought about reciting the same prayer Leland had whipped out for Beatrix LaCroix. That would confuse both of them. But looking at Walter brought me back to my long-ago conversation with his Helena Mumm. A question formed. “Do you love Helena?”
“That’s a new one,” said Walter Gretsch. I was impressed he responded to me, even if he couldn’t look at me. As he considered my question, he brought his hand toward his mouth until the chain jerked, then hunched and chewed his thumbnail. “I have a fondness for her. As a sister.”
“But you were intimate.”
He snapped, screaming at the table without looking at me. “You think you know me? Don’t fucking judge me, cunt!” The raspy voice rose to a growl, and he couldn’t make it through the sentence without a spasm that pulled his chin to the right. The transformation was instantaneous. His hands reached as far forward as the chain would allow, and the wrists tensed against the cuffs. But he hadn’t lunged for me, just the air in front of his face. At the same moment, my hand darted out to strike him. I would have probably gotten him in the throat, but Leland had anticipated this. He grabbed ahold of my hand and brough
t it back to the table. Without speaking, his eyes bulged and circled about at the cameras and guards all around us. Any physical contact and they’d come running.
Seeing he wasn’t about to snap the chain, Walter relaxed again, congenial as ever. “We don’t have to talk about that part,” he said.
“I will remind both of you to be civil,” Leland said.
“You want her to learn something, buy her a fucking textbook,” he snarled.
As Walter Gretsch grew more uncomfortable, delight crept back into Leland’s voice. “You got somewhere else to be?”
“You said you’d bring someone to help me,” Walter muttered. “You said we’d trade.” My skin crawled to think Leland had forged a trade with someone like Walter Gretsch.
“I’m trying to make that happen,” Leland told him. “She’s figuring out whether she wants anything to do with you. To be honest, she’s figuring out whether she wants anything to do with either of us. So she’s asking you questions, and it would be in your best interest to answer them.”
So this was an interview. Fine—so be it. The sooner we could end this, the better. If I could agitate Walter Gretsch to the point where he couldn’t contain his fury, those guards would come over and send us home. So I cooked up the most inflammatory question from the ingredients I had. “I want to clarify that you had sex with your sister, but you didn’t love her.” This earned me daggers from Leland.
