The Complete Bragg Thriller Box Set

by Jack Lynch

  From there I drove to a nearby liquor store and picked up a six-pack of beer, then drove down a road that led to Corte Madera Creek’s small houseboat community. It didn’t have the size nor feisty, boisterous reputation of the sprawling city of houseboats my own town did. Corte Madera houseboats were more sedate and middle class than Sausalito houseboats. They also were considerably closer to a major highway interchange, and it occurred to me that the traffic could intrude some on a person’s life.

  I found the address the warden had given me and pulled up on the road across from it. The correctional officer lived on a tidy, one-story vessel with a small deck over the water out back that had a grand view of the busy freeway interchange. I left my crutches in the car, grabbed up the six-pack and tried to keep the limp from being too noticeable as I went down the narrow wooden ramp leading to Cooper’s boat.

  It took several moments for him to answer my knocking. He was a tall, thin man in his late forties, with gray-and-black-streaked hair that was combed straight back on his head. He was wearing brown wash pants, probably part of an old uniform, and a paint-daubed blue workshirt. He was alone on the boat and a little tipsy and he told me to call him “Coop.”

  “My wife’s away,” he explained, leading me through the boat. It looked and smelled as if his wife had been away for some time. I gave him the six-pack. He thanked me, took a couple of cans out of the plastic rings and put the others in a refrigerator. He led me out to the deck and we sat and listened to the traffic hum past. We spent a little while getting acquainted, with me lying about my newspaper job with the Los Angeles Times and him giving me a little background about himself while I took notes. He’d been in law enforcement most of his adult life, he told me, first with the county sheriff’s department in southern Oregon and then with a succession of small departments down through California.

  “I liked to move around some from place to place when I was younger,” he told me, taking a healthy tug at the beer.

  A man in law enforcement who likes to “move around” without significantly improving his career status could mean any one of a number of things, I knew, but Coop didn’t tell me what it had meant in his case. He’d been a correctional officer at San Quentin for the past dozen years.

  “Figured it was time to get off the street and settle down some,” he told me with a slight burp.

  I nodded and sipped at the beer. I nursed him along as deftly as I could, laughing with more mirth than I felt at some gritty prison stories he had to tell me, pretending to get a little sloshed along with him. He got up from time to time to pour himself shots of whiskey, which he’d throw back before he continued talking and sipping on the beer. He offered me the same but I declined. An uncertain evening yawned ahead, and chances were that after what I’d been through that day, if I tossed back a shot of whiskey I’d be immobilized on Coop’s little ark until sunup.

  We gradually got around to Friday afternoon and the breakout attempt. He was slurring his words some by now, but he gave me a fairly bare-bones account of how he and another guard named Reilly were at the armored checkpoint when Bancetti and his party came rolling down the corridor. He said a brief exchange of gunfire took place and the inmates retreated back down the hallway. He and Reilly sounded the alarm and stayed at their post until reinforcements arrived. Then one team of men guarded the mouth of the corridor while another evacuated the rest of the building. He and Reilly were relieved when other troops brought in the clumsy hall barricade. He said they then were sent to the administration building and debriefed.

  I sat on the edge of my seat during his recounting, scribbling in my notepad. “How many shots were exchanged?” I asked when he lapsed into silence.

  “Oh, gosh. I don’t know. I think they fired two, three times at us. I fired—I guess I fired five rounds. Only got in a couple of shots when they were all sort of bunched there at the end of the corridor. It was hard, you know? With the women and the other officer. They had them shoved out ahead of them. I had to be careful. But, I only had a couple of good shots at those men before they moved back down the hall. I hit one of them. The other shots I fired, I just sent ricocheting down the corridor after them, hoping to drive them back. Warden gave me hell about that later. Said I might have hit one of the women.”

  He looked up and blinked at me. “Hey, you don’t have to put that in, do you? About the warden giving me some heat over it?”

  If I were a terribly devout man I would have murmured a silent prayer of thanks. The man had just given me the opportunity of the evening.

  “Hell no,” I told him, striking out something on the pad. “In fact, in case some readers feel the way the warden did, I don’t even have to tell about the three ricochet shots if you’d rather I didn’t.”

  “I’d appreciate it, Bragg,” he told me with a grim nod. “You know, it’s tough in a situation like that. A person doesn’t know just how he’ll react at the time, until he’s been there himself.”

  “I can appreciate that.”

  He was staring at my trousers, toward the leg where I’d been wounded. “What’s that on your pants?”

  I reached down and swiped a hand over the dried blood, inadvertently giving the bandage inside the pants a sharp little crack that caused a stab of pain and nearly made me cry out.

  “Nothing,” I told him. “I was given a tour of the prison grounds earlier. Brushed up against something in the shop area. Paint, I guess.”

  He grunted and got to his feet. “Want another beer?”

  “Sure. I’d love one.”

  He went inside. I pushed myself out of the chair and moved my weight around some on the wounded leg. It brought a different hurt, but helped diffuse the pain from the dismaying whack I’d dealt myself. I sat back down and when Coop brought out another couple of beers I took a large swallow. I fiddled through my notes some.

  “How many times did Reilly shoot?” I asked him.

  “He didn’t. He had a shotgun. We weren’t expecting the hostages, you see. He was all leveled out with the scattergun. I thought for a minute he was going to shoot anyhow. I pushed his shoulder and told him to ease off. It’s one of the things that threw my own shooting off. I might have dropped a couple of them if it hadn’t been for that. That and the hostages really messed up things.”

  I continued to scribble, as if I were taking down every word he spoke. I can’t really record conversation that fast, and I was out of practice anyway. But Coop didn’t know that. The important thing was for me to remember just the little bits and pieces that really mattered.

  “Still,” I said finally, looking up at him. “You did a hell of a job, keeping them bottled up like that. You must be some marksman.”

  He gave me a slope-mouthed grin and a little nod. “Been hunting all my life. Got Expert rating in the army. Still got my eyes, that’s part of it, and the experience. Since I been at Quentin I’ve only been tied once on the practice range. Never topped.”

  I whistled my appreciation and had another gulp of beer. “Hey, something else I didn’t get clear talking to the people inside. Somebody said you and Reilly were stationed there for just a few minutes before the breakout attempt. How come?”

  I was giving him what I hoped was an ingratiating smile, but he was wary. He was watching me closely, with a little frown. I had my pen poised over the pad, but just then I lifted it and made a waving away motion with the pad. “I don’t have to include that, I’m just curious. Off the record.”

  He looked away. “Well, it’s policy, you know. Besides the fixed gun towers outside the walls and the overhead walkways we man whenever prisoners are in the area, we have the rotation watch. Keep the inmates nervous, see, to prevent just that sort of thing. It’s just policy, no big deal.”

  I stared at him for a long moment. “Coop, I don’t think you’re leveling with me. And if you’re not leveling with me about that, how can I be sure you’ve leveled with me about the rest of it?”

  He turned back to me reluctantly. “How
do you mean?”

  “Well, here, let’s go back a bit.” I paged back through the notepad, read a minute and nodded. “Yeah, when I asked how many times Reilly fired, you said he didn’t shoot because he had the shotgun. But you told me, ‘We weren’t expecting the hostages, you see.’ ”

  I looked across at him quietly, then lifted one shoulder. “That’s a direct quote, Coop. Took it down when you said it. You see, that’s something that I’ve wondered about since talking to people over at the prison. How you and Reilly were hustled in there just before the breakout attempt. Just a very short time before the building was to be shut down for the day anyhow. It sounds to me, Coop, like maybe somebody knew those men were going to try something like that. And so that was why you and Reilly were sent in there just then.”

  He was quiet for a very long moment. “I don’t think I should talk about that,” he said finally.

  “Hey, look, Coop,” I told him. “This isn’t going to appear in any story I’ll ever write about it. It’s just—you know, writing a newspaper story is a funny sort of business. Sometimes, in certain situations—and this is one of them—you write different stories for different readers. But at the same time they’re reading the same words.”

  He looked at me queerly. “I don’t get that at all.”

  “It’s not that difficult. If you or me pick up a copy of the Scientific American and try to read some of those articles, we couldn’t make head nor tail of what some jasper was writing about, but a man with a background in math or science wouldn’t have any trouble at all with it. Now, I can write certain things in this story in a way so the general public will skip right over a clue or two that a man like yourself, or others in law enforcement, can read between the lines and appreciate. I could talk about certain ‘extraordinary’ measures, security measures, put into practice when officials feel a ripple in the prison population. I can put it in a way so a few knowledgeable readers will realize you people knew this was coming down, but the general public won’t realize it. It’s bound to gain a measure of respect for the prison staff in California law enforcement circles, Coop.”

  I hoped he was just swacked enough to go for it. What I didn’t tell him also was that if a reporter ever tried to be even half that sophisticated, somebody in the editing process would ask himself, “What sort of crap is this?” and excise it or turn it into hash at the least. But from the way Cooper looked at me I think he bought it.

  “Come on, Coop,” I told him, “you guys knew, didn’t you?”

  He sighed once. “Damn near to the minute.”

  I tried to coax him about a half-inch farther. I asked him where the squeal had come from, but he either couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tell me.

  “Lots of times,” he said, “it’s a combination of people. In a place as hard to get along in as Q over there, there are an awful lot of favors exchanged. Thing is,” he added with a deep breath, staring out into the evening sky, “I have the uncomfortable feeling I didn’t exactly do myself any favors Friday, during the breakout attempt.”

  “Why? Because you fired the richochet shots down the corridor?”

  “No. Because I couldn’t get a clear shot of old Fireplug.”

  NINETEEN

  Cooper’s mind seemed to leave planet Earth after that. He didn’t answer any more questions; he didn’t look at me. I left him staring out over the water. He had the look of a man who’d spent the afternoon drinking. He also had the look of a man remembering the tensions that build up in his workplace, behind the walls of San Quentin. I thanked him and drove back to the restaurant where I’d left the two young people.

  When I rolled into the parking lot I caught a whiff of cooking food. It almost made me sick. Between the aftershock of the leg wound and the information I was tugging out of people, my stomach was about ready to toss up everything. I was onto a major bit of rot festering inside San Quentin, but I still didn’t have enough to take to Warden Barry Thompson and lay it all out for him.

  I collected Buddy and Aggie and they trailed me back out the road to the prison. When I made the turn off into the prison grounds and approached the first checkpoint, my palms were growing clammy. I didn’t like the prospect of having to reenter the main prison compound, to go behind the walls and mingle with that community of 3,400 men living there. And waiting. Waiting for a chance at this, or waiting for a chance at that. Watchful and waiting. And jumpy.

  We were passed through to the parking area outside the administration building. I got out the crutches and turned for a minute to stare across at the piecrust–colored walls trimmed in red. They looked solid and serene. Thick enough even to contain the charged psychic energy of inmates and guards.

  The young people left their car windows rolled down to provide air for the dog who’d curled up in the backseat. We went inside the administration building and were ushered into the warden’s office. I introduced the pair to Thompson.

  “Any change inside?” I asked.

  The warden shook his head.

  “They still won’t answer the phone?”

  “No. We assume they’ve disconnected it.”

  “Have they been told I was on my way with Buddy?”

  “Yes, but there was no response to that, either.” The warden shifted his gaze to the boy. “We’ll just have to take you in there so you can talk to your brother in person, son.”

  Buddy was staring at a point beyond the warden’s shoulder. “You mean inside the prison itself, sir?”

  “Yes. What’s wrong with that? You won’t be in any danger.”

  Aggie gave Buddy’s arm a little squeeze. “You can do it, guy. I’ll go with you, if you want.”

  “No you won’t,” the warden said firmly.

  Buddy looked up at Thompson. “Why can’t she, if there’s no danger?”

  “Because I would just as soon keep the number of civilians going in there to a minimum. What in God’s name is wrong with you?”

  “Warden,” I interrupted, “could we talk alone for a minute?”

  He looked at me, then at the boy, then back to me. “All right.” He went over to the door and waved Buddy and Aggie outside. “Why don’t you two wait in the reception area. Ask the duty officer there for some coffee if you’d like.”

  When they’d gone he closed the door and started back to his desk, pausing on his way across the office to stare down at me in the chair I’d flopped into. He was looking at the bloodstains caked on my pants leg, grunted, then went around his desk and sat. “What’s wrong with the boy?” He was rolling a pencil around in his hand.

  “He’s about a hundred and eighty degrees opposite his brother when it comes to self-confidence and tough-mindedness. He’s shy and he’s scared of life. Beau told me his brother wouldn’t last a month in a place like this. The breakout attempt, of course, was to try preventing just that. I don’t know if the boy could bring himself to go through that sally port.”

  Thompson just stared at me a moment, then threw the pencil down onto the desk so hard it bounced off onto the floor. “Well, that certainly is marvelous news. Then what have we all been sitting around here waiting for?”

  “Give the boy a little time. Let him get used to the idea. His girlfriend out there will be trying to help him calm down. These things take time.”

  “Time,” the warden said, staring up at the ceiling. “That’s the only thing this place is all about. What’s so different between here and where he just came from? He spent time behind bars up there, didn’t he?”

  “In a sense. But it’s a new facility. Individual sleeping rooms. Dayrooms with TV sets. The boy had more privacy there than he’d have in an army barracks. But there’s something else I’d like to do while the girl is trying to calm young Bancetti.”

  The warden shot me a look. “What’s that?”

  “Do you keep personnel records here?”

  “On the inmates? Of course.”

  “No. On your custodial personnel.”

  He clasped his hands on the
desk in front of him. “Yes, we have those available. But they’re not open to casual viewing.”

  “This isn’t a casual situation. I think Beau Bancetti’s escape attempt was engineered. I think the killing his brother originally was arrested for and the planting of evidence at the scene were done to get Beau to try to break out. The guard I spoke to just before coming here indicated he was supposed to shoot Beau during that escape attempt. I think the attempt to kill me this morning was to keep me from learning how it was all done.”

  “That’s an astounding theory,” Thompson said quietly. “But even if true, it’s not what demands my immediate attention. My job is to get those women out of there and to quell the rebellion in the activities building.”

  “I know that. And as I see it, there’s maybe two ways you can do it. Either hope that Buddy Bancetti can screw up his courage and go on inside there, or else let me finish wading through the mess that lies behind it and lay it out for Beau Bancetti. He’s an intelligent man, Warden. If I’m right, and can work it out, I think he’d listen to me. If he knew he was being manipulated, it would put things in a different light for him.”

  “Maybe. But Bragg, I have seven hundred custodial officers in this place. It would take you until next year sometime to go through all those, even if I did let you look at them.”

  “I don’t want to go through all of them. I’d like to see those of Cooper and the other guard who was on duty in the activities building and maybe a dozen others. And you’ll like this even less. I’d like to see your jacket too, if it’s available.”

  It was locked-eyes time. We probably stared at each other for a solid minute before he spoke again.

  “My file is available,” he told me. “And there’s nothing in it I’m ashamed of. It’s what will go into that file after this is all over and done with that concerns me. What others do you want?”