2nd Chance (15 page)

“The killings might be politically motivated. I don’t know the killer’s total agenda. But it’s one guy and he’s a nutcase. Where the hell is this going?”

“Where it’s
going
is murder number
three
,” the other agent, Hull, cut in. “The Davidson shooting.” He hoisted his solid frame out of his seat and stepped over to a flip chart on which each separate murder and the pertinent details were listed in neat columns.

“Murders one, two, and four,” he explained, “all had ties to this Chimera. Davidson’s murder doesn’t tie in at all. We want to know what makes you so sure we’re dealing with the same guy.”

“You didn’t see the shot,” I said.

“According to what I have” Hull leafed through his notes – “Davidson was killed with a bullet from a totally different weapon.”

“I didn’t say ballistics, Hull, I said the shot. It was precision, marksman caliber. Just like the one that killed Tasha Catchings.”

“I guess my point,” Hull continued, “is that we have no
tangible evidence
linking the Davidson murder with the other three. If we stick to simply the facts, not Inspector Boxer’s hunch, there’s nothing to suggest we’re not dealing with a
politically
motivated series of events. Nothing.”

At that moment, there was a knock at the conference room door, and Charlie Clapper stuck his head in. Sort of like a shy groundhog peeking out of his burrow.

Clapper nodded toward the
FBI
guys, then winked at me. “I thought you’d be able to use this.”

He put on the table a black-and-white rendering of a large sneaker tread.

“You remember that shoe print we pulled off of the tar at the shooter’s position of Art Davidson’s killing?”

“Of course,” I said.

He placed a second rendering beside the first. “This is one we were able to take from a patch of wet soil at the Mercer scene.”

The imprints were identical.

A hush filled the room. I looked at Agent Ruddy first, then Agent Hull.

“Course, they’re just a standard pair of Reebok cross trainers,” Charlie explained.

From a pocket in his white lab coat, he removed a slide. On it were tiny grains of powder. “We picked this up at the chief’s crime scene.

I leaned over and stared at traces of the same white chalk.

“One killer,” I said. “One shooter.”

I
CALLED
THE
GIRLS
TOGETHER
for a quick lunch. I couldn’t wait to see them.

We met at Yerba Buena Gardens, and sat in the courtyard outside the new
IMAX
, watching the kids play in the fountains, munching on take-out salads and wraps. I went through everything, from the moment I left them at Susie’s, to the suspicion someone was following me, to taking down my father outside my apartment.

“My God,” uttered Claire. “The prodigal father.”

For a moment, it was as if a dome of silence had shut us off from the rest of the world. Everybody fixed on me with incredulous faces.

“When was the last time you’d seen him?” Jill asked.

“He was at my graduation from the academy. I didn’t invite him, but he knew somehow.”

“He followed you?” Jill gasped. “From our meeting? Like some kind of creepy perp?
Yick
,” she said, cringing.

“Typical Marty Boxer.” I exhaled. “That’s my dad.”

Claire put her hand on my arm. “So, what did he want?”

“I’m still not sure. It’s like he wanted to make amends. He said my sister Cat told him I was sick. He followed the bride and groom case. He said he wanted to tell me how proud he was of me.”

“That was months ago.” Jill snorted, taking a bite of a chicken-and-avocado wrap. “He sure took his time.”

“That’s what I said.” I nodded.

Cindy shook her head. “He just decided after twenty years to show up at your door?”

“I think it’s a good thing, Lindsay,” injected Claire. “You know me – positive.”

“A
good thing
that after twenty years he marches back in with a guilty conscience.”

“No, a good thing because he needs you, Lindsay. He’s alone, right?”

“He told me he got married again for two years, but he’s divorced. Imagine, Claire, finding out years after the fact that your father got married again.”

“That’s not the point, Lindsay,” Claire replied. “He’s reaching out. You shouldn’t be too proud to accept it.”

“How
do
you feel?” inquired Jill.

I wiped my mouth, took a sip of iced tea and then a long breath. “The truth? I don’t even know. He’s like some ghost from the past who brings back a lot of bad memories. Everything he’s touched has only hurt people.”

“He’s your father, honey,” Claire said. “You’ve carried this hurt around since I’ve known you. You should let him in, Lindsay. You could have something you never had before.”

“He could also kick her in the shins again,” said Jill.

“Gee.” Cindy looked over at Jill. “The prospect of motherhood hasn’t exactly made you all soft and gooey, has it?”

“One date with the reverend,” Jill chuffed back, “and suddenly you’re the conscience of the group? I’m impressed.”

We looked at Cindy, all of us suppressing smiles.

“That’s true.” Claire nodded. “You don’t think you’re going to get off the hook, do you?”

Cindy began to blush. Never since I’d known her had I seen Cindy Thomas blush.

“You guys do make quite the couple.” I sighed.

“I like him,” Cindy blurted. “We talked for hours. At a bar. Then he took me home. The end.”

“Sure.” Jill grinned. “He’s cute, he’s got a steady job, and if you’re ever tragically killed, you don’t have to worry about who will preside over your service.”

“I hadn’t thought of that one.” Cindy finally smiled. “Look, it was one date. I’m doing a piece on him and the neighborhood. I’m sure he won’t ask me out again.”

“But will you ask him out again?” said Jill.

“We’re friends. No, we’re friendly. It was a great couple of hours. I guarantee, all of you would have enjoyed yourselves. It’s
research,”
Cindy said, and she folded her arms.

We all smiled. But Cindy was right; none of us would have turned down a couple of hours with Aaron Winslow. I still got chills when I remembered his talk at Tasha Catchings’s funeral.

As we crumpled our trash, I turned to Jill. “So, how’re you feeling? You okay?”

She smiled. “Pretty good, actually.” Then she linked her hands around her barely swollen belly and puffed out her cheeks as if to say Fat… “I’ve just got this last case to finish up on. Then, who knows, I might even take some time off.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it.” Cindy chortled. Claire and I mooned our eyes in support.

“Well, you just might be surprised,” Jill said.

“So what’re you gonna do?” Claire turned to me as we got up to leave.

“Keep trying to link the victims. They’ll connect.”

She kept her eyes on me. “I meant about your dad.”

“I don’t know. It’s a bad time, Claire. Now Marty comes barging in. If he wants a dispensation, he can wait in line.”

Claire stood up. She shot me one of her wise smirks.

“You obviously have a suggestion,” I said.

“Naturally. Why not do what you normally do in situations of doubt and stress?”

“And that is… ”

“Cook the man a meal.”

T
HAT
AFTERNOON
, Cindy hunched in front of her computer at the
Chronicle,
sipping a Stewart’s Orange n’ Cream, as she scrolled down another futile query.

Somewhere, in the deepest bin of her memory there was
something
she had filed away: a nagging recollection she couldn’t place.
Chimera…
the word used in another context, some other form that would help the case.

She’d gone through
CAL
, the
Chronicle’s
on-line archives, and come back with zilch. She had browsed through the usual search engines: Yahoo, Jeeves, Google. Her antennae were buzzing on high mode. She felt, as did Lindsay, that this fantastical monster led somewhere other than hate groups. It led to one very twisted and clever individual.

C’mon.
She exhaled, jabbing the enter key in frustration.
I know you’re in here somewhere.

The day was nearly gone, and she’d come up with nothing. Not even a lead for tomorrow morning’s edition. Her editor would be pissed.
We have readers,
he would grumble.
Readers want continuity.
She’d have to promise him something.
But what?
The investigation was stalled.

When she found it, she was in Google, wearily eyeing down the eighth page of responses. It hit her like a slap.

Chimera… Hellhole, an expose of prison life in Pelican Bay, by Antoine James. Posthumous publication of prison hardships, cruelties, life of crime.

Pelican Bay…Pelican Bay was where they threw the worst of the worst troublemakers in the California prison system. Violent offenders who couldn’t be controlled anywhere else.

She remembered now that she had read about Pelican Bay in the
Chronicle,
maybe two years before. That was where she’d heard of Chimera. It was how it fit. That was what had been needling her.

She spun her chair over to the
CAL
terminal on a nearby shelf. She pushed her glasses up on her forehead and typed in the query
Antoine James.

Five seconds later, a response came up. One article, August 10, 1998. Two years before. Written by Deb Meyer, a Sunday section feature writer. Headlined: “
POSTHUMOUS
JOURNAL
DETAILS
NIGHTMARE
WORLD
OF
VIOLENCE
BEHIND
BARS
.”

She clicked on the display bar, and in another few seconds a facsimile of the article flashed on the screen. It was a Lifestyle article in a Sunday Metro section. Antoine James, while serving a ten-to-fifteen sentence at Pelican Bay for armed robbery had been stabbed and killed in a prison squabble. He had kept a journal detailing the unsettling story of life on the inside, alleging a routine of forced snitching, racial attacks, beatings by guards, and perpetual gang violence.

She printed the article, closed out of
CAL
, and spun her chair back across to her desk. She leaned back in her chair and rested her feet on a stack of books. She scanned the page.

“From the moment they process you through the doors, life in Pelican Bay is a constant war of guard intimidation and gang violence,” James had written in a black composition book. “The gangs provide your status, your identity, your protection, too. Everyone pledges out, and whatever group you belong to controls who you are and what’s expected of you.”

Cindy’s eyes raced further down. The prison was a viper’s nest of gangs and retaliation. The blacks had the Bloods and the Daggers, as well as the Muslims. The Latinos had the Nortenos in their red headbands and the Serranos in their blue, and the Mexican Mafia, Los Eme. Among the whites, there were the Guineas and the Bikers, and some white-trash shitbags called the Stinky Toilet People. And the supremacist Aryans.

“Some of the groups were ultra-secret,” James wrote. “Once you were in, nobody touched you.

“One of these white groups was particularly nasty All ‘max’ guys, serving violent felony time. They’d cut a brother open just to bet on what he had to eat.”

Adrenaline shot through Cindy as she stopped on the next sentence.

James had a name for the group —
Chimera.

I
WAS
JUST
FINISHING
UP for the day – nothing further on the four victims and the white chalk still a mystery – when I got a call from Cindy.

“The Hall still under martial law?” she quipped, referring to the mayor’s moratorium on the press.

“Trust me, it’s no picnic on the inside either.”

“Why don’t you meet me? I’ve got something.”

“Sure. Where?”

“Look out your window. I’m right outside.”

I peered out and saw Cindy leaning on a car parked outside the Hall. It was almost seven. I cleared my desk, called a quick good-night to Lorraine and Chin, and ducked out the rear entrance. I ran across the street and went up to Cindy. She was in a short skirt and embroidered jean jacket, with a faded khaki knapsack slung over her shoulder.

“Choir practice?” I winked.

“You should talk. Next time I see you in
SWAT
gear, I’ll assume you have a date with your dad.”

“Speaking of Marty, I called him. I asked him over tomorrow night. So, Deep Throat, what’s so important that we’re meeting out here?”

“Good news, bad news,” Cindy said. She pulled off her knapsack and came up with an 8 × 11 envelope. “I think I found it, Lindsay.”

She handed me the envelope, and I opened it: a Chronicle article dated two years ago about a prison diary Hellhole, by someone named Antoine James. A few passages were highlighted in yellow. I began to read.

“Aryan… worse than Arvan. All max guys. White, bad, and hating. We didn’t know who they hated worse, us, the ’’ they had to share their meals with, or the cops and guards who had put them there.

“These bastards had a name for themselves. They called themselves Chimera… “

My eyes fixed on the word.

“They’re animals, Lindsay. The worst troublemakers in the penal system. They’re even committed to carrying out each other’s hits on the outside.

“That’s the good news,” she said. “The bad news is, it’s Pelican Bay.”

I
N
THE
ANATOMY
of the California state prison system, Pelican Bay was
the place where the sun don’t shine.

The following day, I took Jacobi and “req’d” a police helicopter for the hour’s flight up the coast to Crescent City, near the Oregon border. I had been to Pelican Bay twice before, to meet with a snitch on a murder case and attend a parole hearing for someone I had put away. Each time, as I flew over the dense redwood forest surrounding the facility, it left a hole in the pit of my stomach.