Acquired Motives (Dr. Sylvia Strange Book 2) (11 page)

     
"Ray would be happy if I just quit. You know he wants me out of the prison." The Camaro's windows were open, and Rosie let her elbow rest on the lip of the door. Warm, dry wind swallowed the sound of radio chatter.

     
Rosie nosed the Camaro to forty-five m.p.h. as they approached the Corrections Academy, where a new class of officers was currently in training. A ragtag group of men and women attempted push-ups out on the field. Heat undulated from their bodies.

     
Minutes later the penitentiary's main facility was directly ahead: dull gray, institutional, lifeless. With fingertips on the wheel, Rosie eased right at the fork and continued past Main Facility, where her office was located on the second floor.

     
Cole Lynch, the Counselor, was housed at South Facility, medium security, three minutes away. But they would find him at North—the maximum-security facility—on the job.

R
OSIE
S
ANCHEZ TAPPED
on the reinforced glass window that topped the door to the law library. Inside, the inmate looked up from a stack of legal texts he was organizing. He had the ridged forehead of a Neanderthal man and a hook nose, his dark hair hung in short ringlets, his eyes were almost hidden beneath thick brows. Recognition soothed his wild features; he stood slowly, walked to the door, and opened it a crack.

     
"Ms. Sanchez. To what do I owe this pleasure?" Cole Lynch's voice had the clipped, concise syllables, the theatrical enunciation, of a practiced attorney. He was clearly pleased to see Rosie Sanchez.

     
"Could you spare us a minute, Counselor?"

     
Cole Lynch, a.k.a. the Counselor, was custodian of North's law library; he was also a self-taught paralegal who helped inmates in disciplinary seg when they needed to file an appeal or write a brief.

     
Usually, the Counselor supervised three separate and secure study cells, each occupied by an inmate, each a spoke off the hub of the compact reference library. This was where men who routinely spent twenty-three hours a day in lockdown could work on getting out.
Legally
. At the moment, the study cells were unoccupied.

     
From her vantage point behind Rosie, Sylvia thought the Counselor looked like a law student she had dated years ago at U.C.L.A. Maybe it was the hook nose or the
L.A. Law
hair. It wasn't the D.O.C. duds.

     
Rosie smiled. "We need to talk." She stepped past Cole Lynch and entered the library followed by Sylvia.

     
The Counselor's eyes gleamed with intelligence and dead-on animal instinct; they slid over Sylvia while he spoke to the penitentiary investigator. He said, "I have reshelving to finish before my next clients arrive." He motioned to the books stacked on and around his desk.

     
Rosie pulled back, and Sylvia took over. "We'll stay out of your way." She knew the Counselor had already recognized her—inmates knew everyone whose work took them inside the joint—but she introduced herself formally, and then she motioned for him to proceed with his task. He picked up two heavy volumes. He was well over six feet tall and he reached the top shelves, balancing books, with ease.

     
Sylvia leaned her butt gingerly against a table that already bowed under the weight of
Black's Legal Dictionary
and
Landmark Supreme Court Decisions
.

     
"Have you heard from Dupont White?"

     
The Counselor slipped one of the tomes into place. "Killer? The last I heard, he died in that warehouse explosion eight weeks ago—'Blowout at Las Cruces,' as CNN said."

     
"Killer?"

     
The Counselor nodded. "He liked people to call him that."
Constitution and Society
slid into the row.

     
Sylvia watched Cole as he worked. His thin fingers caressed each binding like it was skin. Here was a man who valued books for the power they could bestow. She knew he would tell her exactly what he wanted to tell her—and nothing more.

     
She spoke casually. "How long did you know Dupont?"

     
Cole's lawyer persona was neatly in place. "Since we were kids in California. From the time we all spent at the ranch." He looked at her, gauging what she already knew. "My father was caretaker at Devil's Den. That's what they called it out there. All fifteen hundred acres." He selected another text and glanced at the clock on the wall. His patience was wearing thin.

     
Sylvia said, "It's possible that Dupont White is still alive."

     
The Counselor spoke softly. "Don't play games with me, Dr. Strange. I'm one of the
smart
ones—don't let the inmate greens fool you."

     
Sylvia heard Rosie exhale.

     
He reached around and picked up four volumes from beside the desk. They were heavy—at least eighty pounds of paper and leather—and the muscles on his arms bulged. As he moved back to the shelves, he said, "The feds were here six weeks ago. They were closing the case on Dupont White." A leather text landed roughly on the shelf.

     
Cole hefted another into the air. "DNA from hair and skin fragments will provide proof that he went up with the warehouse." The book slammed next to its relation.

     
Cole continued, "Dental records are also admissible in court as evidence of death." The next book hit so hard that the entire shelf shook.

     
Sylvia said, "You were his partner—but you seem happy to believe he's dead."

     
Cole faced Sylvia. "The last deal we did together, I ended up here, and Dupont walked." He gave her a cold smile.

     
There was a knock on the glass. An inmate stood just outside the door.

     
The Counselor nodded to the man. His mouth barely moved when he spoke to Sylvia. He said, "I can name four cons who will refuse treatment from you because the last man you evaluated was burned alive." He raised one eyebrow. "What is it with you prison shrinks? I think you overload on the dark side. Maybe you need some perspective?"

     
The waiting inmate tapped on the glass again.

     
Cole addressed both women, "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm busy."

     
Sylvia said, "Thank you very much for your time, Counselor." She picked up her briefcase.

     
Rosie was standing by the door, key in lock. As Sylvia turned to follow her friend, she glanced up at the bookshelves.
Model Penal Code and Commentaries
was upside down.

     
She found it appropriate that the Counselor had laid out his legal argument like a lawyer. Clearly, he needed to prove to "the court" that Dupont White was dead. But she believed that he didn't buy his own argument. And that upset the Counselor.

I
N THE HOSPITAL
of the penitentiary's Main Facility, firefighter and inmate Benji Muñoz y Concha lay supine on his mattress. He had not moved a muscle since the nurse and the C.O. had arranged his body under clean sheets. But he did have one of his waking dreams.

     
He saw himself racing up a hillside chased by flames. He knew exactly where he was—in the soft cleft between tuba rim and dirty canyon—just an easy jog from Dark Canyon. As he raced, he struggled to breathe. His throat was scorched, his lungs felt blackened and withered by the kind of heat that devours every last molecule of moisture. The muscles in his legs filled with blood and contracted until he thought they would rip apart and leave him crippled and powerless to escape the hungry flames. He heard the fire's roar like the great storm waves of the Florida ocean he had seen when he was seven years old. The water had terrified him more than fire.

     
He knew he would make it to the hilltop; he was a fourth-generation flame warrior.

     
When he was twenty yards from the crest, he heard the rhythmic
ffoof
of wings above the noise of the burn. It was night, but the flames cast a light as great as the sun. A pulsing shadow on the rugged earth kept pace with him. He felt a presence, and finally, he looked up. A great owl was flying directly above his head. Its eyes were hot orange. The tips of its wings were aflame. Smoke trailed from its beak.

     
Benji stumbled, fell, and that's when he saw the woman who was Rosie Sanchez's friend, the doctor. At first he didn't recognize her in Levi's and T-shirt with her hair tied back from her face. She was ahead of him surrounded by flames. He tried to call out a warning, but when she turned his way, he saw that her eyes were the hot glowing eyes of the owl.

     
Benji sat up rigid in his bed, felt the cinder-block walls and the dead air of this hospital, and knew that the owl had sent him a message.

CHAPTER EIGHT

"Y
OU'RE BACK
!" O
N
Monday morning Sylvia crossed the office reception area and hugged her colleague, Dr. Albert Kove. "You're so tanned and beautiful," she said, "I'm jealous. How was Tobago?"

     
Albert Kove was in his mid-forties, but with his cropped, salty-blond hair, collegiate wire-rim glasses, and rolled-up shirtsleeves he could pass for thirty-five. His movements were habitually slow and deliberate, in direct contrast to Sylvia's impulsive edginess. His careful speech and measured physicality always made his female associate want to jam at warp speed. Silently she ordered herself to slow to his pace.

     
He considered his response. "The island is lush, the snorkeling is incredible. It's not too touristy, and the locals don't seem to mind the intrusion. I give it another three years before it's overrun—"

     
She interrupted. "Did Carlos have a good time?" Carlos Giron was Kove's longtime domestic partner.

     
Kove grinned. "Too good. Too many rum punches, too many coconuts. He has to do penance for the next month. A low-fat diet."

     
"We missed you."

     
Kove had created the Forensic Evaluation Unit in 1984. Its purpose: provide top-notch forensic psychological services to state divisions and the criminal justice system. He'd courted the first contract from the state of New Mexico, and he'd negotiated renewals ever since. The F.E.U. was his baby. He also happened to be an excellent forensic psychologist.

     
Roberto Casias and Sylvia Strange were the two other members of the unit. Sylvia had joined the team five months earlier. In addition to the contractual triad, both Sylvia and Roberto were in limited private practice. The offices of the Forensic Evaluation Unit were within shouting distance of the Santa Fe judicial complex—just down the street from Sylvia's former office.

     
Albert Kove said, "If you schedule with the airlines now, you could be in Tobago within the week." He allowed a long therapeutic pause while he perched on the edge of the receptionist's desk. When he leaned back, Monday's unsorted mail slid everywhere.

     
Without success Sylvia tried to stop the landslide of letters, magazines, and journals. She gave up and balanced on the other side of the desk. Her fingersdrummed wood.

     
Kove continued. "I heard all about Randall—Erin Tulley's testimony, the motion to suppress." He paused, then said, "That must have upset Matt. Didn't he work with Tulley?" He saw the distress on Sylvia's face and touched her arm gently. "You're not responsible for anything that happened with Randall."

     
"Somebody thinks I am." Quickly she filled Kove in on the details of the last few days—including Dan Chaney's suspicions of a federal cover-up, and his insistence that Dupont White was alive and killing. She said, "At first, I was absolutely convinced Chaney's paranoid."

     
"I imagine he is." Kove took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes.

     
"I watched the videotape of one of Dupont White's kills—the m.o. is almost identical to Randall's murder. I talked to Dupont's ex-partner who's doing time at the pen; he wasn't happy when I suggested Dupont is alive." She swung one leg nervously. "I'm beginning to think Dan Chaney might not be completely crazy. What if the killer
is
Dupont? Is that possible, Albert?"

     
"There are other explanations. What about a copycat killer? The kind of experience you had, the assault in Matt's trailer, will influence your perceptions—"

     
"Albert, I'm not a hysterical female—there needs to be an investigation into Chaney's allegations, I know that. But I can't just call up the F.B.I. and say, Are you covering this up?'"

     
Kove readjusted his glasses and studied Sylvia's face. He thought he saw her brown irises darken. The ferocity of her gaze made him uneasy. He said, "What does Matt think?"

     
"He suggested that I stop evaluating perverts."

     
Kove snorted. "He's got something there." He stretched, one hand collided with metal, and Sylvia just managed to catch the high-intensity light as it fell.

     
Stooped beside the desk, she tugged at a large brown package. "What's this?"

     
Kove peered down. "My coconuts from Tobago." While Albert opened the package, Sylvia picked up a letter opener and began work on the envelopes. One by one they landed in appropriate piles—correspondence, bills, announcements.

     
He said, "It's going to take me a day to recover from jet lag." He cleaved plastic, reached inside the box, and produced a large brown fruit. "How about lunch tomorrow? We can review pending cases."

     
"Sure." She sliced the blade through creased paper. A neat white square fell from the envelope and landed on green plush carpet. "Oh, Jesus." She dropped the envelope.