And that realization spawned another. The others had to know Jake did it. They didn’t
know
it, know it—not in a sense that they had personally seen or heard anything, but they knew it. Captain Overbay had pretty much confirmed it for them when he called Jake out of line. That was the reason for their wry smiles and subtle nods, and why no one asked him any questions. If they didn’t
know
anything, even if they really did, then they couldn’t be forced to say anything, no matter what further punishment the captain might have in store. They were protecting Jake.
Their revelry lasted exactly two hours before the siren sounded and Overbay had the guards reassemble them. Overbay asked if
anyone would like to come forward with any information, telling them there was still time to open the cafeteria for dinner. When no one did, he ordered them to spend the remainder of the afternoon working in the hot sun. Before dismissing them, however, he called out the names of three inmates and asked that the guards bring them to the Administration Building.
So would begin the Grand Inquisition.
The guards led the rest of them to a rectangular patch of dirt staked out near the camp garden, handed them garden hoes, pickaxes, and wheelbarrows and informed them that their job was to rid the soil of rocks, some as big as basketballs when they were finally unearthed. Throughout the afternoon, the guards continued to pull inmates off the project, presumably to be interrogated.
Bee Dee and Jake worked as a team, loading the unearthed rocks into wheelbarrows and dumping them on an accumulating pile. Jake kept an eye on the guards, waiting until they became disengaged, as bored with the task as the inmates. Then he asked Bee Dee the question that had been bothering him most since he heard the siren signaling that the guards had found T-Mac and Big Baby.
“Why haven’t they said anything? Do you think maybe they don’t remember?”
Bee Dee continued to toss rocks into the wheelbarrow, each hitting the metal sides with a clang. “They remember. They remember exactly what happened.”
Jake wiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve. “Maybe they’re afraid we’ll turn them in for what they were trying to do to T.J.”
Bee Dee used a pickax to unearth a reluctant rock. “I told you, Big Baby is a psychopath and T-Mac isn’t far behind. They’re not afraid of us saying anything about that because they’re not afraid of being caught. Their minds don’t work that way. They don’t have that thing, that, whatever it’s called that makes people not do stuff.”
“What?” Jake asked.
“That thing that makes us not do certain things.”
“A governor,” Jake said.
Bee Dee scowled. “A what?”
David used the term. He said everyone had a governor, that tiny voice that told us right from wrong. “A conscience.”
Bee Dee nodded. “Right.”
“Okay, but that still doesn’t explain why they aren’t saying anything?”
Bee Dee stopped digging. The visible portion of the rock indicated it to be at least the size of a small coconut. “Because if they said something, Overbay would have to ship you and me and T.J. out of here, that’s why. That’s the rule; you assault another inmate and you’re gone. Captain wouldn’t have a choice. He can’t hide this one. Why do you think it took so long for the ambulances to get here?”
Jake hadn’t thought about it. “I don’t know.”
“Because once they had to call the paramedics, get others from outside involved, they couldn’t make up some bullshit story like they usually do—‘Oh, he just fell down and hit his head.’ Maybe one fell. But two? The doctors would know; they’d know someone hit them both in the head with a rock. They can tell those things. So the captain had to tell it for real. That means enforcing the rules
if
he finds out who did it. He’d have to ship us out.” Bee Dee began picking at the ground again. “Big Baby’s a psycho, but he isn’t stupid.”
Jake felt his knees go weak with the implication.
“Big Baby’s coming back,” Bee Dee said, voicing it. “He’s coming back eventually, and when he does, he intends to handle this on his own.”
The guards called out three more names, including Bee Dee’s. Bee Dee handed Jake the pickax and Jake watched him leave, disappearing up the path.
“Get back to work,” one of the guards said.
Jake took a whack at the rock Bee Dee had been unearthing. Every swing made the blisters on his palms burn. Blood showed through the cotton and the tape strips. He straddled the rock and took a hard swipe, the pointed end of the pick digging underneath the rock. Since he couldn’t use his hands to apply pressure, he leaned into the handle with his shoulder and drove forward with his legs, trying to free it. The handle flexed, then gave way and Jake sprawled onto the dirt.
“What are you doing?” a guard asked.
The handle had come out of the slot forged in the metal pick, which remained wedged beneath the boulder. “The handle broke.”
“Get another one and get that out,” the guard said.
Jake walked to a metal shed. Inside he found pallets of Miracle-Gro fertilizer, Epsom salts, and boxes of insect spray. Farther in he found boxes of rat poison, dozens of rolled-up black garden hoses and balls of brown coarse string, but no gardening tools. Exiting, he walked to the entrance of an adjacent glass building. A padlock hung open in the hook. Jake pushed the door in and entered, and came to a stop.
“Whoa.” Row after row of plants in different stages of growth, from seedlings to a foot tall sprouted in rich dark soil.
“What are you doing in here?” Jake wheeled at the question. A guard stood at the entrance, hands on hips. “I asked, what do you think you’re doing in here?”
Jake held up the pick handle. “It broke. I was told to get a new one.”
“You’re not allowed in here. You need another tool, you ask for one.”
“I did.” Jake caught himself. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t know.”
The guard stepped closer. “You better learn to respect the rules around here,” he said. “Now get the hell out.”
SEVENTEEN
T
HE
S
UTTER
B
UILDING
W
INCHESTER
, C
ALIFORNIA
T
om Molia sipped at the cold remnants of his coffee. When he had bought it, at the crack of dawn, he’d damn near burned his lips with the first sip, and he was still spitting pieces of dead skin peeling off the roof of his mouth. He’d maintained his vigil all night, taking breaks only to relieve his bladder and to get the cup of coffee when daylight slowly crept up the street, pushing back the shadows and the morning chill.
The security guard on duty when Molia had arrived at the Sutter Building was relieved at midnight, confirming twenty-four-hour security. If the guards worked eight-hour shifts, the graveyard would end in roughly fewer than seven minutes. Molia only had to wait two minutes to confirm his deduction. A car turned into the parking lot adjacent to the building, parked next to the car the guard drove in at midnight, and the relief guard got out.
“I love it when I’m right,” Molia said, waiting for the guard to walk toward the entrance before exiting Dave Bennett’s truck.
The temperature had warmed with the rising sun, but Molia still felt a chill in his bones from sitting through the night. He wasn’t as young as he’d been when he’d started his career. Back then he could do a ten-hour shift, get off duty, lift weights for two more hours, and get home to make love to Maggie after she got the kids out the door to school. The thought of her made him
melancholy, but he pushed those feelings aside, slowing his pace to time his approach with the relief guard’s arrival at the front door. He didn’t try to hide Bennett’s video camera. To the contrary, he brought it up and flipped open the side panel, stopping to film the stone building, which caused the guard to stop and consider him.
Molia lowered the camera. “Is it okay? I just love these old buildings; you don’t see many like this where I’m from.”
“Knock yourself out.” The relief guard tapped a key on the glass and waited for the guard in the lobby to gather his things.
Molia panned up and down the building, zooming in and out, catching the guard looking back over his shoulder. “If you really like old buildings you should drive into Old Town.” The man pointed. “Just down the bottom of the hill.”
“I read about it in the brochure,” Molia said. “That’s where I was headed when I saw the placard and figured I’d stop and have a look-see.”
“That’s the original Winchester,” the man said. “They got all kinds of old buildings down there.”
“Well I am itching to see them, too,” Molia said.
The guard arched his eyebrow as the guard inside unlocked the door. He considered Molia before handing his relief the key, just as the first guard had done when he’d arrived at midnight.
By the time Molia returned to Dave Bennett’s truck the relief guard had taken up his spot at the desk, where he would remain for the next eight hours. He would get up to stretch the boredom and fatigue from his muscles and maybe once or twice to use the bathroom around the corner from the elevator doors that never opened, but he would not use the elevator. He would not open the door to the stairwell to the second floor. He’d never make rounds inside or outside the building. There was no need. The lack of cars in the parking lot was the final bit of information Molia needed to confirm that, on a Monday morning, nobody was coming to work in the Sutter Building.
Whatever line of business Trinity Investments was in, it didn’t require manual labor.
W
INCHESTER
C
OUNTY
C
OURTHOUSE
C
LERK’S
O
FFICE
W
INCHESTER
, C
ALIFORNIA
Sloane had Dave Bennett call Eileen Harper to give her a heads-up, not wanting to startle her. Still he had to give Harper credit for her acting skills. Though Harper had to be nervous, she didn’t show it when Sloane walked into the clerk’s office bright and early Monday morning. She just continued going on about her work. The morning light from one of three arched windows spilled across her desk, though it did not yet reach the counter where Sloane awaited assistance.
Sloane had debated the consequences of what he was about to do. It wasn’t exactly subtle, as he and Molia discussed, but subtle wasn’t his nature. He wanted Boykin, and whoever else was involved, to know that if they messed with Jake, Sloane would push even harder to find out all their dirty little secrets. And he hoped that would draw their attention from Jake to him.
As with every other county in the state, and likely the country, the Winchester County Courthouse records and files were accessible online; the legislatures required it, and the courthouses, even the historic ones, were obligated to comply. Sloane had gone online first thing that morning, printed the request slips, and filled in the case numbers for the files he wanted to review, and he had a hunch it would set off a few alarms, no matter how quietly he went about it. Evelyn Newcomber met him across the polished oak counter. In her midfifties, Newcomber looked to have a flare for the dramatic with long painted fingernails, purple this morning with a blue crescent moon, and colorful bead necklaces. “Mr. Sloane, you’re back,” she said, a touch of surprise in her voice.
Sloane acknowledged the smile. “Actually, I never left; stayed the whole weekend right here in Winchester County.”
She glanced at the sheets of paper. “Are you filing something this morning?”
“Not this morning. This morning I’m looking to review a couple of files.” He handed her the request forms, and she separated them on the counter.
“These are closed files. They’ll be in storage. It could take some time for me to have them pulled.”
“I’ll wait,” Sloane said.
“Might take some time,” she repeated. “Why don’t you leave a number and I’ll call when they’re ready.”
“I have no place else I need to be,” Sloane said.
“I can get them.” Eileen Harper approached the counter, her voice even. “I’m not busy this morning; I can pull them for you.”
Newcomber’s smile soured, but with Sloane waiting she couldn’t very well tell Harper to mind her own business. “Thank you, Eileen.” She handed Harper the request slips without further comment. “You can take a seat,” she said to Sloane, pointing to a wood-slat bench against a wall lined with a series of black-and-white period photographs depicting the clerk’s office through the years. Sloane considered them, though the photographs weren’t his interest. The light through the arched windows reflected in the glass covering the photographs in such a way that he could see the workspace behind the counter. Newcomber made busywork for a bit, moving a few piles around her desk as if attending to matters. Then she picked up the phone, turning her back to Sloane. It wasn’t long after she’d hung up that Archibald Pike walked in, glanced in Newcomber’s direction, and approached where Sloane waited.
“Mr. Sloane.” Pike tried to act surprised, but he was not nearly as competent an actor as Eileen Harper. “Are you filing additional pleadings?”
Sloane shook his head. “Not here,” he said, the implication being something would be filed that morning with the Third District Court of Appeal in Sacramento. Sloane offered nothing further, which allowed for an awkward pause. Silence unnerved most people, especially people seeking information. Pike hadn’t come to shoot the breeze.
“So then what brings you back?” Pike asked.
“Just interested in reviewing a couple of files.” The paddle fans rotated slowly overhead.
Pike waited. When Sloane didn’t add anything he said, “A couple of files?”
Sloane nodded. “That’s right.”
Pike cleared his throat. “I’ve, uh, been here a long time. Perhaps I can help. Is there some file in particular you’re interested in.”
“Small town?” Sloane said.
“Small town,” Pike agreed.
Sloane waited, as if giving the offer due consideration. “I don’t want to trouble you.”
“No trouble.”
“It’s probably a more appropriate discussion to have with the city attorney anyway. They’re civil matters.”