Within These Walls (12 page)

Lucas furrowed his eyebrows at the sentiment. The way it had come out of nowhere, it seemed to him like Morales was justifying something.

“But nah, I’m not one-on-one with him,” Morales clarified. “I’m not one-on-one with any of them. That whole setup seems like a bad idea, you know? I just work here.”

Lucas wasn’t convinced, but he didn’t press the issue.

There was one more cage to go through before they reached the visitation cell—three in all, rendering the daydream of escape impossible. As they waited for the final buzzer to allow them inside, Lucas cleared his throat and pulled on the hem of his button-down shirt.

“You’re nervous,” Morales observed, then shot him a crooked smile. “Don’t worry, we haven’t had a homicide in here in, like, years; just a few instances of aggravated assault.”

“Great.” Lucas smirked at the vote of confidence.

“Nah, no worries. You’ll have two guards in there with you. They’ll Taser him in two seconds if he tries anything.” Except physical violence wasn’t the real danger when it came to Jeffrey Halcomb. His acts of violence were never fueled by anger, and that was, perhaps, what made him so dangerous. Every move Halcomb had made to get him to this point in his life had been strategic. The man had lived out his life as the king in his own game of chess.

“So, you really think this is a good idea?” Morales asked, pausing at an open door, the visitation room just beyond it. “You know he’s got . . . like, voodoo in him. Why else would all those people have done what they did?”

L.A. Mexican-American. A mother who Hail Mary’d on the phone. Whether it was stereotypical or not, Lucas couldn’t help but imagine paintings of Jesus Christ and Our Lady of Guadalupe decorating the walls of this guard’s childhood home. There was no doubt the Morales clan went to church every Sunday, celebrated Easter
as ornately as Christmas, and believed that their destiny was in the hands of God. And where there was an unshakable faith in the Almighty, there was also an intrinsic fear of the devil. Officer Morales looked put-together. His uniform was freshly pressed and his badge was as shiny as a cowboy’s gold star. But underneath it all, he was his mother’s demon-fearing son. Lucas could only imagine how well regarded he was in his circle of family friends. He was, after all, protecting the world from God’s exiled angels.

“You don’t think Jeffrey Halcomb is good material for a book?” Lucas asked. “He can’t reach out and grab you through the page.”

“Yeah, but the dude had a lot of followers. He
still
does. You should see the amount of mail he gets, and what do all those letters say? I mean, what are people writing to this guy about? Don’t you ever get worried?”

“What, about stalkers?” Lucas gave Morales a smile. “Don’t you ever get worried about your occupational hazards, jail breaks and cafeteria brawls?”

Morales stared at Lucas for a long moment, as though he’d just been asked the stupidest question he’d ever heard. “Yeah, actually.”

Of course he does,
Lucas thought.
His mother probably brings up the dangers of his job every time he calls home.

It was then that one of Morales’s fellow officers came around the corner and met them with an upheld hand. The name on his badge read “M L EPERSON.” He was a big guy, probably a good fifty pounds overweight, a John Candy look-alike with the body of a forty-year-old and the face of a toddler. Sweat beaded around Officer Eperson’s temples despite the air blasting down on them from overhead. His uniform was a size too small, the buttons on his shirt holding on for dear life. Either Eperson had had too many Krispy Kremes or his wife had shrunk his uniform in the wash.

“I’m coming from Jeffrey Halcomb’s cell,” he told Morales, then
turned his attention toward Lucas. “Afraid the inmate has canceled on you, Mr. . . .” Eperson waited for a name.

“Graham—and what the hell are you talking about?” Lucas gaped at the prison system’s Pillsbury Doughboy, waiting for the punch line. The receptionist had warned him to call in advance. He had been told that either prison administration or the inmate could cancel a visitation at any time, for any reason. Yet Lucas had stupidly considered himself immune to that possibility. It wasn’t supposed to happen
.
He and Halcomb had a goddamn
deal
.

“Yep.” Eperson shrugged, looking more penitent than necessary. “Sorry to say, but Halcomb’s got a reputation for saying one thing and doing something else. When you made your appointment, the receptionist should have told you to call two hours ahead—”

“She did,” Lucas cut him off with a murmur.

Eperson and Morales exchanged looks, then Eperson cleared his throat and gave Lucas a regretful smile. “To be fair, seems that calling wouldn’t have done much good here anyway. It looks like everything was fine until I went to retrieve him. That’s when he told me he’d changed his mind. There isn’t anything we can do if an inmate refuses to take a visitor. They’re in prison, but they still retain the right to privacy.”

“Great,” Lucas said. “Fantastic.”

“It’s not all bad,” Eperson insisted. “Apparently, Halcomb sent something up to the front desk for you. A consolation prize.” Morales exhaled a laugh at Eperson’s joke, but Lucas didn’t find it funny.

Maybe it was an apology; a Hallmark card reading “
Gotcha
!
” on the inside flap. Lucas frowned and glared down at his legal pad of questions. This was bullshit. He wasn’t some run-of-the-mill visitor. He’d moved his entire
life
for this opportunity. Halcomb had given Lucas his word.

Except Halcomb hadn’t actually promised, had he? The sud
den realization that Lucas had imagined Halcomb’s letter as some sort of ironclad guarantee made his entire body sizzle with weariness. But why would Halcomb say one thing and do something completely different? What was the point?
Maybe he was bored.
The thought spiraled through his head like a paper airplane in the wind.
Maybe he was fucking
bored
and he decided to screw with someone. That someone just happened to be me.
Because how did a master manipulator get his kicks if it wasn’t by messing with people’s minds? Who better to target than an author who was guaranteed to salivate at the mere thought of interviewing a criminal who hadn’t breathed a word to the media before now?
Goddammit, I should have listened to John
.

“Fuck.” The profanity slid involuntarily past his lips. The guards seemed to shift their weight around him, as if hesitant to break the silence. Eperson finally did.

“Josh, uh . . . you want to lead Mr. Graham back up to the front?”

“Sure thing,” Morales said.

Eperson gave his comrade a nod and pivoted on the soles of his boots, marching back to wherever he had come from.

Lucas stood motionless for a long while, his eyes fixed on the yellow paper that had turned crinkly beneath the ink of his ballpoint pen. He had spent all night on those questions and notes, pressing down hard enough to make the back of the paper bumpy like Braille. Yesterday, he was sure he was a day away from correcting his downward trajectory, so close to fixing his screwed-up life. Now, he had no idea what the hell he was supposed to do. Because despite Halcomb upending their deal, Lucas was sure one thing in that letter was set in stone: Halcomb’s deadline.
I won’t reveal the significance of the date or deadline, so please, don’t ask.
Lucas had two weeks left to make the connection. Two measly shots left to get to Halcomb before the whole thing was called off, if that hadn’t already happened.
Fuck him,
Lucas thought.
I’ve done what he’s asked. He’s going to talk to me whether he wants to or not.

This is
bullshit
.
The word rolled around inside his head, loud and pulsating with slow-growing outrage, with disbelief. It had been the house in exchange for his cooperation. The house so Lucas could understand, could
appreciate
what had transpired in March of 1983. He was living there so he could write the story that no run-of-the-mill reporter ever would.

The media relayed the story, but what they fail to acknowledge is that this story,
my
story, is one that has yet to be told.

Lucas
needed
this story, goddammit. He needed this fucking book to work.

“Sorry, man,” Morales said, speaking if only to get Lucas moving again. “We have to go all the way back.”

Lucas would have moved to Washington regardless of whether or not Halcomb had asked him to do so—that was just the way he worked. He just wouldn’t have done it in a mad ten-day dash. The house was a dated relic, a dormant nightmare that he’d dragged his daughter into. He’d dumped money into a moving van, into endless tanks of gas. He’d signed a lease and made a security deposit. It was money he couldn’t afford to lose or even had in the first place.

“Son of a bitch,” he hissed.

“Hey, sorry, man, I thought . . .” Morales cut himself off, as if catching himself in a statement he shouldn’t have been making. Backpedaling, he posed a question instead. “It’s going to mess you up, huh?”

“Uh, yeah, just a little.” Lucas narrowed his eyes as they trekked back to the front of the facility.

“Hey, you wrote a book about the Black Dahlia,” Morales reminded him. “You didn’t interview anyone for that, and that book was good, man. It was
really
good.” So Morales
had
read something
beyond
Bloodthirsty Times
; a repeat reader. His eagerness to make Lucas feel a little less defeated would have been endearing if he hadn’t been so pissed off.

“Thanks.” He nearly sneered the word, then sighed at his own aggravation. “I’m sorry. I appreciate you trying to lighten the mood, I’m just . . .” He shook his head. “I just can’t believe this blew up in my face.”

Morales nodded.

“You interact with the inmates, right? I mean, you said that you don’t make it a point to get friendly, but you
do
interact with them.”

“Yeah, sure, man. All part of the job.”

“So, if you
wanted
to go one-on-one . . .”

Morales made a face at the suggestion.

“What if it was for a project?” Lucas asked, sensing the guard’s disapproval.

“You mean, like . . . for your book?” Morales’s expression turned thoughtful before giving Lucas a rueful glance. “I’m not real good with that stuff. I mean, I don’t know how I could help . . .” He cracked a grin. “I’m just a guy from East L.A., man. I know the streets, but that’s pretty much where my smarts dead-end. Cool offer, though. My mom would flip if I got my name printed in a book somewhere.”

“What about that other guy?” He tipped his head to motion behind them.

“Eperson? Yeah, he knows a lot of those guys.”

“You think he’d be willing to sit down and talk with me?”

“Probably. Eperson’s pretty cool. He does a lot of visitation stuff. That’s one thing I
do
know. Halcomb, he’s always got a visitor, and it’s always this one woman.”

Lucas stared at the guard, thrown for a loop by the new information.

The second barred door buzzed. He nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Do you know who she is?”

“That’s more like something Eperson would know. He knows when inmates are in and out of their cells, for how long, and for what reason. I don’t know if he has access to, like, names or copies of ID’s or anything, but I can ask.”

“What does she look like?” Morales continued to walk. Lucas suddenly wanted to grab him to make him stop, wanted to shake him by the shoulders and yell
Do you know what this means?
It was the mother lode of possible leads.

“Dirty blond, I think, but it’s hard to tell. She wears these scarf things on her head, and the one time I saw her up close, I was on break. She was sitting in the waiting area when I was leaving for lunch. She was wearing these big glasses. You know, like the ones the chicks in Hollywood wear? Lenses so big they swallow half your face.”

The third door. The buzz. The security desk. Morales sidled up to the counter and gave Lumpy Annie a smile. “Hey, anything up here for Mr. Graham from inmate”—he glanced to Lucas’s visitor release form—“881978?”

She rose from the counter without a word and wandered into the back, presumably to check on Morales’s request.

Morales gave Lucas a patient nod. “Like I said, I don’t know if that was the woman for sure. Marty would know better. I’ll ask him. Just have a seat.” He motioned toward the plastic chairs. “It may be a few minutes.”

“How can I reach you?” Lucas asked. “Do I just call the facility and leave a message?”

“Yeah, that’ll work. I’m the only Morales here. First name is Josh.”

Lucas extended a hand to shake in official greeting. “Thanks for your help, Josh.”

“Yeah, man. It was an honor. Sorry about the letdown with Hal
comb. But it was nice meeting a real-life author, anyway. Your stuff really is top-notch, Mr. Graham.”

“Call me Lucas.”

“Okay, Lucas then. Give me a shout when you need me.”

“Will do,” Lucas said, and finally took a seat.

16

I
T TOOK LUMPY
Annie fifteen minutes to locate whatever it was that Halcomb had sent to the front. It wouldn’t have mattered if it had taken her fifteen days, Lucas wouldn’t have moved from his seat. She finally called him up to the counter and slid a note-card-sized manila envelope across the cracked and peeling laminate. Lucas didn’t bother walking out of the waiting area before tearing into the package; Lumpy Annie looking on.

It was a cross about the size of his palm. Delicate hand-painted flowers coiled across each tarnished silver arm. A small metal loop at the top suggested that someone had once worn it around their neck despite its large size. He peered at it, turning it this way and that, as though flipping it over would answer the obvious question—why did Halcomb gift this thing to him? Why had he bothered giving Lucas anything after refusing to see him?

His gaze flicked up to the woman behind the counter. “What’s this?” he asked, as though Lumpy Annie was privy to some impor­tant nugget of information.

“Looks like a cross,” she said, not interested in Lucas pulling her into his confusion.

“Obviously,” he murmured to himself, peering at the artifact in his hand. “But why would he send it up here? What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Send it up here?” Lumpy Annie arched an eyebrow. “No, that
wasn’t sent up here.” Lucas shook his head at her, not understanding. “An inmate can’t send something like that up,” she said. “You think we’d let any of our charges have something like that in their cells?” Lucas blinked down at the cross once more. Its edges seemed sharp, its innocuous design far more weapon-like now than it had seemed seconds before. “Someone left that, but it wasn’t the inmate,” she said matter-of-factly. “Don’t ask me by who because I don’t know . . . but I’ve seen it done before.”

“Is there a way to—”

“No.” She cut him off.

“But someone keeps a record, right?” Lucas stared at her, determined. “
Someone
knows who left this, yeah? What if it was a piece of evidence? What if it was a murder weapon?”

“Sir . . .” Lumpy Annie’s expression went sour.
Cool it.
Lucas took a breath as she gave him a measured look. “You have a nice day.”

He turned away from the front desk, readjusted his bag against his hip, then veered around to face her again. “I want to schedule another visitation,” he said. “I want to know why I was stood up.”

Lumpy Annie only stared at him.

“I have a right to schedule another visitation,” he told her, his words hard-edged. She wasn’t impressed by his stick-to-itiveness. Clearing her throat, she reached for the phone. Was she calling
security
on him?

“You know what, forget it. I’ll call later.” Lucas turned away. “I’m leaving.”

He stalked across the parking lot to Selma’s car. When he looked back toward the facility, he spotted an officer standing just outside the main doors. The cop was staring right at Lucas, waiting for him to roll out of the parking lot without incident. She
had
called security. He barked out a clipped laugh at the ridiculousness of it. Had he really come off as
that
loose of a cannon?

Sitting in the car with the sun beating down on him through the windshield, Lucas narrowed his eyes. He scowled at the silver Toyota emblem affixed to the center of the steering wheel. The overpowering fruity smell of Selma’s air freshener was sickening. It was the kind of scent that gives birth to eyesight-impairing migraines. Glaring at those twin cherries hanging from the rearview mirror, he rolled down the windows and eased the car onto the road, but he didn’t get far. Frustration had him pulling onto the soft shoulder of the highway a few miles out of Lambert. He put the Camry in park, shoved the driver-side door open, and ducked into the trees that lined the quiet wooded road.

“Stupid lying son of a bitch.” He seethed, kicking at the trunk of the nearest pine. What the hell had he done? What kind of an idiot trusts a criminal, a murderer? What kind of a father moves his kid to the scene of a crime?

Halcomb had played him, one hundred percent. The success of his project—his career, his
marriage
—hung in the balance. And all Lucas had to show for his trouble was an ugly goddamn cross.