12th of Never

Chapter 63

I EXCUSED MYSELF, went out of the room, and asked Ron Parker what was up.

He said, “There’s been a development.”

Parker was wearing his weekend clothes—chinos, pink polo shirt, sunglasses hanging on the placket. He was looking at me as though he were about to open a trapdoor under my feet.

I said, “You bring good news, I’m sure.”

“It could be good.”

I didn’t believe it for a second. I said, “Please don’t ask me to see Fish again.”

“You’ve cast some kind of spell on him, Lindsay. He loves you, or maybe that beat-down you gave him turned him on. He says he’s willing to help us—meaning you—locate the bodies in this neck of the woods. Those are his words.”

“I already went to see him, Ron. He got over on us, and now I’m done with Randolph Fish.”

“He says he’ll give up names of girls we didn’t know we were missing. This is important. It’s an opportunity to close out some ugly cold cases. I don’t see how we can turn him down.”

“Ron, c’mon. He’s jerking us around.” “I don’t think so.”

“Really?”

“I told him that if he fucked us over, I’d have him transferred to the Q.”

San Quentin is the oldest prison in California, with a death row that is the most decrepit, overpopulated hellhole imaginable. Originally built to hold forty-five prisoners, it now has a population of 725 convicted killers and more condemned dirtbags on the way every week.

Fish wouldn’t like it there. No one ever did.

“So the Q is the stick,” I said.

“Yup. And here’s the carrot. If he helps, he gets one of those electronic book readers. Depending on how many of his victims he leads us to, we’ll talk about taking the needle off the table.”

“I still say he’s conning us.”

“You could be right. Still a good bet that Fish may have had an attack of conscience.”

I said, “Fish has the conscience of a fish.”

Ron laughed.

We made a plan.

Then I drove to the hospital to see my baby girl.