Last shot

Chapter 6

Tim, Bear, and Newlin sat on frail rolling chairs in the control center, shoulder to shoulder before the TV, watching Walker Jameson work his way through a slab of meat loaf. On the way back, they'd stopped by the infirmary to speak to Jameson's cellie and gotten little from him save a sullen indifference that Tim had found credible. From the tape they'd confirmed that Walker appeared to be wearing no other layers under his tan button-up at dinner. Now a hulking black prisoner whom Newlin identified as a BGF leader cruised up to Walker's table. They spoke briefly, and then, judging by the man's expression, he left displeased.

Walker ate hunched over his tray, shoulders rounded, a man used to guarding resources. Another inmate hustled over to him and whispered urgently in his ear. Walker's body stiffened. The inmate patted his back almost regretfully and headed off. He was a wiry man who walked with a forward lean. Head down but eyes flashing-very alert.

Walker sat for a long, stunned time, then rose slowly and strode to the exit.

"Who's the whisperer?" Tim asked.

"Tommy LaRue. He's the go-to guy for the prisoners. We turn him upside down now and then just to see what'll fall out. Porn, dime bags, unlisted numbers of guys' ex-girlfriends. You'd be amazed. I found him with a wedge of wrapped Brie once, I shit you not. He's well respected. A nice, gentle guy."

"What's he in for?" Bear asked.

"Double homicide."

They inched the recording forward, frame by frame. LaRue had cupped his hand by Walker's ear, so there'd be no lip-reading magic. He'd had time to deliver a few words, tops.

"Let's see where he's coming from. LaRue." Tim indicated the side door through which LaRue had entered.

A painstaking twenty minutes passed as the other COs, with reluctance, helped Newlin sort through archived security tape to find the appropriate segments. Slowly, Tim and Bear pieced together LaRue's backward journey. The hall camera caught him flashing by. A breezeway lens captured a stretch of his hurried stroll from the yard. A wide-angle mounted on the roof of C-Unit showed him moving, a dot among dots, to the B-Unit door. And, finally, the last bit of footage traced him to his origin: the phone mounted on the range wall.

During the call, lasting less than ten seconds, LaRue faced away, blocking the numbers as he dialed. He'd strolled into the building casually but left with an intensity of purpose.

Something he'd heard had lit a fire under him.

Tim and Bear had to wait to get clearance to enter the Special Housing Unit, where LaRue would be spending the next few nights in solitary. During the post-escape cell checks, a CO had found a vial of heroin secreted in his pillow.

Frank Zarotta, the North Yard officer, had the bearing and temperament of a bulldog, a resemblance strengthened in no small measure by his persistent gnawing on a greasy Slim Jim. He studied Tim with wide, dark eyes, as if he were privy to a dirty secret.

Zarotta's radio crackled, and he pressed it to an ear, and then there was a buzz and the door clicked open. He beckoned Tim and Bear with a sturdy finger. They headed into the trap, an eight-by-twelve-foot chamber. Through a big window to their right, encased in a metal cage, two SHU officers looked up from their game of cards and returned Zarotta's flick of the head. One of them reached under his desk, and the inner door popped open.

Zarotta led Tim and Bear to the left, down a concrete corridor lined on either side with cell doors. "Now, remember," he said, "no strikes to the head. Maybe he gets a tooth through the lip, some blood on the brain-it's trouble. Aim low for the shin, or catch the floating rib." He paused and leaned back, a broad comic gesture with both arms spread. "Hey, what am I telling you? You guys know what you're doing." His eyes lingered on Tim. "Ain't that right, Troubleshooter?" He enjoyed a good laugh. "I'm just messin'. Shoulda seen you guys' faces."

He unlocked the steel door and led them in. The concrete cell had the usual stainless steel furnishings, the bed bolted to the concrete. A tiny window on the rear wall, no more than six inches by two feet, peered out on the darkness like a bunker gun slit. The metal reflected the harsh blue overhead light. Despite the scaled-down space, LaRue looked small, sitting with his back to the far wall, knees drawn up. He had a fingernail between two molars, digging at something.

"Deputy marshals are here," Zarotta said. "It's sharing time."

"Shit, I ain't no cheese eater. Get these jokers outta here."

"No can do, pal. And watch your mouth or you're gonna catch a case."

"I want to talk to some rank."

"Sure thing. I'll get Condi Rice on MSN Messenger." Zarotta closed the door and chuckled his way back down the hall.

"Real cutup," Bear said.

"Oh, I get it," LaRue said. "Here's where we establish camaraderie."

"Nah," Tim said, "let's skip it. Are you a friend of Walker's?"

LaRue was really working the tooth now, his elbow rising level with his head. "Ain't no one a friend of Walker's. But yeah"-and now a flash of pride-"I'm the only one he'll talk to in here."

The warden had not put out word of Walker's escape to the population, but inmates were second only to socialites at acquiring and disseminating sensational information. Tim decided to float the obvious to gauge LaRue's willingness to talk.

"He escaped."

LaRue's eyes stayed uncharacteristically steady. "Did he, now." He gave up on his fingernail, tugged a strand of yarn from his sock, and flossed out a green fleck. "Walk was short, sixteen-some months to the door. Why would he bust a move like that?"

"We were hoping you could enlighten us."

With a flourish of his hand, LaRue made a cigarette appear, and then his fingers fussed in the hair behind his ear and produced a match. Centering his thumbs on the phosphorus head, he carefully tore it and the tinder in half. He flicked one of the half matches against his tooth and lit up, pleasure closing his eyes on the inhale.

"What do you know about his sister?"

"Walk has a sister?"

"How about his wife?"

"His wife? Shit, that's been years. I'd bet a spoonful of chiva she's put on a sport coat by now."

"Sport coat?" Bear asked.

LaRue smiled sourly. "A man your lady slides on to keep her warm while you're doing hard time."

Tim asked, "Did Walker have a problem with Boss?"

"Walker didn't have a problem with no one. Not even with the screws."

"So why'd he kill Boss?"

"Beats hell outta me."

"I think you know."

Same flat stare. "Do you, now?"

Tim walked over and sank to his haunches so he was eye level with LaRue. "You made a phone call just before dinner. Then you busted ass getting to the dining hall so you could whisper in Walker's ear. You're gonna tell us what you found out."

For the first time, LaRue looked uneasy, but his composure snapped back, smoothing his face like a mask. "I don't much seem to recall that particular phone call."

"LaRue. I want an answer."

LaRue shrugged and showed off a set of clean white teeth. "What you gonna do? Put me in jail?"

"He's exactly right," Tim said, charging back down the breezeway. "We've got no leverage with him. He's a lifer already. We need the guy he called."

Bear shuffle-stepped to keep up. "And how are we gonna get to him?"

Tim moved down the brief hall and through the door into the control center, where Newlin was making decisive gains on a cruller.

"Do you monitor inmate phone calls?" Tim asked.

Newlin looked up from the recording-LaRue's whispered pronouncement again-and wiped a smudge of grease from his chin. "Course."

"Record them?"

"Only if we're keeping an eye. We wouldn't have recorded LaRue, probably. We're not that concerned about the seamy underworld of Brie."

"Can we get the number he called?"

"Yeah, the prisoners have to use a PIN number before dialing. They can only call approved numbers, which we database at Investigative Services. It's just a matter of digging around the records. I'll call over."

"And see if you can rustle up any information on who LaRue used to run with." Tim tapped Bear on the shoulder. "Let's get Guerrera on that, too. He's probably boring a hole in the phone with the patented Little Havana stare."

Newlin dialed and said as it was ringing, "Oh, and they sent over an update of the crime-scene log." He handed a printout to Tim.

Tim perused the already familiar names. COs and sanitation workers.

His pulse quickened as he sensed-finally-some of the data pulling together. A pattern shifting shape, still eluding him.

Newlin finished his call, and he and Bear reviewed the chow-hall tape yet again. LaRue's bend at the waist. Cupped hand rising to Walker's ear. Fist tightening around fork.

"What the hell could he have told him?" Newlin's curiosity had lapsed into frustration. "Some pickup waiting out in the harbor? A green light for Boss's killing?" He snickered at himself. "His Manchurian Candidate activation code word?"

Tim sank into a chair, glancing at the J-Unit monitor. The wreckage had been largely disposed of, the trash orderlies brought in to mop up the remaining sludge. Walker seized his opportunity in the mayhem?

Tim closed his eyes, considering the cell. Two severed Coke bottles. Piss and mouthwash. Walker's padding himself with shirt over shirt. One mattress untouched, one missing. Two windowpanes punched through. Nothing beyond the bars but razor wire, palm trees, and Dumpsters. The trash can-Kleenex and bottle caps. But what hadn't the trash can contained?

Tim flipped to the log's next page. More COs. The frontloader operator. John Sasso. The same maintenance man from before. McGraw again. Sanitation worker.

Tim stood up abruptly. The chair tilted over with his momentum, clattering on the cheap laminate flooring. He met Bear's and Newlin's startled gazes.

"I know how he did it."