Second Chance

Chapter 56

THAT AFTERNOON, Cindy hunched in front of her computer at the Chronicle, sipping a Stewart's Orange n' Cream, as she scrolled down another futile query.

Somewhere, in the deepest bin of her memory there was something she had filed away: a nagging recollection she couldn't place. Chimera... the word used in another context, some other form that would help the case.

She'd gone through CAL, the Chronicle's on-line archives, and come back with zilch. She had browsed through the usual search engines: Yahoo, Jeeves, Google. Her antennae were buzzing on high mode. She felt, as did Lindsay, that this fantastical monster led somewhere other than hate groups. It led to one very twisted and clever individual.

C'mon. She exhaled, jabbing the enter key in frustration. I know you're in here somewhere.

The day was nearly gone, and she'd come up with nothing. Not even a lead for tomorrow morning's edition. Her editor would be pissed. We have readers, he would grumble.

Readers want continuity. She'd have to promise him something. But what? The investigation was stalled.

When she found it, she was in Google, wearily eyeing down the eighth page of responses. It hit her like a slap.

Chimera... Hellhole, an expose of prison life in Pelican Bay, by Antoine James. Posthumous publication of prison hardships, cruelties, life of crime.

Pelican Bay. Pelican Bay was where they threw the worst of the worst troublemakers in the California prison system. Violent offenders who couldn't be controlled anywhere else.

She remembered now that she had read about Pelican Bay in the Chronicle, maybe two years before. That was where she'd heard of Chimera. It was how it fit. That was what had been needling her.

She spun her chair over to the CAL terminal on a nearby shelf. She pushed her glasses up on her forehead and typed in the query Antoine James.

Five seconds later, a response came up. One article, August 10, 1998. Two years before. Written by Deb Meyer, a Sunday section feature writer. Headlined: “POSTHUMOUS JOURNAL DETAILS NIGHTMARE WORLD OF VIOLENCE BEHIND BARS.”

She clicked on the display bar, and in another few seconds a facsimile of the article flashed on the screen. It was a Lifestyle article in a Sunday Metro section. Antoine James, while serving a ten-to-fifteen sentence at Pelican Bay for armed robbery had been stabbed and killed in a prison squabble. He had kept a journal detailing the unsettling story of life on the inside, alleging a routine of forced snitching, racial attacks, beatings by guards, and perpetual gang violence.

She printed the article, closed out of CAL, and spun her chair back across to her desk. She leaned back in her chair and rested her feet on a stack of books. She scanned the page.

“From the moment they process you through the doors, life in Pelican Bay is a constant war of guard intimidation and gang violence,” James had written in a black composition book. “The gangs provide your status, your identity, your protection, too. Everyone pledges out, and whatever group you belong to controls who you are and what's expected of you.”

Cindy's eyes raced further down. The prison was a viper's nest of gangs and retaliation. The blacks had the Bloods and the Daggers, as well as the Muslims. The Latinos had the Nortenos in their red headbands and the Serranos in their blue, and the Mexican Mafia, Los Eme. Among the whites, there were the Guineas and the Bikers, and some white-trash shitbags called the Stinky Toilet People. And the supremacist Aryans.

“Some of the groups were ultra-secret,” James wrote.

"Once you were in, nobody touched you.

“One of these white groups was particularly nasty All max guys, serving violent felony time. They'd cut a brother open just to bet on what he had to eat.”

Adrenaline shot through Cindy as she stopped on the next sentence.

James had a name for the group Chimera.