The Conviction

by Robert Dugoni

  Jake shook his head. “No. No way.”

  “You want the infection, Yake? Huh? You want the fever? You working with horseshit here.”

  Jake held out his other hand and De la Cruz smothered it, bringing the same stinging pain. As Jake paced the room, grimacing and grunting, De la Cruz replaced the top on the tin and pulled large hunks of cotton off of blue backing. He used tape to wrap Jake’s hands. Then he gave Jake gardening gloves. “Now you clean the shit.”

  For the next twenty minutes Jake and Bee Dee used the pitchforks to scoop urine-saturated hay and sawdust, and green-and-black clumps of horseshit into the wheelbarrows. The bandages and gloves helped but did not completely ease the pain. Neither Jake nor Bee Dee said much, but Henry spoke enough for all three of them, jabbering on with an incessant chatter. Jake would occasionally catch Bee Dee’s eyes wandering to the footpath and his eyes, too, were drawn to it.

  When they had filled their wheelbarrows Jake and Bee Dee pushed them to a massive compost pile buzzing with flies.

  “What do they do with all this shit anyway?” Jake asked as they upended the wheelbarrows.

  “I think they mix it with the compost and make fertilizer.”

  “For what?”

  Henry shrugged. “The garden, I guess.”

  After dumping the wheelbarrows they filled them with clean sawdust from a large mound kept in a lean-to behind the barn and spread the flakes in the stalls.

  “When do we get to ride the horses?” Jake asked, spreading the sawdust in one of the stalls.

  Henry laughed. “What, did you see that in one of the brochures or something? We don’t. Only the guards ride them.”

  “What do the guards need horses for around here?”

  “Not for around here,” but before Henry could finish his answer a siren blared, causing the horses to spook and the donkey to bray.

  Bee Dee looked to Jake. The guards had found T-Mac and Big Baby.

  In a wide-brimmed hat, sunglasses, and his khaki shirt and shorts Captain Overbay looked like a weekend hiker. He tilted back his head as he pulled a red bandanna from his back pocket, wiping the back of his neck and brow and dabbing at his chest.

  “No one saw a thing.” He smiled, gave a sort of chuckle. “I find that absolutely remarkable.”

  Jake and the other inmates, twenty-three in all, stood in silence. The guards had directed them into three rows, two rows of eight and one row of seven. In their red coveralls Jake imagined they looked like a captured British regiment in the American Revolution. It very much felt like a firing squad, and Jake kept waiting for someone to point him out as the perpetrator of the horrific crimes that had broken the captain’s precious rules. He doubted the captain gave a rat’s ass about Big Baby or T-Mac and suspected that what was really bothering him was that someone had broken one of those rules. “A violent act against another inmate is grounds for punishment,” he’d said, but only if the captain could identify the perpetrator, and he couldn’t do that with no one saying they’d seen anything. Jake sensed beneath the calm exterior the captain was doing a slow burn.

  “Inmate Stand-up?”

  The first bullet struck. “Yes, Captain.”

  “Step forward.”

  Jake did as instructed. The captain approached, close enough for Jake to detect the bitter smell of coffee on the man’s breath. “Officer Babcock tells me he saw you and Inmate Wells walking down the trail to the stables this morning at a peculiar time. He said you were late.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Yes, Captain what?”

  “Yes, Captain, sir.”

  A few standing in line snickered but if the captain heard it he did a good job ignoring it. He removed his glasses and vigorously cleaned the lenses with the red bandanna, holding them up to the sun for further inspection. “I meant, Inmate Stand-up, is it true that you and Inmate Wells were late getting to your assigned chores?”

  “Oh. Yes, Captain, I was. We were.”

  Overbay leaned in. As unnerving as it was to see himself in the reflection of the captain’s glasses, Jake found it worse to be staring into the man’s beady, almost translucent blue eyes. “And why is that?”

  “I hurt my ankle, sir.”

  “And you wouldn’t know anything about the assault on inmates McCarthy or Shelton?”

  “Who, sir?”

  “T-Mac and Big Baby.”

  “Someone assaulted them, sir?”

  Overbay pursed his lips. “So you know nothing about it?”

  “No, sir, Captain. Maybe it was one of the guards.”

  Overbay made a noise, air pressing between the gap in his two front teeth. His tongue ran along his uppers as one might after a good polishing at the dentist’s office. “Watch your mouth, boy.”

  “Yes, sir, Captain.”

  “Step back.”

  Jake did and Overbay stepped down the line. “Interesting.” He stopped in front of Bee Dee. “And you, Inmate Wells, you have no information on this assault either?”

  “No, sir, Captain.”

  “And the reason you were tardy?”

  “I was helping Jake,” he said.

  Overbay replaced his glasses. As he did, the front gates parted and two ambulances pulled into the yard, the sun reflecting sharply off their windshields and causing everyone to raise an arm to deflect the glare. They stopped in front of the Administration Building, which also housed the Fresh Start hospital, a generous word for a room with a first aid kit. The blinding sun made it hard to even see the vehicles but they all watched as paramedics exited and removed gurneys from the back, setting them on the ground and snapping them up before wheeling them through a side door of the building.

  “As of this moment,” Overbay said, dwarfed between two guards, “all weekend privileges are suspended.” Overbay turned to the guard who had accosted Jake and Bee Dee on the trail. “Officer Babcock, I believe that exercise is good for the soul, that it stimulates the mind and the memory. See if a good run might jog any of their recollections.”

  “Yes, sir, Captain Overbay.”

  “Upon your return you shall complete your chores,” Overbay said. “Then you shall remain in your dormitories. The cafeteria will be closed for lunch. If I receive no further information on the assault it shall remain closed for dinner. However, should any of you recall something while on your run, perhaps decide you did see something and decide to come forward, I may reconsider my decision.” Overbay spun and strode across the yard.

  “Fall in line, single file.” The guard led them past the ambulances to the front gate where two other guards took up positions, one on each side of the line. As they waited for the gates to reopen, Jake watched the paramedics wheel out the first of the gurney. Big Baby had his eyes closed, a bloodied bandage about his head. As Jake suspected, Overbay passed without even a pause to consider Big Baby’s condition. The paramedics pushed the gurney into the back of the ambulance, the legs collapsing automatically. T-Mac followed on the second stretcher, in much the same condition. Once loaded, the two ambulances departed the yard together and as they left Jake noticed smiles on the faces of the inmates standing in line, everyone but Bee Dee and T.J. They knew better than to smile, or to feel any sense of relief. Big Baby and T-Mac would be back, sometime, and there would be no place for them to run or to hide.

  KNOCK-ME-STIFF RANCH

  GOLD CREEK, CALIFORNIA

  Sloane spent the better part of the afternoon at the table in the bunkhouse, reading through the stacks of articles provided by Alex. Victor Dillon had, as Rizek stated, spent his formative years in the California Juvenile Detention System and likely would have continued on to the California Penal System but for a local real estate developer who saw potential in the boy.

  “He worked at a company called PFI, Property Foreclosures, Inc.,” Sloane said. Molia sat across the table, reviewing other documents and Alex was live on Sloane’s computer screen. Bennett, who was turning out to be a jack-of-all-trades, had hooked up a camera tha
t allowed them to see Alex on Camano Island while talking to her over the Internet on a Skype line. “It says here,” Sloane said, reading from an article, “that he showed an adept skill at buying foreclosed properties in depressed areas, fixing them up, and flipping them for a profit. At some point he made enough money for a down payment to buy the Gold Rush Brewery, turning what had been a declining business into one of the larger and more profitable microbreweries in the United States.”

  The article indicated that rather than compete with the mass-market breweries like Coors and Budweiser, Dillon took advantage of the growing popularity of microbrews and brought in a brewmaster to create the brewery’s signature cask ale, Gold Rush Pale Ale. It did well enough that Dillon produced six other lagers by the end of the 1980s. As the business succeeded he began buying property to plant and grow the brewery’s own hops, which were used to create Gold Rush’s signature ales and sold and distributed around the world.

  “He owns a web of limited liability companies in a wide array of businesses,” Alex said. Her picture was slightly distorted, and there seemed to be a delay between when her lips moved and when her voice came through the computer speaker, like a Japanese B-movie. “Most are related to his brewery: commercial trucking lines, a beer distribution company, a company for his hops operations. He also has a real estate company that’s taking advantage of California’s financial crises, buying large chunks of land from the government, most in the general area around Fresh Start.”

  “What’s he doing with it?” Molia asked.

  “Growing his hops, apparently. From what I read it’s the right climate and latitude—lots of sun, dry soil, temperature in the 80s and 90s in the summer and plenty of water from nearby streams and rivers.”

  “So he’s a true rags-to-riches story?” Sloane asked.

  “That’s certainly the facade,” she said. “Almost seems too good to be true, doesn’t it?”

  “Sort of like Truluck,” Molia said.

  “Something set off your radar?” Sloane asked.

  “Nothing major,” Alex said. “But I got ahold of PFI’s corporate tax returns and I’m a bit confused. The business reported substantial losses during the four years prior to Dillon’s purchasing the brewery.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time a company cooked the books to reduce its income on paper and reduce its tax exposure,” Sloane said.

  “Maybe. Except the company was taking tax write-offs for selling the homes it purchased in foreclosure.”

  “I thought the articles I read said he flipped the houses for a profit?”

  “They do, but the returns don’t bear that out.”

  “Which raises the question,” Molia said, “where did he get the money for the down payment to buy the brewery?”

  A light went on for Sloane. “Let me guess. Dillon took out a loan.”

  “Nearly two million dollars,” Alex said, smiling.

  “And the loan came from none other than Winchester First Street Bank.”

  “Bingo.”

  “Awful cozy,” Molia said.

  Sloane considered the information. “Have you found out anything more about it?”

  “I’m working on it,” she said. “The bank manager is being pissy.”

  Molia leaned in so that his face would be in front of the camera. “What about On-Guard? Did you find anything on them?”

  “I’ll send you the paperwork in a minute, but I think you’re going to like this answer, too. It’s a complicated setup, sophisticated, but when you cut through all the layers On-Guard is another one of Victor Dillon’s limited liability companies.”

  “So Victor Dillon’s security company is guarding a building that’s owned by Judge Earl,” Molia said. “This just keeps getting more and more incestuous, doesn’t it?” He grabbed his windbreaker and started for the door.

  “Where are you going?” Sloane asked.

  “To borrow Bennett’s truck and a video camera with a zoom lens.”

  “What for?”

  “I get antsy reading this much. My puny brain can’t handle all these numbers. I’m going to do what I do best, and leave the two of you to do what you do best.”

  FRESH START YOUTH TRAINING FACILITY

  SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS

  After returning from their forced run, a distance Jake estimated to be three miles, the guards confined them to their dormitories. Jake went with Bee Dee, T.J., and Henry to their dorm, and the guard didn’t do anything to stop him. Once inside he expected the others to begin moaning and groaning about the unfair turn of events, but to his surprise they lay down on their beds smiling and looking relaxed for the first time since he had arrived. And that’s when he realized it.

  Nobody was going to say a word.

  As upset as they might have been about the run and the loss of their weekend privileges, and the canceled meals, it was worth it to them to have a weekend free of T-Mac and Big Baby. But it was more than that. Jake suspected they were taking silent pleasure in the knowledge that someone had given both a big dose of their own medicine, knocked them out cold.

  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?”

&
nbsp; 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.