Murder Plot (A Sam Rader Thriller Book 3)

by Simon King

  “When do you sleep?” she asked, reaching for a candy bar.

  “Sleep? What the hell is that?” Mumma laughed a little, continuing her search. “Wait. Yup, here it is. 2015 Chevy Silverado. California licence plate. I’ll run a check for you.” Sam expected to wait a moment, but Mumma suddenly changed her tone. “I’ll call you back. Need to pee.”

  The connection was broken before Sam had a chance to respond. She continued watching as the door finally rattled closed again, leaving her alone once more. Sam half-expected the truck to reappear inside the walls, but she saw no sign of it. Whatever the driver;’s destination had been, the truck remained in the building.

  Sam considered walking down to the roller door, but then remembered that a lot of the cameras around the perimeter were unknown. For all she knew, someone else could be watching, maybe waiting for Thompson to appear from whatever secret tunnel he’d found.

  Just as she reached for a second candy bar, her cell sprang to life, scaring the crap out of her. She hastily pressed the answer button to silence it.

  “Shit, Mumma.” The voice on the other end began to laugh.

  “Caught you off guard? Listen, I found a name for that Silverado. It’s a strange one. Sergeant William Tunney, retired. I don’t see any possible link to the prison.” Sam considered for a moment. “Hun?” Mumma asked when no response came.

  “Yes, sorry. Maybe he’s a contractor. I saw some building works being carried out during a tour of the place. It’s right at this very entry point. Maybe this Tunney has 24-hour access and is looking at some late night catch-up work.”

  “Hmmm, maybe. But as far as I can see? No connection.”

  “OK. Thanks, Mumma. I appreciate it.” She almost considered saying goodnight, but then remembered another issue. “Has John sent anyone to New York yet?”

  “For that Black Death fiasco? He did. Lorraine Cruz and Vic Horton.” Lorraine lived two doors up from Sam and had gotten to know her neighbor well since moving in.

  “Hopefully they can end it quickly. Thanks again.”

  “No problem, Sugar. You take care now, you hear? I’m gonna try and grab me some of this so-called sleep I keep hearing about.”

  “Enjoy,” Sam answered, finally pressing the end button and canceling the call. She dropped her cell into her lap and resumed staring at the prison for any sign of life.

  By three that morning, Sam’s eyes were hanging out of her skull as she watched the patrol return for its final trip of the night. It slowly crept around the prison’s outer perimeter, slowing briefly at the Sally-port, before continuing on. Twenty minutes later, it was gone.

  Just as she was about to fire her own vehicle up and call it a night, light slowly emerged from the Sally-port, increasing until the door was all the way up. A second later, the nose of the Silverado appeared as it slowly crept back out into the night. Just as it had when it first showed up, the truck made its way back up the lone track, finally disappearing into the night.

  Once the Sally-port was closed again, everything seemed to take on the dull appearance of the rest of the night, the silence returning over the prison. Sam sat quietly for a few more minutes, then finally twisted the key, bringing the car to life again. With luck, she would have a few hours sleep before heading back into work.

  9

  Sam had set her alarm for seven that morning and when her phone began to ring, tried to cancel the alarm without success. It wasn’t her alarm at all, instead a call coming through. After forcing herself awake, she answered the call, unsure of whether the curtain of sleep had lifted enough for her to understand the voice.

  But when it began to speak, Sam’s eyes shot wide open, snapping awake and sitting upright in an instant. It was Mumma, her opening words enough to rattle Sam.

  “Trevor Thompson is dead.”

  “What?”

  “You awake, kiddo?”

  “Yes, really. What happened?” Sam swung her legs out of bed and began to slowly pace as Mumma laid it out for her.

  “Morning patrol found him on the path behind the kitchen. His throat was cut.”

  “Police notified?”

  “Yes, but I heard a radio transmission from one of the original officers who found him. They said there was no blood. Sounds like the body’s been moved from the crime scene.”

  Sam tried her best to comprehend everything Mumma was saying, computing the words and trying to link them to the visions in her mind. Once things started to make sense, she began to think of suitable responses.

  “Cameras?”

  “I’ve been checking, but there’s a few to get through. Nothing as yet.”

  “Radio traffic? Probably more on the management channel, than general.” The management channel was reserved for communication between higher authorities. If they were discussing another murder, chances were high that the interesting conversations would be held there.

  “Only one call from someone called Thorpe. He said to keep radio chatter to zero.”

  “Alright. I’m heading in early and see if I can find anything useful.”

  “I’ll keep you updated,” Mumma said, then cancelled the call.

  Sam was in and out of the shower and dressed in her uniform faster than ever before. Within ten minutes of Mumma waking her, she was heading down the stairs and out into a new day. By the time she reached the main road, the sirens were already whizzing past her.

  The news of the latest body spread like wildfire. By the time Sam reached the prison’s parking lot, three police cars and several news trucks were already on site. As she tried to make her way in through the front door, several reporters were frantically trying to get a statement from anyone willing to talk.

  “No comment,” was what she had been programmed to say whenever confronted with a microphone and she now repeated it over again as she edged her way closer to the sanctity of the front door.

  Once inside, things were a little more harmonious, with the entry-officers conducting their body searches on entering staff. Sam made her way through the line, eventually ending up before the main control room window and waiting for her assigned keys.

  “Ah, Miss Clark,” a voice said from behind her. “A little early, isn’t it?” She turned to find Warden Perkins standing behind her in line.

  “I was up early and heard the commotion. Thought I’d drop in and lend a hand.”

  “That’s kind of you.”

  He looked relaxed, almost as cool as a cucumber. Unusual, Sam thought to herself, considering the circumstances. The man greeted a number of other people, eventually engaging with Henderson who happened to be coming from inside the prison.

  Sam froze when she saw him, positive that he was quite early as well. She tried not to gain his attention, doing her best to keep him behind her. He appeared completely opposite to Perkins; worn out, tired and somewhat agitated. He called out to the warden, then followed him back out into the foyer. As Sam passed the open doorway on her way through to the inner prison airlock, she could see the two of them in deep conversation. Something was definitely between them, of that she was sure.

  As Sam passed the yard of Sierra, she looked up and saw Tim watching her. He didn’t wave, simply eyeballing her the same way countless other prisoners watched her pass. But unlike those other prisoners, this one she respected and cared for and seeing him now, pained her.

  She wanted to run to him, unlock his cell and pull him out. She wanted them to run from this place and leave the foul smell of prison behind. If they wanted to kill each other, then so be it. This was, after all, their choice, wasn’t it?

  But she knew that would be impossible. They were here for the long haul, the complete run. Nobody would leave until this entire episode was over. What she needed to do was find out who was behind these killings and end this killer’s run.

  Her own unit was still locked down when she arrived and once Sam had stowed her gear, returned to the small control room. Pam was inside, unusual, considering she was an afternoon shifte
r.

  “How’d you end up on nights?” Sam asked, sitting beside her.

  “Pulled a swap. Got a wedding next week and one of the guys on nights was happy to swap with me.”

  “I love how you can do that here,” Sam said, seeing the day’s newspaper on the bench. She pointed to one of the monitors that Pam had set to the kitchen corridor. “Any news?”

  “Cops are there now. One of the night crew said it looks like the guy tampered with his cell door’s lock. Crept out and somehow managed to scale the fence.”

  “How would he manage to do that?” Sam asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

  “Who the fuck knows. These pricks’ll do anything to bust out.”

  Sam reached for the paper and flipped it back to the front page. Three faces stared back at her, the headline above reading, “Black Death Claims 3”. She read the story and discovered that the evidence pointing at a female serial killer was looking more likely by the day.

  “Listen. Do you think you can take over here for a bit?” Pam asked. “Perkins wants to see me up in his office.” Sam nodded, flashing her trademark smile as confirmation.

  “Sure thing.” A moment later, she was alone.

  The computer system operating throughout the prison may have been mostly hidden from the outside, but there weren’t a lot of places Mumma wasn’t able to work her way in to. But those rare places now also lay at the fingertips of Sam as she moved her chair before one of the keyboards and began to investigate in earnest.

  It was Henderson she wanted to check out, to delve into the darkest corners of his database. If he had any hidden skeletons in his prison closet, now was the time to find them. With a few simple tweaks to her own login, Sam quickly began to circumnavigate the primitive password system, giving her free-reign amongst the server’s many paths.

  Apart from the usual files and folders most managers were expected to have, Sam quickly found that the man carried very little baggage. All of his folders were neatly alphabetized and sorted into logical collections. Reports; rosters; staff notices; reprimands and so on.

  She dove through his itinerary and calendar, but found few things that could be of interest. After working her way through the final folder, Sam sat back and stared at the empty screen. Whatever she had been looking for, had either eluded her, or had never existed to begin with.

  Thinking she may have missed something, Sam returned to the calendar after briefly checking the unit cameras. The last thing she wanted, was to be caught in a compromising situation by her peers. The unit appeared vacant, the prisoners still locked away. She figured she had at least another twenty minutes to half an hour before any of the day staff showed up.

  Sam carefully worked her way through each month a second time, meticulously looking for anything out of the ordinary. The names, the dates, the places; anything that would link him to the bodies. But after going through the entire calendar a second time, she still hadn’t struck gold.

  She returned to his own shifts, those she could see he worked, then compared them to the dates the bodies were found. What Sam discovered, confused her more. Up until the second body, Henderson’s roster looked identical to his previous few months. But after the third, his shifts changed; not on a regular basis, but a pattern that was anything but.

  He would often remain onsite well after his shift, sometimes staying the entire night. The times he remained onsite were scattered, sometimes three in a row, sometimes one. It was all over the place, without any kind of logic to them.

  Sam thought back to that morning’s interaction between Henderson and Perkins. They didn’t appear friendly to one another, a certain sense of tension lying between them. She flicked back through the folders and found the warden’s calendar, hoping to see if there was a pattern of meetings between them she could recognize.

  Meetings between the warden and the captain of the guards wouldn’t be unusual, maybe even consistent. Sam knew she was clutching at straws, but it was all she had. Typing at lightening speed, she began to focus on the months where the prisoners were killed, kept the windows open and compared them to previous months.

  What she discovered made even less sense than she hoped. It actually raised more questions, if anything. The meetings between the pair prior to the murders were as regular as clockwork, happening at least three times per week. But after the killings, they at first continued on after the first two, then rapidly dropped off, to the previous month showing just three meetings for the entire 30 days.

  There was a rattle out in the unit and Sam looked at the monitor to see Pam walking back through the airlock. Sam quickly returned to the computer screen and began to close the calendar windows. As she reached May, something suddenly jumped out, a curiosity that immediately rose her suspicions.

  It were initials, randomly placed throughout the next several months. She looked at the monitor again and saw Pam heading for the emergency exit. It was alarmed, but needed to be unlocked during the opening of the unit. Sam returned to the calendar, returned to the previous months and found no mention of the initials prior to May. After that, there were several, each one exactly four days before a subsequent murder.

  Sam checked the monitor again and saw Pam had now turned towards the control room. She quickly began to close each month, pausing briefly on the current one. There, on September 5 were the same initials. As if to confirm, she checked her watch for that day’s date and saw the 9th. Just as she was about to close the final window, with Pam’s footsteps coming across the final bit of hallway towards the control room, Sam saw the initials one final time. September 19th. She finally shut the window, slid back across to the newspaper and flicked to the back page.

  “Man, that guy can talk crap,” Pam said, stepping into the room.

  “Huh?” Sam asked, looking up as innocently as possible. Pam looked at her for a moment, then continued towards where her bag was sitting. As she began to load her belongings with it, Sam’s mind filled with two letters, letters she hoped would finally lead to something concrete: BT.

  Despite hoping for a relatively easy day, it turned out to be anything but. Once the prisoners were notified that the entire complex would remain in lockdown for the duration of the day due to the location of the latest body, tempers began to flare. By ten o’clock that morning, two officers had already been assaulted by prisoners needing escorting to medical appointments.

  Sam tried her best to stay focused on the job at hand, but because of those two simple letters filling her conscious mind, the distraction only served to put her in danger. It doesn’t take much for things to happen in jail, but when they do, they’re normally over before anybody realizes.

  Because of the lockdown, both meals and medications were handed to the inmates via the trap-doors, the small access panels built into each cell door. Each trap was located at average face height, making it easier for officers to see into the cells.

  Radio traffic began to increase throughout the morning, with incidents of CO’s being spat at through the traps. Whilst not all inmates were infected, some carried diseases such as HIV, Hepatitis and more. Without knowing who had what, officers had no way of knowing which inmate carried which disease.

  A blanket approach is how officers deal with inmates, treating everybody as if they had every disease known to man. It meant Sam wore gloves whenever interacting with inmates. But due to the spitting incidents, words came from upper management that officers were also required to wear safety glasses.

  Wearing as much protective gear as she could, Sam and one of her fellow officers, a man named Tyson Brewer, were tasked with handing out the top-tier lunch packs. After loading up the trolley and carrying it upstairs, the officers began to go from cell to cell, leap-frogging each other as they handed out to the still-irate prisoners.

  Several of the inmates were hurling abuse through their small windows, watching as the officers did their rounds. Tyson copped a spray of spit from one, slammed the trap shut and returned the inmate’s food to the trol
ley. Luckily, the saliva had only hit him in the chest. The officer stood tall at 6 foot 4 and thus needed to bend down to peer in through the small opening.

  As he grabbed a napkin from the trolley and began to wipe, Sam opened her own trap and handed the tray through. She waited for the prisoner to take it and turned to watch Tyson try and remove the spit from his shirt.

  Heat exploded all around as if her face had been slammed down onto a hotplate. Sam pushed away from the door, screaming as the excruciating pain seemed to bite into her like knives.

  “Tami!” Tyson screamed, but Sam couldn’t react, the burn running down her neck and into her upper body. It was as if someone was shooting her with a flame thrower, following her wherever she stepped.

  She screamed again as the unit seemed to erupt into a fit of cheering and laughter, some of the prisoners kicking and punching their doors, the sound echoing around the common area. It sounded like the beating of tribal drums as officers came running out of the control room. Sam barely heard any of it as strong hands suddenly pulled her into an empty cell, tore her shirt from her body and pushed her towards a wall.

  The burning continued to work its way down her body, but all she could do was try and wipe the heat from her face. Sam knocked the safety goggles off, rubbing furiously to try and remove the heat. Voices were frantically shouting all around her and suddenly cool water hit her directly in the face. She could feel herself trembling as the burning continued, the sensation of both heat and cool playing tricks on her mind.

  “Tami!” someone shouted. “Tami, you’ve been hot-watered. Stand under the shower and don’t move.” The words barely registered, Sam desperately trying to let the running water do its job. All she could think of was what if she hadn’t been wearing the glasses. Would she have been blinded?

  Her face continued to feel ablaze, despite the running water. It felt soothing, but the underlying pain remained strong, throbbing insanely, as if burning her from the inside out. After a few minutes, she opened her eyes and saw two officers standing beside her. Tyson stood out on the tier with one of the supervisors, while another officer was holding the door open.