Inmate 1577

by Alan Jacobson

  “Got it,” MacNally said.

  Taylor led him up the steps and through another locked gate beneath the West Gun Gallery at B-Block. “Over there’s the dining hall,” he said, tilting his head to the right at the gated room. An officer was sitting at a duty desk a few feet away.

  “Hallway here’s Times Square,” Taylor said, “because of Big Ben up there.” He motioned MacNally along. “On your right, that metal door there goes to the rec yard. You get two and a half hours Saturday and Sunday. Softball, handball, shuffleboard, weights. If you sit up on the top of the stairs, you get a view of the Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. What 1161 was talking about in processing.”

  MacNally said, “1161?”

  “The inmate. That’s who gave you your stuff.” He led MacNally down a main corridor between the cell blocks. The floors were spit-shine clean and glossy, and the area was unusually quiet save for the hacking cough of a man who was lying on the bed of his ground-floor cell.

  “This is Broadway,” Taylor said with a nod of his head. “Next block over to the right, Seedy Street and Park Avenue. To the left is Michigan Avenue.”

  “Seedy?”

  “It’s where C and D blocks are. C, D...Seedy.”

  “The cells are locked during the day?” MacNally asked. At Leavenworth, the doors remained open, allowing prisoners freedom to roam the cellhouse.

  “Unless you’ve got a work detail, that’s where you spend twenty-three out of every twenty-four hours. Don’t wanna go stir crazy, get yourself a job. Otherwise, those cold, shark-infested waters will look mighty inviting after a few months.”

  As they continued down Broadway, MacNally glanced into each of the cells. Along the bottom, a dark green stripe served as a baseboard. Gloomy mint paint extended halfway up the wall, and white finished it off, up to and including the ceiling.

  Some cells were stark, with no personalized décor—just a white towel, a shaving kit, a toilet paper roll, and a chocolate brown wool blanket thrown across the bed. Each cell had two small metal shelves, mounted in tandem one above the other, placed opposite the mattress, with another two above the toilet, which sat beside a compact porcelain sink and a cross-hatched air vent opening in the cement wall.

  “Are all these singles?” MacNally asked.

  “That’s all we got here. Some think having your own cell’s better than a place like Leavenworth where you always got five or ten cellies living with you. Others think it’s more lonely.”

  MacNally knew which he preferred. If he’d had a single at Leavenworth, things may’ve turned out differently for him. And he would not now be in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, over a mile from land in a place known for its cold, foggy, and windy weather. An institution considered the last stop, living amongst the most incorrigible, most dangerous, and most unruly criminals the United States’ criminal justice system possessed.

  As MacNally walked past a few more cells that were unoccupied, he slowed as his eyes locked with a man sitting on his bed.

  John Anglin.

  MacNally did not know if he should acknowledge him—if Anglin had been a model prisoner at The Rock during his brief tenure, associating with him would be a positive; but if he had been a troublemaker, the opposite would be true. He decided on a gentle lift of his chin, then brought his eyes forward and continued walking beside his escort toward the far wall.

  They hung a right and came upon another series of cells. “Welcome to C-Block and Park Avenue. Your new neighborhood.”

  “That a library?” MacNally asked, gesturing ahead and to the right.

  “Off limits. You want a book? A trustee’ll bring by a push cart filled with ’em. You can have three in your cell at a time. Well, three and a Bible. Magazines, too. Popular Mechanics, Time, Life, Popular Science, that kind of stuff. You want, you can buy a subscription.”

  “You said this was Seedy Street. C- and D-Blocks. This is C. Where’s D?”

  “Glad you asked.” Taylor grinned. “D’s in the room next door. Our Treatment Unit.”

  “Hospital?”

  “Hospital’s upstairs, above the dining hall. No, Treatment Unit’s solitary confinement. Segregation. The Hole.” Taylor stopped in front of C-156. “Best you stay out of there, MacNally. Trust me on that one.” The officer leaned back and faced another guard, who was standing a hundred or so feet away, at the end of the cell block. “Rack ’em, 156!”

  A moment later, the officer pulled out keys and appeared to be accessing what MacNally assumed was some sort of control box. The man reached inside and after a series of arm gyrations—he pulled down, then up, then grabbed something else—a click sounded above the barred door for C-156. A loud clunk echoed, followed by the gate in front of him sliding to the right.

  “In,” Taylor said. “Morning gong’s at 6:33. At 6:50, second gong goes off. Stand right here, by your bars, fully dressed, facing out. At the whistle, the lieutenants and cellhouse guards do a standing count. Next whistle’s at seven sharp. That’s when you’ll be turned out to the dining hall for chow. Rest of the daily schedule’s in your book. Page four and five. Oh—and pay attention to the diagram on page eight.”

  MacNally stepped into the confining, five-by-nine foot chamber. “Diagram? Of what?”

  “Your cell. Everything’s got a place. Towel, jacket, toilet paper, books, calendar, soap. Shows you where everything’s got to go.”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  Taylor’s face thinned, his jaw muscles flexing. “No. I’m not.” He turned to his colleague and yelled to the far end of the cell block. “Rack ’em!”

  More clicks...a solid metallic crunch...and then the door slid closed in front of MacNally. A lonely, bone-jarring slam echoed through the cellhouse.

  Taylor’s shoes crunched quietly on the polished cement floor as he walked away. MacNally watched the officer’s shadow disappear, a chill shuddering through his body.

  Despite its reputation among cons, MacNally could not imagine how Alcatraz could be worse than Leavenworth. But he had a feeling he was going to soon find out.

  53

  Vail handed the note to Price, then pulled out her BlackBerry. “That text—who was it from? The one that said he’s tied up.”

  Burden looked at his phone. “Robert. Why am I not understanding what’s going on—”

  “I’m calling Friedberg,” Vail said. I have a feeling I know exactly what’s going on, and it ain’t good. “Call your department, get every fucking cop mobilized in the city looking for his car. And see if they can get a fix on his cell signal.”

  Seconds later, Vail gave up. “Went right to voicemail.”

  Burden hung up, then began pacing. “All right, let’s clear our heads. Think this through. He was stopping at Verizon on the way in, to see about those text messages Scheer got.” He looked over at the reporter, who was standing a few paces from Allman, beyond the crime scene tape.

  “We know what’s going on,” Vail said. “Our UNSUB’s got Friedberg.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Carondolet said. “The killer’s got an SFPD Inspector?”

  “You got it,” Dixon said. To Burden: “Call Verizon and see if he made it there, and if he did, what time he left.”

  Burden pulled out his phone and made the call.

  A text hit Vail’s BlackBerry. She still had the device in her palm when it began vibrating. She rotated her hand and read the message. “Son of a bitch.”

  “What?” Dixon asked.

  Vail showed her the display.

  lotsa bodies werent motivation enuf

  need one of ur own on the line

  want to know what this is all about

  pay attention u have ten mins

  think history

  ur answers in the place where

  violence and sleep come under watchful eyes

  Burden ended his call abruptly and joined the huddle. His brow hardened. “What the hell does it mean?”

  “You’re the puzzle guy.”


  “Sudoku,” Burden said. “Numbers. Not goddamn riddles.”

  Dixon stepped to the left and cupped her hands around her mouth. “Clay! Bring your colleague over here. Now.”

  “What are you doing?” Vail asked.

  “We’ve got two guys fifty feet away who ply their trade using words,” Dixon said. “And they also happen to know the city inside and out. Got nothing to lose by using their brain power. Friedberg’s life’s on the line—do we really care what the press knows?”

  “Worry about it later,” Burden said.

  “Exactly.”

  “You’re bringing two reporters into the crime scene?” Carondolet said. “Are you crazy?”

  Allman and Scheer slipped under the tape and ran through the parking lot.

  “What’s going on?” Allman asked as he approached.

  “Let’s also see if we can get a fix on those texts,” Vail said. “One was from Friedberg’s but the other was from a different handset. I’ll send you the number. See what they can do with it. Every carrier’s different, but even if they can’t localize it better than a few miles, we’ll at least know if he’s in the city.”

  “Got it,” Burden said. He started to make the call.

  “So here’s the deal,” Vail said to Allman and Scheer as she played with her BlackBerry keypad to send the phone number to Burden. “Killer’s got Inspector Friedberg. He just used Friedberg’s phone—and then what I’m guessing is a disposable—to send us messages.”

  Scheer and Allman both reached for their pads.

  “Fuck the story,” Burden said, rotating the phone away from his mouth. “We need your help. He sent us a riddle.”

  “Is this on or off the record?” Scheer asked.

  Carondolet shook his head “I can’t believe you’re involving these guys.”

  “Don’t make us sorry we brought you over here,” Dixon said to Scheer. “Put that shit away. And don’t ask again.”

  Both journalists reluctantly shoved their pads and pens into their jackets.

  “How can we help?” Allman asked.

  Vail stole a look at her BlackBerry, “The text says, ‘Think history. Your answer’s in the place where violence and sleep come under watchful eyes.”

  “Isn’t Friedberg the historian?” Scheer asked.

  Vail’s gaze flicked over to Father Finelli, then back to Scheer. “That’s right, dipshit. And he’s not here. So what does it mean? Any thoughts?”

  No one answered, as all stared off in various directions, working it through.

  “What kind of place comes under watchful eyes?” Vail asked.

  “A police department,” Burden said.

  “Surveillance would qualify as watchful eyes,” Allman said.

  Dixon snapped her fingers. “So that’d bring us back to law enforcement. A stakeout. Violence, sleep.”

  “Hopefully little of each,” Burden said. “But what do we do with that? Too general.”

  Scheer looked up. “Wait a minute. I wrote something like that once. In one of my features, years ago. Something about violence and sleep and watchful eyes.”

  Vail stepped forward. “Are you saying this text is a quote from your article?”

  Scheer bit his lip, his eyes moving left, right, up and down as he thought. “I can’t remember. Something like that.”

  Burden combed through his hair with his fingers. “C’mon, man. We’ve only got eight minutes. Think.”

  “I am thinking,” Scheer said slowly, emphasizing each word. “I just—it was a long time ago. It seems like it’s... Yeah, that’s what I wrote. Close.”

  “We know the UNSUB’s from around here,” Dixon said. “And if this is the guy who’s killed repeatedly in the Bay Area, as Clay thinks, then he’s likely followed all the newspaper articles on murders and violent crime in the city. Maybe he saw Scheer’s article.”

  “What was it about?” Vail asked.

  “A bank robbery,” Scheer said. “The robber shot and killed a security guard.”

  “What’s sleep got to do with it?”

  “The guard had fallen asleep in a back room where they had the surveillance cameras. The gunshot woke him up and he hit the silent alarm, but it was too late. They got away.” Scheer rubbed a hand across his cheek, then continued. “The long delay between the robbers entering the bank and the trip of the alarm was a big problem. The FBI investigated the guard. Like, maybe it was an inside job. They leaned on him pretty hard. He finally admitted he’d fallen asleep. And that was that. No inside job, just—gross incompetence. And they never caught the robbers.” He shrugged. “So, whether it’s an exact quote or not, violence and sleep came under watchful eyes.”

  There was quiet. Finally, Vail said, “That’s not exciting me.”

  “Me either,” Burden said. “Clay, you got anything?”

  “I’m thinking.”

  Dixon checked her watch. “Think faster. We’ve only got five minutes.”

  “Fuck me,” Burden said, kicking a rock into the slate wall. “How the hell can we figure this shit out under pressure?”

  “A sleep lab,” Allman said. “You know, they hook you up to sensors so they can diagnose sleep disorders. Sleep under watchful eyes.”

  “No violence,” Dixon said.

  “The bank’s not far away,” Scheer said. “A few blocks. Maybe we should go check it out. We can think on the way.”

  “I’m with Karen here,” Allman said. “I think that’s a waste of time.”

  Burden worked his jaw, then said, “We’ve got four minutes left. Let’s go. If we think of something better on the way, nothing lost.”

  “You coming?” Vail asked Carondolet.

  “I’ll finish with this DB, you go on ahead and...solve your riddle.”

  They ran to Burden’s car and piled in. “Where we going?”

  Scheer leaned forward in his seat. “Corner of—” He put his head down.

  “Scheer,” Burden yelled. “Now’s not the time to have a brain fart.”

  “Presidio and Sacramento. Yeah, that’s it—”

  Burden accelerated and spun rubber, then the Taurus rocketed forward, briefly losing grip in its rear wheels on a slick surface before once again grabbing pavement and jolting them on their way. Burden hung a sharp left onto Jackson Street as Vail slapped the flashing light atop the car. “We should be there right at the deadline. Anyone else got any better ideas?”

  Vail tried to concentrate, but watching Burden swerve his way down Jackson, she found it hard to think about anything other than surviving the ride. She did not want to close her eyes—but that was the only way she could get her mind to focus.

  How’s the offender gonna react if we’re wrong? How will he know? He gave us a ten-minute window to find this place. Wherever it was he wanted us to go, he knew where we were starting out. It had to be in a ten-minute radius. In a city, what is that? A mile? “Not sure this helps, but the place he sent us had to be in a ten-minute radius of Inspiration Point.”

  “It doesn’t help,” Allman said. “That’s a shitload of potential places in a city like this.”

  “It’s the bank,” Scheer said. “Has to be.”

  “Wish I could be so sure,” Burden said under his breath. He screeched the Ford to a stop in front of Sutter Savings Bank. They jumped out and headed toward the corner building.

  “Now what?” Dixon asked, rotating her body in a circle.

  Vail stood back and took in the entire location. “No idea. Look around. Anything that seems like it might be meant for us—”

  “I’m going in,” Burden said. He pushed through the front doors. Dixon followed, leaving Vail with the two journalists.

  “See anything?”

  “No,” Scheer said. He looked over at Allman and pointed an index finger. “Don’t give me that.”

  Allman spread his arms. “Give you what?”

  “I know what you’re thinking.”

  “The only reason you know what I’m thinking, Stephen, is
because I already told you this was a waste of time.”

  “You didn’t offer anything better. So just—just shut the fuck up.”

  Allman shook his head, then waved a hand. “Whatever.”

  Scheer walked off, down the block.

  Maybe involving these guys wasn’t such a great idea. Vail headed into the bank and locked gazes with Dixon and Burden, who shook their heads. A man in a suit standing with them looked puzzled by all the attention, while several customers at the teller window looked on with concern.

  “We got nothing,” Burden said.

  Vail’s phone vibrated. I don’t want to look. She pulled it from her belt. Dixon and Burden huddled around her.

  no nono

  ur friends life depends on it but ur clueless

  those intended to heal

  may give life but drown truth

  cant sink or swim can float

  mission st

  clocks ticking

  figure it out or im done with you

  “No.” Burden shook his head. “I’m done playing games.”

  “Burden,” Vail said in a low voice. “We talked about this. Psychopaths get off on feeling superior. And they get bored easily. This is a game to him, to prove to us—and to himself—how much smarter he is. By tricking us, he’s able to gloat. It builds him up and knocks us down. At the same time, we’ve gotta make some headway in these clues to hold his interest. If we don’t prove a worthy challenge, we’ll lose him. And if we lose contact with him, we lose any shot at finding Robert.”

  “C’mon,” Dixon said, then led the way outside.

  Burden slammed the door with his hands and it flew open. He let it swing closed behind him, nearly striking Vail in the face. “Asshole better realize I’m losing patience, too.”

  “What’s on Mission?” Vail asked.

  Allman and Scheer came jogging over from opposite directions.

  Burden threw open his car door. “Lots of things are on Mission.”

  “Let’s take a minute, break it down.”

  “We get another message?” Allman asked.