by Jo Robertson
Still, Charlie Cox’s words rang in her ears. She was in danger, and who else but Anson Stark could possibly be a threat to her? She’d never had even the slightest fear around her inmate patients. In fact, they were remarkably respectful to her.
She thought of Cole Hansen’s note, lying on her coffee table at home, paper clipped to the inside of the pilfered medical file. When she returned to work, she’d discovered Cole’s real medical file exactly where it was supposed to be – between Haddock and Hobson in the H section, but when she opened it, the record was largely redacted, many of her marginal notations blackened out.
Why? What valuable information lay in an inmate’s medical record? She felt like she’d unwittingly stepped inside a CIA covert operations movie.
One guard waited by the door and the other stood behind Stark as he sat on the exam table. No one spoke for long moments.
Frankie took a step forward, Stark’s thin medical file in her left hand. He had been incarcerated for eight years, all but two of them in the SHU. Frankie had done her homework on the man and learned that he’d risen from obscurity in a level four ward – having been convicted of second-degree murder – to the SHU when admin realized he’d been running his white gang ruthlessly and efficiently.
Prison administration, not the courts, assigned inmates to the SHU. Strong gang activity had landed Stark there, where he’d subsequently murdered two cellmates. The medical record described Stark as a psychopath with no apparent affect toward others. Looking at his impassive face, Frankie believed the assessment.
She cleared her throat. “So, Mr. Stark, what’s troubling you?”
The eerie eyes, so pale blue they were nearly translucent, narrowed while he ran them contemplatively over her body from head to feet and back again, lingering on her breasts beneath the medical jacket. She struggled not to flinch.
She saw the door guard nod slightly and a second later the other guard smacked his baton down hard on Stark’s cuffed hands. The inmate blinked twice rapidly, but Frankie had the feeling that he’d braced himself for the blow because he smiled at her as if he’d just proved an important point. She felt her face lose color and her hands go numb. After nearly a year at Pelican Bay, she hadn’t gotten used to the casual brutality of prison life.
She addressed the guard who’d struck Stark. “Could you please lift up his shirt?” After a moment she began the exam, listening to his heart, lungs, feeling his throat for lumps or swollen glands. “Open wide and say ‘ah,’” she instructed. His throat and ears seemed clear of infection. She noticed Stark had remarkably little dental work done, and an amazingly sound set of teeth.
This close to his face she smelled the scent of peppermint on his breath. She shivered slightly, half expecting him to chew off her ear with those sturdy teeth.
“Cold, Dr. Jones?” Stark asked.
“Shut up, Stark.” The guard behind him prodded him in the back.
The whole domination thing suddenly irritated Frankie. “I can’t treat him if I don’t know his complaint,” she snapped.
The correctional officer by the door – his name badge said Mahoney – shrugged and nodded.
Frankie stepped back and crossed her arms. “What’s bothering you, Mr. Stark?”
Stark coughed, leaned his mouth into his shoulder, and eyed her darkly from under lowered brows. He was angled so that neither guard could see his face clearly.
“I’ve got this pain, Dr. Jones.” His voice was low and cultured. She remembered that he’d been a college teacher.
“Where?”
He coughed again, and she clearly saw him mouth the words: You. Here. Watch your back.
Not only the words implied a threat. The vicious look on Stark’s face was pure intimidation.
“Answer the doc,” Mahoney commanded.
“Here,” Stark said, jutting his chin toward his forehead. “In my head. A sharp pain. I can’t seem to get rid of it. What do you think I should do?”
The message was unmistakable.
Chapter 19
Santiago Cruz’s new parolee stopped by the county office just barely within the deadline of his release from Pelican Bay State Prison. He’d signed in and taken a seat, gotten jittery, and stepped outside for a smoke when Cruz called his name.
As Cruz shook his hand and offered Cole Hansen a chair in his office, he knew from the moment the man opened his mouth that he wasn’t going to make it. A wave of despondency gripped his gut.
Christ, it was like a revolving door. Inmate released. Inmate on parole for a month. Inmate violated and returned to jail or prison.
Bound by parole guidelines, Cruz only had so much latitude with parolees. If they attended AA or NA meetings – most of his cases were addicts – went to anger management classes, got a job, a place to live, they just might make it for a few months.
But the slightest setback moored them, often a girlfriend with the same negative history with cops, but just as often family who got sick of seeing the continual backslide. The road to recovery was two steps forward and one step back. And those were the lucky ones. Recidivism rate for California parolees was sixty-one percent.
Cruz took a deep breath and gave his normal spiel, ending with, “I won’t pee test you this time, but expect one every time you see me.”
He gave Hansen a hard stare. “Don’t let me find out you have a dirty pee test when I get the report,” he warned. “I don’t like surprises. If you hit a bump in the road, get out in front of it by telling me, okay?”
Hansen nodded, but had a distracted air that made Cruz think he wasn’t really listening.
“Hey, man.” Cruz raised his voice and rapped his knuckles on the desk. “This is important. You’ll end right back in jail real quick if you don’t listen up.”
“Yeah, man, I know. I’m gonna really try this time.”
Cruz read the man’s record. “You know the drill. You’ve done time before. Just in case – no weapons, no drugs, no association with known criminals, carry ID at all times.” He paused and eyed the man’s pasty face. “You got family? A place to stay?”
Hansen looked at his hands as if he’d find the answer there. “Uh, not really.”
Cruz sighed and reached for the packet of papers in the right desk drawer. “Here’s a list of shelters, places where you can get a free meal, coffee and a snack in the morning. Also a list of companies that hire ex-felons.”
He stapled his business card to the top of the packet and handed Hansen a few vouchers. “These are bus passes you can use to get up here for your weekly appointments. If you had a place to stay, I’d only need to see you monthly instead of weekly, so try to get a regular residence, okay?”
After a few more minutes of instructions, Cruz finished. An inmate is required to serve out his parole in the area where he committed his offense, a policy that made no sense to Cruz. How could a guy start over again when all he knew were the same crooks and petty thieves, drug addicts and pimps who’d gotten him started in crime in the first place?
He blew out a deep breath, having no faith that Cole Hansen would be different from all the other parolees who passed through his office. “That’s all for now. Keep my number. Call me if you need anything, okay?”
Hansen rose and picked up the papers, looking stunned and overwhelmed. His shoulders slumped and he sort of shuffled toward the door, turning back when he reached it. “What – what about protection?”
“Protection? From what?”
Hansen looked quickly over his shoulder into the lobby. “You know. From them.”
Cruz shrugged, looking out at the three other waiting parolees. “Hey, man, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Those guys are in the same boat as you.”
Hansen waited a long time, stepping from one foot to another in an odd little two-step.
“Has someone threatened you?” Cruz asked. “Are you afraid of something? We’ve got lots of resources to help you, but you gotta reach out, man.”
Hansen stared
blankly and finally whispered. “Oh, okay.”
He opened the door and started out, but Cruz stopped him. “Look, go to Jesus Saves in Rosedale. There’s a bus route and map in the packet.” He pointed to the pile of papers clutched in Hansen’s fist. “Talk to Angie. Tell her Santiago Cruz sent you. She’s good people. She’ll help you get around, find a job.”
“Uh, okay.” The man looked dazed, and when he reached the outer door to the building, he turned back again. “You can contact the doc at Pelican Bay, can’t you?”
“The doctor at the prison? I could,” Cruz said slowly, “but why should I?”
“The doc – she’ll – she’s good people, too – she – she’ll tell you – ”
“Tell me what?” Cruz interrupted impatiently.
“About me ... and what I know.”
Cruz stood and watched the man stumble awkwardly out of the parole office. Did Hansen really know something or was he paranoid, caught up in his own delusional world?
Damn, dude wasn’t going to make it. He looked defeated before he’d even started.
Chapter 20
After prescribing a mild pain reliever for Stark’s “headaches,” Frankie needed a moment to compose herself. She sank shakily into her office desk chair after the guards escorted Anson Stark from the infirmary. Lowering her head onto her folded arms, her insides coiling with panic and shock, she realized a single look into those cold, freaky eyes had confirmed her belief that Anson Stark was a cold-blooded murderer.
Maybe he’d been convicted of second-degree murder in the death of his wife, as the rumors went, but the deaths of two SHU inmates had been deliberate, and planned like a military commander initiating a well-executed campaign.
She’d certainly gotten the message he intended. He perceived her as a threat, one to eliminate coolly and ruthlessly. But why? How? Did it all tie back to the note Cole Hansen had given her?
Ten minutes later her heart still raced like a metronome on speed, but she stifled her fear, took deep breaths – in slowly, out slowly – and assessed the situation.
She would not let this monster get the better of her.
The primary emotion that drove her wasn’t fear but anger, coupled with helplessness. Sure, she was shaken up – who wouldn’t be when confronted with a calculated killer? – but Stark had stirred up a painful and primitive emotion, a fierce need to retaliate.
Her psychology rotation in med school hadn’t been wasted. Somewhere in the back of her brain she understood that her current anger was for the loss of her mother at a young age, misplaced rage from her father’s arrest and incarceration all those years ago.
She’d been a teenager then, motherless and fatherless, and unable to help her father against the massive amount of evidence the state had against him – evidence that pointed to Roger Franklin Milano as the murderer of his own wife, her mother. She’d been shuffled off to live with her aunt, her mother’s sister, who believed the eye witness who had been the major nail in her father’s case.
Frankie didn’t want to get even with the system. She wanted to figure out what the hell was going on in Pelican Bay Prison. If the inmates truly ran the place, then Anson Stark was king. The correctional officers might bully him, try to break him every chance they got, but she’d noticed on occasion the narrow slip of alarm in their otherwise impassive faces.
She didn’t think either of these particular guards was on the take, but someone was. Likely, many someones.
She didn’t dare let herself ponder how high up the prison command the corruption might go.
Toward the end of her shift, Frankie had even more cause to worry about recent events. She’d just returned from break, getting a cup of the truly awful coffee supplied by the prison. She planned to catch up on the never-ending task of updating medical records. She’d been doing this before the prison yard murder occurred and was now on the “F” files.
She always kept a colored sheet of paper to mark her place, and when she pulled out the file in front of the bright marker – Fader, Henry – she found a 4x4 sticky note fastened to Henry Fader’s file. The note was a deep, blood-red color. She turned it over.
Both sides were blank.
She opened the file slowly, hands trembling for no apparent reason but a gut feeling that she wouldn’t like what she found inside. Henry Fader’s file was average sized, contained a list of normal medical complaints, and described a young black man. The notable part of the file was the large red stamp affixed to the top of the file.
DECEASED.
The date of death was September 23, 2013, several years ago. Why was his file still in the records cabinet? It should’ve been weeded out of the active files and already archived.
The bigger question, Frankie asked herself – was this a personal death threat, a blood-red note marking a deceased inmate’s file? Did someone mean her to end up like Henry Fader – dead?
She flipped through the pages to determine cause of death. Henry had been an amiable twenty-two-year-old African-American, primed for rehabilitation, taking courses for his GED, attending NA meetings and counseling sessions. On the evening of September 23, his naked body had been found in the shower. He’d been brutally savaged, raped and strangled. A crude symbol had been carved into his chest: LOD.
Hands trembling, Frankie reached for the phone to call the only person she really trusted at Pelican Bay.
Walt Steiner had been a cop when her father was arrested for the murder of her mother over a dozen years ago, and he’d been her lifeline. In fact, she’d chosen Pelican Bay when she was searching for a position as a prison doctor.
Walt had transferred there shortly after Roger Milano went to Folsom Prison to serve out his twenty-to-life sentence for murder. Frankie checked Walt’s work schedule.
His assignment was visitation lieutenant, the officer in charge of clearing visitors for all inmates. He would have details about Anson Stark’s privileges. Stark was probably a no-contact inmate who wouldn’t be allowed visitors except for his attorney, and then only through a plexiglass barrier. He wouldn’t be able to pass written information.
But criminals like Anson Stark always had ways to communicate.
Chapter 21
After a moment’s hesitation, Frankie decided to text Walt Steiner rather than risk a phone call.
Hi! Long time, no see. Lunch tomorrow? Off campus?
The response came right back. You bet, baby girl. See you soon.
She’d have to risk just one more shift at the clinic, she told herself, so that she could prod Walt for information. She tried to convince herself one more day wouldn’t matter, but shivered as if a rigid wind had blown down her back.
By the end of her work day, Frankie felt calmer. The parking lot was empty except for staff cars. She beeped her remote to open her Toyota’s door, her right arm weighted down with the heavy satchel where she’d stuffed both Henry Fader’s and Cole Hansen’s files, as well as the flash drive with her secret data.
As she reached for the handle with her left hand, a thick muscled arm wrapped itself around her throat, almost pulling her off her feet. She stumbled, dropped the satchel, and tried to claw with both hands at the vice-like grip threatening to suffocate her.
The hyoid bone in the adult neck, unlike an infant’s, is ossified and not so easy to break, but she suspected the man choking her was fully capable of throttling her to death. She panicked, forgetting every trick of self-defense she’d ever learned, everything her father had taught her in her early teens when he was her best friend.
I’m going to die, right here, right now, she thought, unless I do something. She relaxed and dropped her purse from her shoulder, slumping back against a thick, solid wall of chest. Her attacker was tall, beefy, and very strong. She stood no chance against his superior height and weight.
Her languid body must’ve boosted the man’s confidence, or perhaps he’d never intended to kill her at all. He bent his mouth to her temple, fetid smoker’s breath making her queasy
as he growled low in her ear.
“Best you learn a lesson, bitch. Quit sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. I’m letting you go, now, but if you even fuckin’ make a squeak, I’ll snap your pretty neck.” He loosened his hold. “Nod if you understand.”
Shaking like a wet puppy, Frankie jerked her head in assent.
He stepped back from her. “Don’t turn around,” he instructed. “Wait five minutes and then go home. This is your only warning.”
Dead silence reigned in the prison parking lot. How had no one seen the man assault her? Where were all the employees who got off shift when she did?
None, she thought, with a tremor of renewed panic. The correctional officers didn’t work the same kinds of shifts as the medical staff, and the nurses staggered their hours so at least two medical personnel were on call at all times.
The night was cold and she’d forgotten her coat. Her mind raced with adrenaline-fueled indecision. How long was five minutes? An eternity had passed since the man released her. Was he gone now?
Her legs shook so much she thought she’d lose her balance and sink to the ground. She had to remain steady until she find safety in her car.
Her keys! Where were her keys?
She ventured a glance down at her feet. The car keys lay right beside her shoes and next to them lay the briefcase. It looked intact. Her assailant hadn’t thought to rifle through the bag. The files were safe.
Her mind started to clear.
That meant he didn’t know how much Frankie had figured out about the deaths of the Norteño gang member and Henry Fader, and Cole Hansen’s debriefing. Her attacker didn’t know about the coded message on the note Cole had passed her.
Long minutes later she retrieved her items, opened the car door, and sank onto the comfortable seat of her old familiar Toyota, slamming the locks on the doors. She’d parked in a remote area of the lot out of sight of the tower guards with their rifles and binoculars. She’d always felt safe here, surrounded with officers and guns, men who were trained to secure the prison.