Once that was done and they each had the back of his hand stamped with fluorescent ink, a steel door started to slide open.
"Cameras can only be used in the weight yard and the immediate area around it," Russell said. "Any of my COs sees you taking any other pictures without authorization, your equipment will be impounded and you'll be escorted from the premises."
Hawkes frowned. "And why is that?"
Russell turned on him. "You have a problem with that, Dr. Hawkes, you can take it up with Albany. I'm just following the rules here. I suggest you do the same."
"Okay." Hawkes noticed that Sergeant Jackson was rolling his eyes behind Russell's back. Captain Russell apparently had a reputation.
They all walked into the alcove and were asked to place their hands on a tray with a hand-shaped indentation. Ultraviolet light was shone on their hands, and the fluorescent ink turned up blue where they'd been stamped. Hawkes thought that was a nice touch-putting something on visitors that they couldn't easily get rid of because they couldn't even see it.
Once they had all shown their hands, the door they had come through slid slowly shut, and a facing door slid slowly open. They walked back outside, the heat and humidity hitting Hawkes like a hammer.
They walked down a path that was lined with neatly arranged flowers; there was even a koi pond. Hawkes assumed that the landscaping was done by the inmates.
Mac said, in a tone that suggested he'd been simmering for a while, "Captain, you asked for us. I don't appreciate being told how to do my job."
"I'm not," Russell said. "I'm telling you what's allowed in my facility. Again, if you have a problem, take it up with Albany."
Going through another set of double doors put them back in the AC. Three COs, all with one stripe on their sleeves, were waiting for them.
Ursitti said, "Detective Flack, I'll take you to our interrogation room-you can start interviewing witnesses there."
Flack nodded, then looked at one of the COs and smiled. "Hey, Terry, we gotta stop meeting like this."
One of the COs-a big guy with a baby face-smiled and said, "Donnie."
Russell looked back and forth between the two. "You two know each other, Officer Sullivan?"
The CO with the baby face dropped the smile. "Yes, sir. Detective Flack's dad and my dad used to bust heads together in the one-one-two back in the day."
"Swell," Russell said with a scowl. "Officer Sullivan, you'll accompany Detective Taylor. Officer Andros, you'll accompany Detective Messer. Officer Ciccone, you'll go with Dr. Hawkes."
The six of them proceeded through a few more corridors, past several checkpoints and guard posts, and finally again went out into the heat and humidity. Hawkes wryly thought he was going to get pneumonia at this rate, although the AC inside the prison wasn't exactly what you'd call high-level. That was what Hawkes liked about both the morgue and the crime lab-high-tech equipment and dead bodies both needed to stay cool, so New York summers were bearable at work.
Except when you went out to a crime scene.
There was no shade to speak of in the open field between the building and the weight yard, so the sun was beating down mercilessly on the ground from the cloudless sky.
As he crossed the yard, the sun hot on the back of his neck, Hawkes tried not to think about the fact that he was, once again, in a prison, with a CO dogging his every step. With this Ciccone guy walking right behind him, Hawkes almost felt like he was in prison for real again, not just visiting. Like he wasn't a person anymore.
He really hated that.
After a long walk across the grassy field, they reached the weight yard. Behind the weight yard was a copse of trees, which provided shade for a batch of picnic tables. Beyond the cluster of tables was a basketball court.
The yard was completely empty, save for a few COs who were standing around the weight yard. Hawkes assumed that the place was currently in lockdown, with all the inmates confined in their cells.
An African-American man with a goatee very much like the one Hawkes used to wear stood at the gate. The CO with Mac, Flack's friend Sullivan, said, "Jay, these're the crime lab guys. Uncle Cal said they can do whatever they want in the weight room."
Jay nodded and took the keys out of his belt, then flipped through several before coming to the one that unlocked the padlock on the chain that kept the gate shut.
Hawkes took in the entire crime scene with a practiced eye as the gate swung open with the metallic whining of hinges. Inside were several weight benches, half a dozen barbells, and a huge number of round metal doughnut weights of various sizes.
One body was lying on the ground near the fence. There was blood all around him, splattered and smeared.
Mac asked, "Can someone describe exactly what happened?"
The man named Jay stepped forward and described the events of that morning, including forcing all the convicts inside the weight yard to lie on their stomachs. There were forty-five of them-the maximum occupancy, as Ursitti had said-and with them all lying down in there, it was a little cramped.
When he was finished with his account, Jay pointed to the ground outside the weight yard. "Found that shiv. Nobody touched it after I found it, I made sure."
"Thanks," Mac said as he walked over to where Jay was pointing. He yanked a latex glove out of his pocket and held it between his fingers, using it to pick up the item. "A toothbrush with a safety razor attached-and covered in blood."
Sullivan said, "They don't get points for originality 'round here, Detective."
"Good thing," Mac muttered. He pulled out an evidence envelope and dropped the makeshift murder weapon inside. "Blood's probably our vic, and this'll have the murderer's prints." He looked up. "Danny, you take Barker. Sheldon, check out Washburne."
Hawkes nodded. As he entered the weight yard, Ciccone on his heels, he muttered, "Reconstructing's going to be difficult in this mess."
"The hell you gotta reconstruct for?" Ciccone asked. "One of the skinheads killed Barker."
"It was Mulroney," Sullivan added.
Hawkes whirled around. Mac and Danny were looking at him, too. Mac asked, "How do you know that?"
"I saw him. I already gave my verbal report to the LT. Hell, half the Muslims in here probably saw it, and so did the gangbangers hangin' around outside. Skinheads won't say nothin', but they don't have to."
"Who's Mulroney?" Mac asked.
"Jack Mulroney," Sullivan said. "He's in for assault-bar brawl, him against two homosexuals." Smirking, Sullivan added, "Not the fairest of fights."
Ciccone muttered, "More like a fairy fight." Hawkes shot him a disgusted look, which the CO ignored.
"Anyway, this is a step up for him," Sullivan said. "He's a brawler, but this is the first time he's actually killed someone."
Hawkes nodded and walked toward the free weights, his mind already racing ahead to the true conundrum he had to solve: the death of Malik Washburne.
He asked Ciccone, "Anybody see what happened to him?"
The CO shrugged.
From the gate, Sullivan said, "We were all busy lookin' at Barker getting shivved. I heard a clunk, turned around, and Washburne was on the floor."
Hawkes knelt down next to the body. Here, at least, he was in his element. No matter how he was feeling, he knew that what he was good at-what he was here for-was using his medical degree and his experience to glean answers from dead bodies.
Like everyone else here who wasn't a CO, Washburne was wearing the green dickies of a convict, though he had removed the shirt and was wearing only a white tank undershirt for weight lifting in the hot summer sun. He had apparently been growing his hair long in a seventies-style Afro-but it wasn't enough to hide the giant gash in his forehead.
Putting on his latex gloves-and sighing with the inevitablility of spending the next twenty-four hours with his hands smelling like sweat-drenched latex, a stench that grossed Hawkes out even more than the smell of dead bodies-Hawkes examined the gash. It looked about the right size to have been caused by one of the weights.