The warden's taut face relaxed. “Be my guest, Lieutenant. But he doesn't leave. You go to him.”
Estes picked up his phone and dialed a number. After apause, he muttered sharply
“Get Weiscz ready. He has a visitor. It's a woman.”
Womans Murder Club 2 - Second Chance
Chapter 59
WE WENT THROUGH a long underground walkway accompanied by Estes and a club-toting head guard named O'Koren.
When we came to a stairway marked SHU-C, the warden led us up, waving at a security screen, then through a heavy compression door that opened into the ultramodern prison ward.
Along the way he filled me in. “Like most of our inmates, Weiscz came in from another facility. Folsom. He was the leader of the Aryan Brotherhood there, until he strangled a black guard. He's been isolated here for eighteen months now. Until we start sending people to the death house in this state, there's nothing more we can do to him.”
Jacobi leaned over and whispered, “You sure of what you're doing here, Lindsay?”
I wasn't sure. My heart was starting to gallop, and my palms had busted out in a nervous sweat. “That's why I brought you along.”
“Yeah, ”Jacobi muttered.
Pelican Bay's isolation unit was unlike anything I had ever seen. Everything was painted a dull, sterile white. Burly khaki-uniformed guards, of both sexes but uniformly white, manned glassed-in command posts.
Monitors and security cameras were everywhere. Everywhere. The unit was configured like a pod with ten cells, the compression-sealed doors tightly shut.
Warden Estes stopped in front of a metal door with a large window. “Welcome to ground zero of the human race,” he said.
A muscular, balding senior guard holding a face visor and some sort of Uzi-like taser gun came up. “Weiscz had to be extracted, Warden. I think he'll need a few moments to loosen up.”
I looked up at Estes. “Extracted?”
Estes sniffed. “You would think after being holed up a couple of months, he'd be happy to get out. Just so you know what's coming next, Weiscz was uncooperative. We had to send a team in to pretty him up for you.”
He nodded toward the window. “There's your man... ”
I stepped in front of the solid pressure-sealed door.
Strapped to a metal chair, his feet bound in irons, his hands cuffed from behind, hunched a hulking, muscular shape. His hair was long and oily and straggly and he wore a thin, unkempt goatee. He was dressed in an orange short-sleeved jumpsuit, open at the chest, revealing ornate tattoos covering his pumped-up arms and chest.
The warden said, “There'll be a guard in there with you and you'll be monitored at all times. Stay away from him. Don't get closer than five feet. If he as much as juts his chin in your direction, he'll be immobilized.”
“The guy's bound and chained,” I said.
“This sonofabitch eats chains,” Estes said. “Believe it.”
“Anything I can promise him?”
“Yeah.” Estes smirked. “A Happy Meal. You ready...?”
I winked at Jacobi, who widened his eyes in caution. My heart nearly stopped, like a skeet target exploded out of the sky.
“Bon voyage,” Estes muttered. Then he signaled the control booth. I heard a ka-shoosh as the heavy compression door unlocked.
Womans Murder Club 2 - Second Chance
Chapter 60
I STEPPED INTO THE STARK WHITE CELL. It was completely empty except for a metal table and four chairs, all bolted to the floor, and two security cameras high up on the walls. In a corner stood a silent, tight-lipped guard holding a stun gun.
Weiscz barely acknowledged me. His legs were fastened and his hands tightly cuffed behind the chair. His eyes had a steely inhuman quality to them.
“I'm Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer,” I said, stopping about five feet from him.
Weiscz said nothing, only tilted his eyes toward me. Narrow, almost phosphorescent slits.
“I need to talk to you about some murders that have taken place. I can't promise you much. I'm hoping you'll hear me out. Maybe help.”
“Blow me,” he spat with a hoarse voice.
The guard took a step toward him, and Weiscz stiffened as if he'd taken a jolt from the taser. I put up my hand to hold him back.
“You may know something about them,” I continued, a chill shooting down my spine. “I just want to know if they make sense to you. These killings... ”
Weiscz looked at me curiously probably trying to size up if there was something he could get from this. “Who's dead?”
“Four people. Two cops. One was my chief of police. A widow and an eleven-year-old girl. All black.” An amused smile settled over Weiscz's face. “In case you haven't noticed, lady, my alibi's airtight.”
“I'm hoping you may know something about them, then.”
“Why me?”
From my jacket pocket, I took out the same two chimera photos I had shown Estes and held them in front of his face.
“The killer's been leaving these behind. I believe you know what it means.”
Weiscz grinned broadly. “I don't know what you came in here for, but you don't fucking know how that warms my heart.”
“The killer's a Chimera, Weiscz. You cooperate, you could gain back some privileges. They can always move you out of this hole.”
“Both of us know I'll never get out of this hole.”
“There's always something, Weiscz. Everybody wants something.”
“There is something,” he finally said. “Come closer.”
My body stiffened. “I can't. You know that.”
“You got a mirror, don't you?”
I nodded. I had a makeup mirror in my purse.
“Shine it on me.”
I looked at the guard. His head twitched a firm no.
For the first time, Weiscz looked in my eyes. “Shine it on me. I haven't seen myself in over a year. Even the shower fixtures are dulled here so you can't see a reflection. These bastards just want you to forget who the fuck you were. I want to see.”
The guard stepped forward. “You know that's impossible, Weiscz.”
“Fuck you, Labont.” He glared viciously up at the cameras.
“Fuck you, too, Estes.” Then he turned back to me. “They didn't send you in here with much to bargain with, did they?”
“They said I could take you out for a Happy Meal,” I said with a slight smile.
“Just you and me, huh?”
I glanced at the guard. “And him.”
Weiscz's goatee split into a smile. “These bastards, they know how to ruin everything.”
I stood there nervously. I didn't laugh. I didn't want to show the slightest empathy for him.
But I sat myself at the table across from Weiscz. I fumbled in my bag, took out a compact. I expected any minute a loud voice was going to blare over the intercom, or the stone-faced guard was going to rush over and knock it away. To my amazement, no one interfered. I cracked the compact open, looked at Weiscz, then I turned it toward him.
I don't know what he looked like before, but he was a horrific sight now. He stared at himself, wide-eyed, the truth of his harsh confinement setting in. He fixed on the mirror as if it were the last thing he would see on earth. Then he looked at me and grinned. “Not much to go on, for that blow-me thing, is there?”
I don't know why but I gave him a begrudging smile.
Then he twisted his neck around to the cameras. “Fuck you, Estes,” he roared. "See? I'm still there. You try to squeeze me out, but I'm still there. The reckoning is going on without me. Chimera, baby... Glory to the unstained hand who stills the rabble and swarm.
“Who would do this?” I pressed. “Tell me, Weiscz.” He knew I knew he knew. Someone he had shared a cell with.
Someone he had traded histories with in a prison yard.
"Help me, Weiscz. Someone you know is killing these people. You've got nothing to gain anymore.