‘Not a very popular guy, huh?’
‘Not really. His only real friend was Ortega, and he was in San Quentin.’
‘Cellmates?’ Hunter asked.
‘Yep, a hard-as-nails guy called Guri Krasniqi,’ Alice replied.
‘Albanian, kind of a big ringleader,’ Hunter said. ‘I’ve heard of him.’
‘That’s him, all right.’
Garcia chuckled. ‘Well, we have a better chance of stepping on unicorn shit on our way out of the office than getting an Albanian crime lord talking.’
Despite the joke, Hunter knew Garcia was right.
‘Sands’s life received a double hit during his sixth year of incarceration,’ Alice said. ‘First, Ortega’s sentence was carried out and he was executed after sixteen years on death row – lethal injection. Sixth months later, Sands’s mother passed away from a brain aneurysm. That’s why the visits stopped. He was allowed to go to her funeral under a heavy guard escort. There were only ten people there. He didn’t say a word to his father. And apparently he showed no emotions. Not a single tear.’
Hunter wasn’t surprised. Ken Sands was known as a tough guy, and to tough guys, pride is everything. He would never have given his father, or his guard escorts, the pleasure of seeing him crying or hurting, even if it was over his dead mother. If he cried, he did it on his own, back in his prison cell.
Garcia stood up and moved to the center of the room. ‘OK, all that’s very interesting, but not as interesting as this next part.’ He nodded at the report in his hands. ‘You do know that the state penitentiary, as a rehabilitation institution, provides its inmates with courses, apprenticeships and work experience when possible, right? They call it educational/vocational programming, and according to their mission statement, it’s designed to encourage productivity, inmate responsibility and self-improvement. It never quite works that way, though.’
‘OK.’ Hunter folded his arms.
‘Some inmates can also, by request, and if approved, take a correspondence course. Several US universities have joined this program, offering inmates a vast choice of higher-level degrees.’
‘Sands took one of those courses,’ Hunter deducted.
‘He took two, achieving two university degrees while inside.’
Hunter’s eyebrows lifted.
‘Sands obtained a degree in psychology from the College of Arts and Sciences, part of the American University in Washington DC, and . . .’ Garcia stole a peek at Alice, holding the suspense, ‘a minor degree in Nursing and Patient Care from the University of Massachusetts. No practical experience with patients is needed to graduate, but the course would’ve allowed him to request medical study books. Books that weren’t available in the prison library.’
Hunter felt a tingle run through him.
‘Remember . . .’ Alice asked, ‘. . . when I said that Sands’s school grades were much better than one would expect from such a disruptive student?’
‘Yeah.’
‘He aced both courses. Honorable mention at the conclusion of his psychology degree, and outstanding grades throughout his nursing degree.’ She started fidgeting with the silver charms bracelet on her right wrist. ‘So if it’s medical knowledge we’re looking for, Sands sure as hell fits the bill.’ Alice sipped her coffee while holding Hunter’s stare. ‘But that still ain’t all.’
Hunter questioned Garcia with a look.
‘Spare time in prison . . .’ Garcia read on, returning to his desk, ‘. . . is very rarely spent at an inmates’ own leisure. They are all encouraged to do something useful with their time, like reading, painting or whatever. Several –’ Garcia made quotation marks in the air with his fingers – ‘“personality-enhancing activities” are organized by the California State Prison in Lancaster. Sands read a lot, checking books out of the library on a regular basis.’
‘The problem is,’ Alice joined in, ‘the library-book register isn’t online, and frankly that doesn’t surprise me. But it means that there’s no way I can get that list by hacking into the system because it doesn’t exist in electronic form. We’ll have to wait until Lancaster sends it to us.’
‘Sands also spent a lot of time in the gym,’ Garcia said, returning to the notes. ‘But when he wasn’t reading or studying for one of his long-distance courses, he was dabbling in his hobby. One he picked up inside.’
‘Which was?’ Hunter crossed to the water cooler and poured himself a cup.
‘Art.’
‘Yeah, but nothing to do with painting or drawing,’ Alice noted, her demeanor urging Hunter to take a guess.
‘Sculpting,’ he said.
Both Garcia and Alice nodded.
Hunter kept his excitement at bay. He understood California’s psychological approach to its rehabilitation institutions very well – encourage every inmate to guide their negative emotions into something creative, something constructive. Every prison in California has an extensive arts program, and they urge every inmate to take part. The truth is, the great majority does. If nothing else, it helps pass the time. The three most popular arts activities in Californian prisons are painting, drawing and sculpting. Many inmates take up all three.
‘And we still have nothing for a possible location on Sands?’ Hunter asked.
Alice shook her head. ‘It’s like he’s vanished since he left prison. No one has a clue where he is.’
‘There’s always someone who knows something,’ Hunter countered.
‘That’s for sure,’ Garcia said, clicking away at his computer. The printer next to his desk kicked into life. ‘This is the last list you asked for,’ Garcia said, retrieving the printout and handing it to Hunter. ‘All other inmates housed in the same facility block as Sands during his entire prison term. There are over four hundred names in that list, but I’ll save you the trouble. Have a look at the second page. Recognize anyone?’
Alice threw Garcia a surprised stare. ‘When you read through the list earlier you never told me that you recognized a name.’
Garcia smiled. ‘You never asked.’
Hunter flipped the page and his eyes sped through the names, stopping three quarters of the way down. ‘You are kidding.’
Fifty-Six
Thomas Lynch, better known as Tito, was a scumbag, small-time junkie, who got busted seven years ago after a grocery-store armed robbery went terribly wrong, producing two fatalities – the store owner and his wife.
Though neither masked men’s faces were ever uncovered during the whole robbery, when analyzing the CCTV footage, Hunter and Garcia had identified a slight, nervous head movement from one of the men. A tic brought on by stress. It took them three days to get to Tito.
Tito was just a petty criminal. That had been his first armed robbery. He was talked into it by the second man, Donnie Brusco, a lost-case crack-head, who’d already killed twice before.
It took Garcia less than an hour to get Tito talking. From the CCTV footage they knew Tito hadn’t pulled the trigger. In fact, he’d even tried to stop the second masked man from shooting the old couple. Garcia convinced Tito that if he cooperated, because it had been his first serious offence, they could plea with the DA for a reduced sentence. If Tito didn’t cooperate, he would certainly get death.
Tito talked, and Donnie Brusco was arrested and sentenced to death by lethal injection. He was now sitting in San Quentin’s death row, waiting on his execution date. Tito got ten years for armed robbery and accessory to murder. Hunter and Garcia kept their side of the bargain and pleaded with the DA, who recommended early parole. After serving six years of his ten-year sentence, Tito had been released under the supervision of the California Probation Department and a parole officer eleven months ago. He served his time in the California State Prison in Lancaster – Inmate Facility A. The same facility where Ken Sands had served his sentence.