Beyond Justice (24 page)

"Is he?"

The answer came in the form of a right hook to my jaw.

Chapter Forty

I had heard about the prison riots in Pelican Bay, how the fighting continued until inmates were finally shot dead with live rounds.  The shadow of such terrifying events hung over me for the following months.  Was this part of Butch's plan—to have me shanked during a riot?  Or to have me shot by a guard when it all went down?

Every time I saw Buzz, the Fourth Reich leader, who I later learned was called The
Furor
by his followers, I tried to learn more about the impending war.  He would only reply with a question of his own, "You with us?" 

Neither of us got our answers.

In the bowels of Salton, the sounds of furtive, yet incessant scraping in the gloom of night kept me awake.   All around me, inmates sharpened pieces of metal, plastic and wood against the concrete walls.  Shanks, shivs—didn't matter what you called them, everyone had them.  Except me.  Even Possum had a couple which I didn't want to know about.

More disturbing was the sound of heavy breathing, grunting and groaning.  Some mutually consensual, others, clearly not.  This sent my head under my pillow and made me thankful that my cell mate was timid.  And straight.

Every morning, I'd wake up exhausted, lying in sheets soaked with cold perspiration.  The only way I felt secure was to get up around 5:00 AM, before anyone else.  I would read magazines, legal journals or Jenn's Bible.  One of the inmates thought it would be funny to give me a copy of Brent Stringer's recent novel,
Cast The First Stone
.  It remained on the bottom of my slush pile.

The more I read the scriptures Jenn had highlighted in bright yellow, the more questions arose about her faith.  One verse stated, "
No greater love has this than a man lay down his life for another.
"  I figured this referred to Jesus Christ.  But what did that mean to a believer?  Were they supposed to become a bunch of self-sacrificing martyrs?  Perhaps I could ask Dave the next time I saw him.  More important matters always came up during the visits and I would forget to ask.

Out of sheer curiosity, and for lack of a better way to find peace and quiet, I began attending religious services.  Though the chaplain had worked at Salton for three years, he still seemed anxious around convicts.  He never stayed long enough after service to talk to any of us.  After delivering his message, he always rushed off and left us to meditate.  Under guard, of course.

One September morning, I decided to linger in the chapel to meditate upon the homily he'd just delivered—a quaint message about doing good for no other reason than pleasing God.  Easy for him to say—he got to go home to his wife and kids every night.  The truth was, I felt depressed, resigned to the idea that my wife and daughter's killer would never be caught and brought to justice, that I would never see Aaron again.

I put my head down, as if I were praying.  Actually, I just wanted to rest quietly, away from all the blustering inmates in B-yard.  Only one other inmate remained in the chapel.  He sat way in the front of the chapel, his head bowed. 

There came a sound that at first gave the impression of air hissing out of a punctured tire.
Ssssssssssssssss…
  Not paying it any mind, I yawned and shut my eyes again.

SSSSamuel.

I opened my eyes wide, noticed the inmate sitting in a chair three rows in front of me—just the back of his head, couldn't make out his features.  Something about him seemed familiar, though, as if I already knew him.  I walked over to him and cleared my throat.

Without turning around he said, "What do you want?"

"You called me.  What do
you
want?"

"Huh?"

"Do I know you?" I said.

He turned to face me and his jaw fell open.  "Who—?  Holy—!"  He slid across the row of chairs, knocking one over.  Anger flared up in my chest.  I couldn't believe it was him, couldn't believe he was here right before my eyes.  

"Walker!"

The Coyote Creek Middle school shooter fell off his chair.  "Keep away, all of you!" he cried, shielding his face.  I pushed a couple of
chairs aside and walked over to him.  "No, please," he cried.  "Don't!"

Walker had pled insanity to the shootings, and gotten two consecutive life sentences.  It shouldn't have come as a complete surprise to see him here, but I had expected him to have ended up in a psychiatric ward.

The hefty black C.O. stepped over. "We got a problem here?

"No sir." In one brisk motion, I pulled Walker to his feet and planted him down in a chair.  "Buddy here mistook me for someone else."  I patted him on the shoulder and squeezed it firmly.  Walker winced, and kept shifting from side to side, peering around my back.  "We're just going to have a little talk," I said.  "About religion."

"Y'all be cool, hear?"  the C.O. said.  "And show some respect."  He  nodded to the cross in the front of the chapel and returned to his post.

Frightened and speaking with a timid voice, Walker stuck out like a sore thumb here in Gen-Pop.  It turned out that he'd been recently released from the Psyciatric Services Unit, after treatment for paranoid delusions.

Defensive from the start, he reminded me that while he had nearly shot Bethie in the classroom in the midst of his spree, the crimes
I
had been convicted of were just as bad.  Worse, in fact.  "So who are you to judge me?"

"I'm not judging you."  I said, and wanted him to believe it.

He craned his neck over my shoulder. "And will you tell your friends to quit staring.  They're giving me the creeps!"

"What friends?"

"Those two big guys in white!"

A quick glance behind me
revealed no one but the C.O. talking quietly into his walkie-talkie.  "Uh...right.  Never mind them, just tell me, once and for all: why did you do it?  Something just snap?"

Still gazing over my shoulder he said, "I'll talk, just keep those guys away from me."

"What guys!"

"Just tell them to back off, all right?"

"Fine."  I said, and turned around.  The C.O. raised his eyebrows.  I shrugged and subtly spun my index finger around the side of my head—he's whacked.  Then playing along with Walker's delusion, I spoke into the air.  "You guys chill, okay?"  It didn't calm him much.  "All right then," I said to him.  "Tell me."

"Well, you see.  I was on a mission."

"For the secret service, right?"

"Don't mock me, okay?  I ain't retarded."

"No.  Of course not."  I waxed serious.  "So, what kind of mission?"

"A mission from God."

Well, that explained it.  "Come on."

"I'm not kidding."

"I get it.  You actually do want to get back into PSU, right?  Safer there—that must be it."

"No, no, no!   Hate it there!  I only told the doc what he wanted to hear so I could get
out
.  They keep pumping you full of drugs in there, to keep you mellow.  I'm never going back in there again.  Ever!"

"All right, all right."  No point arguing.  I took a deep breath and waited for him to settle.  "How exactly did God tell you to go and shoot those kids?"

He cast a furtive glance around the chapel, then leaned in close to whisper.  "God was telling me his will to me for months.  That day, He commanded me to bring a gun to the school."

"Really.  What was it, a burning bush?  A pillar of fire?  Writing on the wall?  I mean if God—"

"Oh, now you're taking the good Lord's name in vain?"

"No.  Sorry.  Go on."

He settled back into his chair, exasperated. "God spoke to me through the internet."

"The internet, eh?" He really seemed to believe it, which made him more pathetic than despicable.  Almost.

"I did everything He commanded.  I shot the two prettiest girls in the class." Walker wrung his CDC cap. "But God didn't tell me what to do after that.  I thought He'd speak to me, I thought he'd protect me, but He didn't.  I must have failed Him somewhere down the line!"

"Walker," I said, glancing back to the C.O. who was now talking on his cell phone.  "Just calm down okay?" His eyes could not stay still. "Now, was it through email?  A chatroom?"

"Instant Messenger."

"Tell me, what made you think it was God?"

"No." He shook his head.  "You're just trying to get me back into PSU.  I see right through you." Again, he looked over my shoulder.  Then with a scowl and a furtive whisper he said, "That's why those guys are here, right?"

"Want me to call them over, now?"  Walker shook his head, looked nervously at the guys he believed stood behind me.  He really did need to get back into PSU.  "So how do you know it was God?" I said.

"I have no friends, okay?  No one knows anything about me.  But God knows everything.  When he IM'ed me, He told me all kinds of things that no one else knows.  That only He could know."

"Like?"

"My mother's maiden name, my social security number, what kind of condoms I buy online...everything."

I wanted to give him a brief lecture on how all these things were easy pickings for identity theft, but it would only fall on deaf ears.  "So God proves himself to you and then just goes and tells you to kill?"

"What do you think, I'm nuts?"

I declined to answer.

"God loves me," he said, gazing at the stained glass windows.  "God has a plan for me—I have to keep believing that.  He encouraged me with scriptures when I was lonely.  He is the greatest friend I ever had.  I have a personal relationship with Him."  His eyes went back to the ground.  "Or at least, I
had
one."

"How long until he told you to go and kill those girls?"

"Four months, twelve days."  Not once did Walker ever mention why God wanted him to kill two innocent children.  I was about to ask him about it when another question popped up into my mind.  "Did God have a screen name?"

Walker let out a chuckle.  "Boy are
you
naive."

"Well?"

"Yeah, how else could he IM me?  How else could I put Him on my buddy list?"

"Right.  What was it then?"

He thought about it for a moment.  "God has to use weird screen names... I mean, come on.  Who's going to believe someone who IM's you with the screen name of God, or Jehovah?"

"I hear you.  So what was it?"

"It was something like...."

My innards became knotted. "Well?"

"Hold on.  I need to think."

"Think faster!"

"Okay, okay.  It's coming to me.  But I don't think He wants me to tell anyone."

"Hold out on me now and forget about PSU, me and those guys back there will make sure you get to ask
Him
in person."

"All right, All right!  I'm not sure of the exact spelling—"

"Spit it out, dammit!"

Walker took a deep breath.  "It was something like...
DrHu
or 
Huliboy
something." 

My chest felt like it had been crushed by a boulder.  Huliboy  was the screen name of a person who IM'd Bethie just days before she and Jenn had been murdered.

Chapter Forty-One

Friday morning started with shouts from down the pod.   Already awake,  I heard the commotion, stuck my pocket mirror through the bars of my cell and peered down the row.   I barely caught a glimpse of the officers entering the cell.

"We got a hanger!"  Sergeant Mancuso shouted.  "It's Walker!"

A mere three days after we spoke, Walker hung himself with a bed sheet.  Thankfully, not before revealing that screen name, a possible link to my wife and daughter's killer.   I stood there stunned, gripping the cold bars.

Possum sat up and rubbed his eyes.  "You don't look too good."  I kept trying to watch for action in Walker's cell.  Nothing.  He was gone.

For the rest of the day, rumors buzzed around B-Yard like flies on carrion.  Some believed that Walker's cellmate, Luis "Louie" Guzman had strangled him in his sleep, and made it look like a suicide.  Other's purported that Walker had read an inbound letter, crumpled it up and went to bed.  The next morning he was hanging by a bed sheet.

Over breakfast, I spoke with Sergeant Sonja Grace about Walker but she didn't know much.  Instead, as she was about to go off duty, she asked me about Aaron.

"It's been a while since I've seen him," I said.  "During the trial, my in-laws, his grandparents slapped a restraining order on me."

Sonja furrowed her brow and turned away.  "That bites."

"Worst part is the thought of him dying and my not being there for him."