Inmate 1577 (38 page)

Morris stuck a small piece of meat in his mouth. “I’ve escaped from every prison I’ve ever been at,” Morris said, his chewing and molasses-thick drawl making it a bit difficult for MacNally to follow. “You know what the warden’s record on me says?” He laughed. “Under ‘Occupation,’ it says, ‘escape artist.’ He nodded. “I fuck you not.”

“Since you’re on The Rock, doesn’t look like your record as an escape artist ‘
worked out too good
,’” MacNally said, mimicking Morris’s earlier dig, then flashing a smile to defuse the mocking sarcasm behind the comment.

“I’m better at escaping than I am at robbing banks.”

MacNally nodded slowly. At least the man could admit his faults. “What’d you want to know about ventilation?”

“There used to be eight air exhaust blowers,” Carnes said, “on top of the cell blocks, above the third tier. They were attached to ducts that vented to the building’s roof. We looked at goin’ out of ‘em during the ’46 shootout, but we couldn’t get the scaffolding over there. After the hacks retook the cellhouse, most of the blowers were removed and they sealed off the vent openings with bars and concrete.”

Carnes seemed to be articulate and thoughtful. MacNally found himself listening carefully to the man’s soft-spoken delivery.

“But,” West said, “I heard one of ’em’s still there.”

“Frankie and I work in the library,” Carnes said. “I bring books around on a cart to all the guys here. It gives me a chance to look around, observe. And looks to me like that one vent is the one that’s over the back side of B block.”

“I just moved cells,” Morris said. “To B-356. Right under the vent.”

“This vent,” West said. “It’s round and pretty damn wide. There’s a blower attached to it, with ductwork. If we can get that ductwork off, I bet it’d lead us right up to the roof. And once we get on the roof, it’s a matter of getting off the island. The water presents other problems, but we’re working on that.”

MacNally said, “Ductwork’s fastened with sheet metal screws. A wrench or screwdriver would do the trick. But—and this might seem like an obvious question, but how do we get out of our cells?” MacNally suddenly felt the presence of someone over his left shoulder. He shifted the topic. “What do you guys like to do out in the rec yard?”

“Baseball,” Morris said. “Sometimes I just like to enjoy the sun, when it’s out. And smell the sea breeze.” He kept his head straight, on MacNally, but his eyes followed the officer as the man continued past them and then hung a left, toward the other side of the room.

“Those cross-hatched grilles under the sink?” Anglin asked. “You seen ’em?”

MacNally nodded. He had seen them—recessed, rectangular, eight-by-ten-inch grates that allowed air to passively flow from an area behind the cells into the cell block.

“We startin’ to poke around at that there cement,” Anglin said. “Frankie thinks we can dig ’em out, then crawl through.”

“Through? Into what?” MacNally asked.

“Take a look when you’re walking back to your cell,” West said. “Between the cell blocks, between, say, B and C, there’s a metal door. Behind it, a utility corridor. Water and waste pipes run through there. If you look up, it’s a clear shot to the top tier of the cell block.”

“A ventilation duct has to vent to the roof,” MacNally said.

“Right,” West said. “So if we dig out those grilles in our cells, we just crawl through the opening into the utility corridor, then use the piping as a ladder to climb up to the roof.”

“How are we gonna dig out the cement around those grilles?”

“Inmate plumbers,” Morris said. “Con I know, Billy Boggs, helps out fixing busted pipes. The plumbing was put in by the army back in 1900 or some shit like that. The sea water that goes through ’em rots ’em out. And when they burst, they flood that utility area and eat away the concrete walls. Billy says the walls look pretty bad.”

“And those walls,” West said, “are the walls of our cells.”

MacNally absorbed what he was being told. Before he committed to the plan, he wanted to be sure he had a decent chance of making it out. The water—those sharks—was another problem.

But there were more immediate logistical concerns. “How can you dig out the cement without the guards knowing about it? They’re pretty strict where you can put shit in your cells. You can’t block that grille. They’ll get suspicious.”

“One of the oldest inmate tricks in the book,” West said. “Wet some toilet paper, mix it with soap flakes, then force it into the holes you’re making.”

“Get a job,” Morris said to MacNally. “J.W. works in clothing. I’m in the brush shop in Industries. Do what you’re told and don’t cause any trouble, they’ll give you work. Take it. Best way to get the tools and supplies we need. They got everything in there: wire, electrical tape, varnishes, nuts, bolts, machines... Some of us are already gettin’ stuff together.”

MacNally nodded.

“Like I said,” West added, looking across the room at an officer, who was approaching. “I been workin’ on this a long, long time.”

“What about the water?” MacNally asked. “The sharks?”

Carnes chuckled. “No sharks in the water, MacNally. They tell you that to keep your ass on the island.”

“I just got the new
Popular Mechanics
,” West said, then waited for the guard to pass. Teaches you how to make blow-up rubber geese. Works for life preservers and rafts, too.”

MacNally shook his head. “You read something about making rubber duckies and you think you can build a raft out of that? One that’ll hold up in that choppy ocean?”

“Trust me on that,” Anglin said. “Clarence and me, we grew up swimming and rafting in Lake Michigan. The stuff they say in that mag, it’ll work.”

“We need raincoats,” Morris said. “We can get ’em from Clothing, where J.W. works. But we need a lot of ’em. Maybe four dozen, way I figure. Maybe more. They’re Navy jobs made of rubber backed canvas. We can cut ’em up and glue the pieces together with rubber cement, then sew the seams on the machines we use to make gloves in Industries.” He winked. “Paddles we can make in the furniture shop. Smaller pieces, attached with nuts and bolts. Most everything we need’s there in the shops. Biggest problem’s smuggling the stuff out of Industries.”

“A little bit at a time, under your shirts and jackets,” MacNally said.

“As long as there’s no metal,” Anglin said. “Snitch box’ll get us. Metal detector. You’ll see. Gotta pass through it on the way out of Industries.”

“We’ll have to figure that out,” West said. “Big thing is getting up to that vent blower.”

The whistle blew: dinner over. MacNally had hardly eaten. He shoved some meat and vegetables into his mouth, then did his best to clean his plate. If there was one thing he took from this discussion, it was that he had to keep his nose clean and avoid segregation.

And he needed a job. But unlike his problems obtaining and holding one in the outside world, finding a position here at Alcatraz presented a much easier challenge.

Burden and Dixon took the elevator up to Homicide, while Vail said she wanted some time to think on her own and that she would meet them there in a few minutes.

Robby had not called back. More significantly, neither had Mike Hartman—so Vail called him, again, and left another message: “Very important— Call me soon as you get this. It involves the Bay Killer.”

As she ascended the stairs, she tried the main switchboard. After being placed on hold, the operator told her that Hartman had been out of town, but that he was due to return tonight. Vail asked for his cell, and then left a message there as well.

She stood in the hallway, a shoulder against the wall, lost in thought, when the doors to Homicide swung open.

Dixon’s head appeared and her eyes found Vail. “We’re ordering in pizza. Good?”

Vail pushed off the marble facing. “Whatever. I’m exhausted, pissed, and frustrated. My mind’s not on food.” She followed Dixon back into the room, and then sat down hard in a seat by their worktable and murder board.

Burden grabbed his chair and sat down backwards on it, then rolled it over to Vail and Dixon. “You’ve said that playing the media’s important. Back at the mission we talked about putting something out there. What do you think?”

Vail rubbed both eyes. “Not sure.” She exhaled long and hard. “The offender’s been in communication with us. But today he’s been dictating the terms of the conversation—basically, he talks, we listen and run all over the goddamn city like his puppets. A good psychopath is a puppeteer—he’s skilled at pulling the strings of others because he’s got exceptional manipulation skills. He uses them to dominate and exercise control. And all day, we’ve been dominated and controlled.” She thought a moment. “I’m starting to doubt whether I’m gonna be of any value to this investigation. It’s not like I’ve made a difference up to this point.”

Burden took a moment to examine her face. Then he laughed. “I was waiting for some joke. Or maybe that was the joke. Because you’ve been real valuable so far. We know who we’re dealing with, what type of guy to look for. You’re an expert on psychopaths, Karen. You’ve studied them, you’ve researched them, you’ve sat across the table from—what, dozens? Right now, you’re one of the most important forensic tools we’ve got.”

“Never thought of myself as a tool.”

“C’mon,” Dixon said. “Sometimes you’re a hammer. Other times an ice pick.”

“Lovely image. Thanks, Roxx.”

Burden stood up. “Enough feeling sorry for ourselves. We don’t have time for that shit. We’ve got a man down, and we need to go after this fucker like a freaking tornado. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of his crap.” He tossed the case files on the worktable. “I spoke to my lieutenant on the way up here. Overtime’s authorized and he’s working on getting us some extra manpower, on top of those interns.”

“Has he issued a statement about Robert?” Vail asked.

“No. He felt it was better to wait before we release the fact that the killer’s got one of our inspectors. He thought it’d spark a wave of fear.”

Vail raised her brow and nodded.
If we can’t protect ourselves, how can we protect the people?

“So back to the nuts and bolts. Investigation 101.” Burden took a marker and uncapped it.

Vail took a deep breath and mentally slapped herself. When someone close to her went missing, there was no time to rest, no time for self-doubt. She rose from her chair and literally rolled up her sleeves. Time to get back to work.

FOUR HOURS AND FIFTY-ONE minutes passed. Vail repeatedly kept looking at Friedberg’s empty chair and abandoned desk, files piled on the right edge, a notepad front and center. And a thick book,
Complete History of San Francisco Bakeries,
on the left.
A history of bakeries?

They still had no knowledge of Friedberg’s whereabouts and no way of directly communicating with the Bay Killer, unless he texted them. And that was the way he wanted it. He wanted—demanded—control, and thus far had been successful in attaining all that he desired.

The tasks of many of the inspectors in the department had been diverted and a few were now working Friedberg as a missing persons case, engaged in various tasks along those lines. But they all knew it was much more than that. Knowing, and being able to do something about it, comprised an insurmountable gap.

The Homicide room was a flurry of people, phones and cells ringing, keyboards clicking and laser printers whirling. The law school, criminal justice, and sociology interns were in another room with the same information, making follow-up phone calls on the older cases; they were due to have a group conference in an hour to get briefed on any newly discovered information and to assist in integrating the material into their existing database of knowledge.

The latter text messages had originated from disposable cell phones purchased with cash at two different Bay Area electronics stores during the past four months. Even if they had surveillance cameras focused on their registers—which they did not—the video would have been written over many times since.

Hartman had still not called, but he was at least closer to returning to the office. Even if he hadn’t gotten the voicemail she had left on his cell, he would soon retrieve the ones she had left on his work phone. She decided that, grudge or not, he would return her calls because of their volume—and urgency.

Vail rose and looked at the murder board. All the victims’ names and locations, causes of death, occupations, photos, and key crime scene attributes stared back at her. It was talking to her, a constant chatter—but it was as if it was written in a foreign language. Perhaps there would be one new fact someone would discover that would pop the lid off the case. But she had the sense that all they needed to know was on the board in front of her.

Vail called over to Dixon. “You in the middle of something?”

Dixon pushed back from her makeshift desk. “What do you have in mind?”

“Let’s go take a look at the video we captured. Maybe something will hit us.”

They had asked Allman and Scheer to email the videos they had taken using the large file service, YouSendIt.com. The photo lab informed them the footage was now available to view. Hoping to find something to stimulate her brain, the videos represented an unexplored avenue.

They settled themselves in front of a monitor and opened the first file—Allman’s video. Cityscape images scrolled by. They watched it straight through, then started it again. Vail yawned and reached for the coffee cup she had brought with her from Homicide.

“What do we see?” Dixon asked. “Restaurant. A bar.” The scene panned slowly. “Another bar. A cell phone store—and another bar.”

Vail took a drink and leaned forward. “Two auto body shops. Bus stop.”

The sixty-second video ended and Dixon opened her own file. Repeating the process, they first watched it in its entirety, absorbing it all before calling out their observations.

As Vail sat there, deep in thought, her phone vibrated. She jumped—startling Dixon, as well. The number brought relief—and a slight lift to the corners of her lips. “Keep going with this. I’ll be right back.” She pushed through the door into the hallway, then answered the call. “Hey.”