The Timer Game (31 page)

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. Except for this.” She leaned in. “Under no circumstances, none, utter one sound while you’re in that car. He can hear you. He can’t know I’m gone. And of course don’t use that cell.”

“We’re tricking him.”

“Big-time. The sounds he’ll hear on the CD are the sounds of mechanics fixing a bad tire. Replacing it, along with the damaged rim. It will sound as if the car is being lifted up, so they can get underneath. It will take a long time. Three and a half hours of time exactly.”

“So you’ll be back by eight-thirty-six.” She reached for Grace’s hand.

Her eyes filled. “Maybe it’s too late.”

“Too late?”

“Maybe this one won’t have a happy ending.” Grace looked away.

“Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that. We’ll find her.”

“Yeah,” Grace said. “Sure.”

Chapter 34

All Hallows’ Eve, 5:39 p.m.

The CD on the seat next to her emitted sounds of squealing tires and a car braking to a stop, followed by the grinding slap of a car on a bad tire. She was listening so she’d know what Jeanne was hearing. And the Spikeman. Before that cut ended, she’d have to be safely back.

She called Mather Field and got directions as she drove into Folsom on her way to the prison. Dusk was softening the ivy-covered brick buildings along Main Street, and a trail of trick-or-treaters floated in the silvery light, clutching bags of candy and their parents’ hands.

She pulled the timer out of her bag, shot a hard look at it and flinched. Dark pixels had gnawed away the pigtails and part of Katie’s chin. Her bright eyes and trusting smile filled the screen, made more shockingly present by the dark blanks around it.
TONIGHT
still pulsed along the top. Grace shoved the timer back into her bag.

She took River Way past the American River, a silver band bordered by orange and gold canyons of foliage so intense in color, they looked tweaked on a computer.

She was trying hard to keep her exhaustion and terror at bay, but over and over she kept hearing in her mind her daughter’s little voice, and the scream that abruptly cut short her cry for help, and for the first time, she had to let in the idea that had been pressing so hard against her heart that she couldn’t breathe, that maybe Katie was already dead.

Maybe she’d been killed the instant the phone connection had been cut. Maybe his final act of cruelty was forcing Grace to listen as her child was murdered.

She’d been so stupid. The Spikeman had never intended for the clues to lead her to Katie. She’d been playing the game banking that underneath the madness lay a kind of order, and if she played well, it might just win her the points she needed to save her daughter’s life. Now it occurred to her that she’d gambled everything expecting fair play from a madman.

There was no order. Only the jumbled, angry chaos of a killer.

Prison Road cut through bright orange oak and yellow prairie grass. A buck blurred by and shot into the trees. The road curved and she turned onto New Folsom Road and drove until she reached a granite slab statute constructed on piles of rock under an enormous sign:
CALIFORNIA STATE PRISON SACRAMENTO
. She remembered hearing that the statue represented the new Folsom rising from the old, a stark and somber sentinel at the gates of hell.

Here the road divided. She hesitated, took the fork that went past the sign, and rounded a corner. Folsom stood silhouetted against the hill behind it, like a city of the damned, scratched with barbwire and glistening with spikes and broken glass topping high stone walls. But she was going to the newer complex, the one holding the worst offenders. Somewhere inside those walls was a man who knew something important about what had happened to Katie.

She backed up and turned around and took the other fork. Mac’s warning rang in her mind.
Be careful when you’re inside Folsom. What you say. Who you say it to.
She followed the road to the newer facility, parked in visitors’ parking, and made the approach on foot. Ahead of her, the road cut under a granite and concrete building. Huge American and California state flags hung limply from poles against a twilight sky. A wooden arm, the kind used in parking garages, barred the road as it cut under the building. Only employees could park inside.

The guard stepped out of the guard shack holding a clipboard. He was middle-aged and matter-of-fact, wearing a shade of green that reminded her of a park ranger. The white lettering on his black nametag read
S. FELLEAU.
She tried to relax the muscles in her face to look less alarming, but the truth was, she was a wreck and she knew it.

He must have seen it, too. He narrowed his eyes and studied her thoughtfully. The inside of his nostrils were pink, as if he was recovering from a cold, and when he spoke, he carried it in his head, so that it sounded foggy. “It’s Sunday,” he said. “We’re closed.”

“I know. But I’m expected.” At least she hoped she was. It occurred to her that she hadn’t called Marcie back to check on whether she’d had any luck getting her in. She could have just driven fifty-five-minutes for nothing. The idea made her feel faint.

“Name?”

“Descanso.” Her voice held a quaver she didn’t like and she put more authority into it for the rest. “Grace, first name, Emily, middle. I’m with the San Diego Police Crime Lab Unit.”

“Business?”

“To see Associate Warden Thorton Syzmanski.”

“ID, please.”

She pulled her ID out and handed it over and waited. He checked it against his board.

“Are you carrying? You have to check it here if you are.”

“No.”

He went inside the guard shack, picked up a phone and talked, looking at her through the window. She turned resolutely and faced the parking lot and her solitary car. A dusky light was softening the hills of oak. A wild turkey darted into view and melted into the foliage. She looked at her watch. 6:38. She hadn’t factored in waiting. It gave her less time inside. Less time to make it safely back.

After a few moments she heard the door of the guard shack open and he came out.

“Somebody will be along to escort you in.” He held out his clipboard and pointed. “Sign the registry log, please.”

He’d already written in her name, the time and date. She scribbled her signature and he took the clipboard and gave her a visitor’s pass that she clipped onto her shirt. He stood next to her, as if part of the deal were making sure she wouldn’t bolt under the parking garage arm and make a run for it inside, although why anybody would want to run
in
to a prison was beyond her. Footsteps echoed on the cement. Thor Syzmanski strode through the underpass toward them, his graying head gleaming in the ceiling lights of the underpass. He was wearing a navy blue suit and tie, and he carried the weight of his struggle with alcoholism in the fierce lines around his eyes and mouth. He had thin lips and they were compressed in a tight line.

Felleau nodded. “Sir.”

“Thanks, Sean, I’ll take her from here.” Syzmanski turned to go and stopped. “We might need a van. I’ll let you know.”

Felleau nodded again and stepped inside the guard shack. She hurried to keep pace. Syzmanski was a tall man and he didn’t shorten his stride as they walked through the underpass.

“What the hell are you doing?” He kept his voice even, gazing at the prison complex ahead of them.

She stopped walking. “Hello to you, too, Thor. So nice to see you.”

“Do you have any idea the position you’ve put me in? No, of course not.”

He made a sound of disgust and walked around the corner of the concrete building and strode through the sliding glass doors, waiting as she meekly followed him in. They were alone in the silent lobby and he punched the button for the elevator that would take them upstairs.

They were facing a row of framed photos of the current prison administration, and as he spoke, he directed his comments to the wall, talking to the photos of the plant manager, the captains, the associate wardens, the deputy warden, and finally to the warden himself, a strong-faced man with shaggy eyebrows and great slabs of ears.

“Sunday, for starters. That’s a flag right there. Ever hear about professional courtesy? Putting in a written request? Or hell, Grace, just giving me a call, letting me know when you want to come up. See if it works for me. But no. I get a call at home on a Sunday from some lab colleague of yours—flag number two, by the way. Investigators travel in twos. That’s the way it’s done. I assume you want to talk to somebody inside.”

She nodded.

“Any idea who?” The elevator dinged and his hand slammed out and held the door open as she walked through.

She shook her head.

“Why does that not surprise me?” He stepped in after her and the elevator door slid closed. He punched in the top button and the elevator rose.

“And I’m going to catch holy hell from the police agency. Somebody from the ISU staff is supposed to escort you around, or the public information guy—he’s nice, you’d like him—but not me. There are going to be questions and I need answers.”

“Why did you do it then?”

He looked at her. “Because I’m worried about you.”

The elevator opened and he waited as she walked into the silent hall. She followed him down the corridor. He opened the door to his office. The window faced out over the prison complex in the distance, a group of concrete buildings surrounded by fence. The lights were on and they burned through the twilight. He motioned her into a seat.

He took the one behind his walnut-veneer desk. “I heard what happened.”

She looked at him warily and then realized he was talking about how she shot Eddie Loud. She should have expected it had made news there: Senator Loud’s home was Modesto.

“You’re on leave, Grace. Your supervisor thinks you’re…” He glanced down at a small notepad on his desk and read aloud, “Unstable, in need of counseling, and resistant to getting help. Oh yeah, and he didn’t know squat about this postcard that was supposedly tested for fibers in your lab. Doesn’t seem to have a tracking number attached to a case, either.”

He snapped the notebook shut. “Did I miss anything?” He was studying her and she felt curiously close to tears, vulnerable, as if she’d been called into the principal’s office.

“I’m not drinking, if that’s what you think.”

“How many meetings have you taken since it happened?”

She hesitated. “None.”

“None?”

“Look, I’ve been a little busy—”

“None?”

“I’ll go, okay? But I just can’t go now.”

“Then when, Grace?”

“I just saw my AA sponsor, if that counts.”

He frowned. “You mean, up here?”

“At five o’clock in Lodi. I left her at a corner café and when I leave here, I’m meeting up with her again.” She shifted in her chair. “I wouldn’t lie about that.”

“You shouldn’t lie about anything, Grace. That’s the ticket to hell and we both know it.”

He’d been toying with a pencil and he threw it down. “Then what is this? Why are you here?”

She exhaled. On his shelf above a row of prison regulation documents sat a framed photo of his three kids. They shared his coloring, a ruddy cast to the skin and mousy-colored hair, and were smiling into the camera in a tentative way, as if they couldn’t quite trust it.

“I’m not representing the San Diego Police,” she said. “You’re right, I’m on leave right now. I’m here at the request of a prominent businessman, Warren Pendrell. He received a threatening postcard. Marcie already told you. She tested it in our lab at my request, on her own time, and if anybody gets in trouble for that, it needs to be me, not her.”

She was remembering the earlier CSI case that had led to her being sidelined at the lab after the accusation of slopped samples, and how she’d dragged Marcie into that one, too. How it had led to Marcie sharing Grace’s fate: six months of no field work as all the cases they’d touched were reanalyzed and cleared. How Marcie’s involvement had cost her overtime money that her family needed. Her mother had health problems and Frank had just lost his job. Things were better now for them, but Grace owed Marcie a lot, and she knew it.

“Dr. Pendrell wants me to take care of this quietly. Find out who’s after him. And why.”

“And this couldn’t wait until regular visiting hours? A regular business day?”

“Warren’s on a tight timeline. He’s selling the company to a Swiss research and development group, but after Eddie Loud’s death, the buyer is nervous.”

“How does his death factor in?”

“Eddie Loud was a patient at his facility and the publicity’s bad for business. Warren—Dr. Pendrell—needs to find out if this postcard is a viable threat. The sale’s imminent and the buyer’s goosy about the publicity surrounding Eddie Loud’s meltdown. This postcard could be enough to kill the sale if it becomes public. Warren’s a mentor of mine so. . .” She trailed off.

“I should throw you out right now and be done with it.”

She swallowed. Tears welled and spilled silently down her face. She made no move to wipe them away. If he threw her out, he was throwing out her best hope of finding Katie.

He studied her, his voice neutral. “You’re crying over a personal favor that has nothing to do with you. If ever I was on the fence about believing Sid’s evaluation of your mental state, this would swing it for me, this right here.”

He swiveled his chair and looked out the window. He took his time. The tears were bright cold tracks down her face. Syzmanski blew a gust of air and turned his chair toward the desk, grabbing a cube of Kleenex and smacking it down in front of her. Grace realized she’d been holding her breath. She made a small sound and dug out a tissue, wiping her face as he spoke. His demeanor now was all business and she was grateful for that. It gave her back a small measure of dignity.

“Your lab buddy, Marcie. When she called, she said the postcard came back as having components of metal from license plates, and the blue thread cotton from the prison uniforms.”

Grace nodded. It was a lie. All they’d tested was the wrapping paper, but he couldn’t know that.