Without Malice (The Without Series Book 1) (4 page)

Chapter 9

The doctor saw Cole Hansen quicker than he expected. Usually it was weeks, if not months, before an inmate got an appointment to the clinic. Long enough to either be cured or dead of whatever ailment they had. Where was the usual bullshit politics and delay?

He puffed up a bit. Maybe debriefing
was
the right decision. Maybe it would be all right if he took the deal prison admin offered.

Cole admired Dr. Jones. She didn’t play favorites, but he knew she liked him. She was what his older sister would call an “old soul,” a person who was born gentle and kind.

Not that she
looked
gentle, mind you, – or old. She had a severe expression to her face that overshadowed her wide smile and sympathetic gray eyes. She wore no makeup on her pale face and pulled her thick brown hair into a tight bun at the back of her neck.

Rather than making her look hard, though, one loose curl tugged from the knot and made her seem approachable. The doc’s eyes were ... safe.

Escorted to the SHU medical ward by two officers, wrists and feet shackled, Cole waited patiently for the doctor to appear in the examination room. It was uncomfortable, but he’d long ago given up the idea of
comfort,
and at least his hands were cuffed in front of him.

“Hello, Mr. Hansen.” Dr. Jones smiled as she entered the exam room. “What’s wrong this time?”

She observed him without waiting for an answer, noting the sweaty palms and moist forehead, taking in the pallid color and jittery eyes. “You’re not looking so good today.”

Cole always had a lot of stomach trouble, a condition that became more severe with his hurried transfer to the SHU. He’d used that excuse, along with a complaint of migraines, to request the medical visit.

Dr. Jones leaned against the wall, eyeing him neutrally. She never seemed afraid of the inmates when they visited her. Never alarmed or disgusted with the signs and symptoms of their degeneracy.

“Even so, you’re pretty healthy, Mr. Hansen. Sleeping troubles, too? Or – ?” She cocked her head to one side in invitation.

Cole coughed, cleared his throat, and looked uneasily around the room. He jerked his head, motioning her to come closer. There was no privacy anywhere in prison, even with the shrinks, counselors and medical personnel.

“I need to make a decision,” he whispered when he was sure his voice was low enough not to be overheard if there were hidden microphones in the room. “But – but I’m kinda nervous.”

A startled look crossed her face. For an inmate to express fear rarely happened. The whole system of bully or be bullied was built on macho bravado. Dr. Jones lay down her clipboard and leaned her ear next to Cole’s mouth, placing her stethoscope on his exposed chest.

“What are you worried about?” she murmured quietly.

Cole coughed and took comfort from the placid depths of her calm eyes. “I – I wanna drop out,” he stuttered.

Her hands froze a moment. She didn’t pretend not to understand the term for
snitching.
“Why would you do something so dangerous?”

After a long pause, a flicker of understanding clouded those storm-swept eyes. “You didn’t do it, did you?” she said. “You didn’t kill that man.”

Of course, she would’ve heard all about the fracas that resulted in murder in the yard. “No – no, ma’am, I didn’t.” He straightened his back in a semblance of pride.

Sucking in his cheeks to produce saliva, he edged the note he’d retrieved in the SHU corridor to the front of his teeth. “I’ve got something – you know, just in case I – I don’t ... ”

He willed her to look up at him. When she leaned over to place the stethoscope higher on his chest, she twisted her head to glance at him and he spat the sodden note neatly onto her knuckles.

As smoothly as a professional card player, she palmed the note, and it disappeared from sight. She waited a long moment, contemplating the situation, and even though she hadn’t glanced at the note, she urged, “Do it, Cole.”

She placed one capable hand over his linked ones, pretending to take his pulse, her breath a sweet sensation on his cheek. “If you didn’t kill that man in the yard, you need to debrief. Set the record straight.”

She tightened her grip in encouragement. “You’ve got to get out of the SHU, Cole. You won’t survive there. You – you’re not ... brutal enough.”

She smiled wanly and straightened up, patted his shoulder, and walked to the door. “I’ll prescribe acetaminophen for the pain and something to help you sleep,” she said as smoothly as if they hadn’t been talking about Cole Hansen putting his life on the line for a system that didn’t give a shit whether he lived or died.

Chapter 10

Inside the newly built Rosedale police headquarters Cruz buzzed the phone connection and displayed his badge through the window. After the female officer pushed a release button, he wound his way around the inside corridor to the bullpen.

Considering all the patrol cars and the gathering crowd at Ryder Park, Cruz figured the incident had to be a murder, so he wasn’t surprised to find Sheriff Ben Slater relaxing in a chair by Officer Jeff Rawley
’
s desk.

Slater rose when Cruz approached. “Officer Cruz.” The Sheriff’s eyes were a slate gray color, cool and hard as the metal file cabinets on the far wall, but he extended his hand in welcome. They’d met before, but it was a while ago.

Rawley looked sullen and dissatisfied from this morning’s event at the convenience store. He was a beat officer who itched for the action found in inner city precincts and always seemed bored with his job. He nodded stiffly toward Cruz, but didn’t rise.

“Crime scene at the park?” Cruz asked the Sheriff. “The victim could be one of my parolees.”

“Another meth head identified the vic,” Rawley supplied. “Says it’s Dickey Hinchey.”

“Damn,” Cruz said. He looked from Slater to Rawley and back again. “Who has jurisdiction on the case?”

Rawley opened his mouth, but Slater answered first. “RPD can have it. We’ve got enough on our plate right now.”

There’d been a rise in meth production in the county over the last several months. Although the Sheriff wasn’t one to ignore a homicide case, he already had his hands full, and figured Rosedale PD could handle this one.

Rawley smirked, assessing Cruz carefully. “Flood caught the case, but I gotta tell you, no one’s going to worry much about a dead bum.”

That was what Cruz was afraid of.

Sheriff Slater’s cell phone beeped and he checked the message. “Crime scene’s finished. I think I’ll take a quick look around before passing it off.” He lifted an eyebrow at Cruz – an implicit invitation to join him.

Ignoring Rawley, Slater tossed these last words over his shoulder. “Have Flood give me a call.” He exited the bullpen, Cruz behind him.

Fifteen minutes later Cruz and Slater walked silently across Ryder Park’s baseball field toward the group of people cordoned off from the crime scene.

“Don’t worry about Rawley,” Slater said out of the blue.

“Sir?”

“These Rosedale police are like a dog with a bone.” Slater twisted his mouth in what could’ve been a smile. “They get territorial as hell.”

“Yes, sir.”

Slater frowned. “And don’t ‘sir’ me,” he warned. “You may be – what, twenty-five, thirty? – but I’m not old enough to be your granddaddy.”

Cruz laughed in spite of himself. “Been on the job five years,” he offered, feeling far older than he was. College, then law school at McGeorge in Sacramento, mostly nights while he worked a beat.

“Good, then you’re only a few years younger than me.” Slater grinned while his keen eyes took in the rugged face above the muscled body of a football player. He didn’t have to look up to many men, but Santiago Cruz was one of them. “Call me Slater.”

Cruz nodded. “My friends call me Chago.”

At the park they flashed badges and made their way through the outer perimeter of the crime scene. The detective in charge, Andrew Flood, was already on scene. He motioned the Sheriff over, simultaneously growling orders to several police officers, trying to disperse the crowd. “Get these goddamn vampires outta here!”

Nice PR, Cruz thought.

“Look, Slater,” Flood began when he saw Cruz, a crimson flush creeping up his tanned face. “We got this under control. There’s no need – ”

“Ah, don’t get your tidies in a bunch,” Slater answered. “I’m turning the case over to RPD. Just wanted a quick look-see.” He turned to Cruz. “You know Parole Officer Cruz?”

“Yeah,” Flood answered darkly. There was no love lost between Rosedale PD and county parole officers even though their
clients
were often the same desperate people. The detective, built like a bulldog, had a corresponding pugnacity.

Slater crouched to inspect the damp, crumpled sleeping bag. “Looks like enough blood for two adults. Nothing but the sleeping bag?” he asked Flood.

Flood nodded toward the creek. “The body’s down there. Some water decomp, but not much. Medical examiner says about four hours ago.”

"Ah, hell!" Slater looked toward the garish sight of mangled flesh and viscous fluid that shadowed the edge of the creek.

"Looks like a werewolf’s been here, doesn’t it?" Flood observed, a vaguely amused look on his face. “Careful,” he cautioned as they approached the body.

“Asshole,” Slater murmured under his breath.

The body was a hacked lump of flesh and blood, and although Flood’s comparison was crude, he wasn’t far from wrong. The victim lay on his back, arms splayed out from his sides. His head was bashed in and his face almost unrecognizable. The shirt had been ripped open and the pants pulled down to his knees. Someone had made a ragged cut from sternum to groin, then chopped away at the torso until the intestines straggled wildly from the body into the water.

What maniac did this?

Chapter 11

The prison release process went faster than Cole Hansen could’ve imagined. According to his deal he didn’t have to finish out his original sentence, and in exchange for the early release, he gave up everything he knew about the
Lords
organization – identified gang members and leaders. Which was precious little and probably confirmed what admin already suspected.

He could tell during the interview that the warden had already figured out who'd really sliced up the new inmate in the prison yard. Normally Cole would’ve served out the remainder of his original sentence in Special Needs with the pedophiles and other gang drop outs. In SNY he’d be vulnerable to a bad beat-down by a gang member or another inmate could’ve shanked him, thinking he was a child molester.

But Cole lucked out, and it didn’t go down that way.

After a short time in the SHU, he spent only a desperate few hours in SNY. Restless, he waited for someone to attack him, but no one bothered him.

When they finally released him, he realized with sudden terror that he shouldn’t have been in any hurry to be paroled. He had no place to go and no one waiting for him.

The prison gave him two hundred bucks in cash and a backpack that held everything he owned in the world. An officer drove him to the bus stop. Locals didn’t want prison trash hanging around their city. Cole didn’t blame them.

Waiting for the bus to Sacramento, he thought about his situation, knowing the
Lords
could get to him easy enough on the street through the large gang membership. He wasn’t going to be any safer outside prison.

He wondered how long it'd be until the Professor’s long reach snatched him up like a fish gobbling a worm on a hook.

Frankie fingered the note she’d palmed from Cole Hansen. The ink on the paper was soggy and slightly torn. Luckily, whoever had written it had used pencil, which didn’t run as badly as ink would have.

She couldn’t say why she’d played along with Cole in his clandestine game of note-passing. Maybe because she liked him. He had an earnestness in his expression that rang true to her. He seemed such a harmless guy. She knew she was being terribly naive, as her friends always reminded her.

They told her the same thing about the men she’d dated lately, she thought wryly.

But Cole
was
harmless and he was truly terrified. There was plenty to be afraid of in Pelican Bay, especially in the SHU. The huge step of debriefing to prison authorities put him in a very precarious position.

If Cole survived the rest of his sentence without gang retaliation for snitching, he’d be just as vulnerable on the street. Frankie knew from his prison profile he had no place to go, no family. No transition house awaited him because he wasn’t in prison on drug-related activities. He’d literally be homeless without any resources.

The man was a throwaway. Not violent enough to be monitored carefully on the outside – when he debriefed, they would expunge the false murder charge – and not resourceful enough to pull himself out of the poverty he faced. He was a lost soul.

Frankie caught a glance of her reflection in the glass window. Talk about lost souls. A pretty, dark-haired woman, who looked younger than her thirty years stared back at her with troubled eyes. The luck of good genes had given her an excellent complexion, good health, and a high IQ.

But the stormy gray eyes told another story. Without the constant search for the truth about her mother, she would live an empty life.

She shook herself mentally and opened Cole Hansen’s medical file, staring at his prison ID photo. Fate hadn’t been generous with Cole. Medium height, on the pudgy side, straight, lackluster hair, and an acne-scarred face all added to the mediocrity of his low intelligence and self-esteem.

However, Frankie had scratched the surface of Cole’s character and found a decent guy underneath. She believed he’d been set up for the prison yard murder, just as he’d claimed. His record was a sad story: unsupportive parents, spotty education, no friends.

He’d been in trouble almost from the start.

She carefully opened the note Cole had sneaked to her during his medical exam. The blocked letters and figures on the note were incomprehensible to her, and yet Cole Hansen had risked his life to get them to her.

Why?

What did Cole expect her to do with the note? And why in the world had he picked her?

Her duty was clear. She
should
pass the message on to the warden or his assistant, but her gut told her that wasn’t the right move. During his debriefing Cole could’ve given the note to prison authorities, but he’d chosen not to. Was he too slow-witted to know the safest action to take? Or was there someone he didn’t trust?

Frankie jammed the crumpled note in her pants pocket, and closed the folder after making notes on Cole’s medical record. She ordered acetaminophen and a sleeping aid for him, added blood pressure, heart rate and other vital signs to his record.

Nowhere did she make a note of what he’d said to her, or mention the soggy kite.