BEYOND JUSTICE Page 17

  "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 kn
ow 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."

  She quickly wiped her eye before turning to face me. "I know what you mean. I never got to say good-bye to Brandon."

  "Your son?"

  She nodded. "Died of leukemia last year."

  "I'm sorry."

  "His father... that damned—!"

  I set my fork down and pushed my plate aside. "What happened?"

  "Pathological bastard had weekend custody. Took Brandon one Saturday and dropped off the face of the Earth. After two weeks of the FBI hot on his trail, he calls to turn himself in. Brandon died in a hospital three days before he called!" She slapped the table and all the trays rattled. "I didn't even get to say good-bye." Covering her eyes, she said, "I never saw my baby again!" She sobbed quietly and said, "Wanna know the worst part? The last time I saw Brandon, I scolded him for arguing with me about going to visit his dad! He knew something was wrong. He knew."

  Uncertain of whether I should hold her hand or not, I thought, How do you comfort your C.O.? "Sargeant Grace..."

  "It's okay, Sam." She sniffed, recomposed herself. "Call me Sonja."

  "I can't imagine how I'd feel if Aaron were to die."

  "Believe me, you don't want this regret hanging over your head."

  With my elbows on the table, I rested my head in both hands and sighed. "I know."

  "I read about your case. The D.A.’s sloppy but lucky." Nice to know not everyone judged me by Brent Stringer's scathing editorials. "You need to work hard with your attorney and get the hell out of here."

  "Easier said." Leaning in close, I said, "But that's exactly why I've got to speak with Louie Guzman. I think he might know something about Walker's outside connection. Something he said connected with me, I'm just not sure what. Guzman might know."

  She stood up and pointed to the exit. "Walk with me."

  ___________________

  Armed with a physical description given by Sonja, I went out to the yard to look for Louie Guzman. The problem was that he stood ensconced between four or five members of La Fraternidad, embroiled in a heated discussion. In Spanish. To come within twenty feet of him meant crossing to the west side of B-Yard, past three battalions of Northern Mexicans.

  I once saw a recently freshly incarcerated black guy march through the lines to confront one of the Frat lieutenants who had looked at him the wrong way while he was playing basketball. The black guy walked right into the middle of the gang. Ten minutes later, he was carried out on a stretcher, a sheet over his face, his throat slashed.

  Regardless, I had to know the facts surrounding Walker's death. Louie might hold the only clue to Walker's God-character who contacted him with the same instant messenger screen name as the person who contacted me shortly before my family had been attacked. And though Walker had only spent a few days in Gen-Pop as Guzman's cellmate, Louie must have known something about his suicide. Or murder. It was stupid to confront him, but I was desperate.

  Possum had an appointment in the infirmary for chronic irritable bowel syndrome. Had he been there in the yard with me, he would surely have stopped me from entering the lion's den. I almost wished he was.

  Swallowing the tumor in my throat, I stood tall and walked across B-yard. At first I passed by members of the Fourth Reich. Some of them called out, asking me when I was going to join them. I ignored them.

  The skin heads all turned as I walk right past them and towards the blacks. Some of them swore and clicked their tongues as I marched towards my doom. "Dead man walking."

  Within seconds I was surrounded. All around me, all I could see were blue jackets and shirts, some with the letters CDC printed on them. The sun vanished behind the crowd of black inmates surrounding me. I was enveloped in aggression.

  "You tired of living, boy?" One of them said.

  "I just need to get over there," I said, pointing to the Frats.

  "He tired 'a livin'," another said and grabbed me by the shirt. I'd rehearsed scenarios like this over and over in my mind. Without giving it a second thought, I grabbed the guy by the wrist, used his resistance to pull myself towards him and smashed my fist right into his nose.

  The nauseating crunch might have been my hand. Or his nose, I wasn't sure. He fell back and groaned, blood oozing down his mouth. I flexed my fingers. It was his nose.

  In an instant, I found myself surrounded by flaring nostrils, wild eyes and gritting teeth. I was dead. But then, to my surprise, they all started howling with laughter, slapping their thighs and pointing at the guy I nailed.

  Nosebleed got up really quick and really hot, made a fist and threw a punch at my face. But a hefty guy caught his arm and pulled him away.

  "'Yo! 'Sup with that?" Nosebleed shouted, surprised as I was.

  "Respect, my niggah, respect," said the hulking black man, pointing at me. "Silk here earned himself a little just now." Though he was wearing a white tank top, muscles popping at the seams, he carried himself with the air of aristocracy. His voice was profound and commanding. Everyone gave him a wide berth whenever he took a step or turned in their direction. I expected them to start genuflecting.

  "This between me and him, Luther," Nosebleed snarled. He backed away and his lips fluttered when he tried to smile. "Why you all up in my soup?"

  Luther grabbed him by the throat and slammed him up against the wall. "Up in yo soup? Niggah, I say kill, you kill. I say back off, you back off. Ain't no soup here but mine!"

  Nosebleed's eyes were about to pop out of his head. With whatever slack that remained in his neck, he nodded. When Luther let him go, the poor guy gasped and wheezed.

  "I don't gotta explain myself to no one," Luther said and glowered at the crowd. "No one touches Silk. You feel me?"

  The crowd grunted.

  "Yo Luther," another inmate who was just as big and scary as him said. "I seen him kickin' it with them Nazi's."

  Luther turned slowly and said. "He ain't with no Nazi's, a'ight?" A tentative murmur arose from the crowd. It was sliced off when Luther looked up with razor blade eyes.

  Nosebleed looked around for support. Then stepped forward. "How do you—?"

  "Cuz Bishop said so," Luther proclaimed. From where I was standing, I could see a tiny space between two of the guys on my left. If I ran quickly, I could squeeze through. Not only was I all up in their soup, I was drowning in it.

  "Bishop! Nosebleed scoffed. "Man, why you gotta be so tight with that cracker?" An unsettling stillness ensued. It seemed as if the entire gang had taken a step back. Luther glared at Nosebleed. Then he smiled.

  Relieved, Nosebleed smiled back, a gold tooth glinting in the sun. "Aw man. Sorry, yo," he said, "I shouldn'ta—"

  "Hey, no sweat, son." Luther walked over, leaning from one foot to the other, and draped his arm around his shoulders. Buddy-buddy. "I know how you feel about Bishop."

  "Nah, man. He cool. Anyone you—"

  "A'ight." The nods and smiles grew wider. Luther laughed.

  Nosebleed did too. Still fixed on my escape route, I noticed a change in La Fraternidad's formation. They eyed our assembly with suspicion. A handful of them started pointing at us. I quickly wiped the sweat from my brow and looked around.

  Luther and Nosebleed were yucking it up now, as if it had all been a big joke. Too weird. One look back over the gang's shoulders and I would ask to be excused.

  Then I heard a swift thud-padded, cracking sound. I turned around and saw the entire crowd ebbing like water from the shores of Torrey Pines. Down on the ground lay Nosebleed, hands over his face and groaning. If I hadn't completely broken his nose earlier, Luther surely finished the job.

  The last thing I heard Luther say before they all left was, "Respect, m
y niggah, respect."

  ___________________

  My Spanish wasn't good enough to know exactly what they were all saying, as I crossed into the Frat quadrant of B-Yard. The few phrases I did understand went along the lines of "crazy mutha," and "stupid idiot," roughly translated. The list of pejoratives probably ran a lot longer than I realized.

  Several shoulder bumps later, I finally reached Guzman. Most of La Fraternidad seemed interested in what was going on back on the other side of B-Yard. Talk seemed the last thing on "Louie" Guzman's mind.

  "What do you want?" he said, his eyes and attention clearly elsewhere.

  "I need to ask you about your cellie."

  "He's dead."

  "I know. But did you happen to notice anything strange before Walker's death?"

  "Before?" Guzman hacked and spat out a clam. "Coño! That boy was nuts, man. They should have kept him in PSU."

  "Do you know if he had any outside contact, in the days leading up to his death?" I leaned back against the chain link fence, keeping the rest of Louie's buddies in my periphery. They were staring at the blacks.

  Louie's eyes kept jumping back and forth from our little deposition to his Frat brothers, who were now huddling. He shifted from foot to foot. Looked like he had to use the bathroom. "You mind? I'm a little busy here."

  "Come on, Louie."

  Giving me the once over, his brow twisted. He tilted his head and squinted. Then he slapped his hand on my chest, grabbed my shirt, pulled me forward and snarled. "I said, I'm busy."

  "Just tell me about Walker, and I'm out of here."

  He swore in Spanish, shoved me back, and started walking away. I heaved a defeated sigh. But he turned around, midstride and shouted, "Lenny was getting postcards from God!" Spinning his index finger around the side of his head, Louie added, "Friggin' whacko said that God told him to hang himself!"

  "What? Wait!" Just one or two more questions, that's all I wanted. But Louie was already jogging into a large crowd of Frats, who swarmed like sharks and stalked B-yard with malice.