Tito’s eyes widened like a shark’s jaw. ‘You gotta be shitting me.’

‘I take it you know him then,’ Garcia said.

‘Yeah, I know him. Everybody in Facility A knew him. He was a bad mother, man. And I mean real bad, you dig? Did he escape?’

‘No, he was released six months ago,’ Hunter said. ‘He served his term.’

‘And he’s already got the cops after him again.’ Tito chuckled. ‘I’m not surprised.’

‘So you guys were friends inside?’

‘Screw that, man. I knew who he was, but I stayed the hell away from him. The guy had a temper like an atomic bomb. Hated the world. But he was smart. Every time the guards were around the guy acted like a pussycat. Real polite and respectful. He barely ever got into trouble in Lanc. And he was always surrounded by books. The guy read like a champion. Like a man with a mission, you get me? But he sort of had a reputation, and people just didn’t mess with him.’

‘Reputation?’ Garcia asked.

Tito’s head jerked again. ‘There was this guy who dissed him once. You know the type, big-muscle gorilla who thinks he’s king ass-kicker. Well, this guy dissed Ken right in front of everyone. Ken did nothing for a while. He just waited for the right time. He was patient like that, you know? Never rushed anything. Well, the right time came and he got to the guy in the showers. The guy never saw Ken coming.

‘No one saw it happening. So much time had passed between the initial dissing and the attack that it was hard to link the two things together, you know what I’m sayin’? Ken never got heat for it.’

Hunter and Garcia knew that stories like that were common inside prisons.

Tito shook his head and started fidgeting with the plastic lighter again. ‘That guy doesn’t ever forget, man. If he’s got a beef with you, you’re positively screwed in red, white and blue with fifty stars, you feel me? Because one day he’ll come for you.’ Tito coughed like a sick man. ‘I was in the yard on the day big gorilla-man dissed Ken. I saw the look in Ken’s eyes. A look that I’ll never forget. It made me scared, and I wasn’t even involved. It was like bottled hate, you get my meaning? Like he had a devil inside him, or something.

‘I haven’t heard his name since I left Lanc. And if I never hear it again, that’ll be too soon. That guy is bad news all the way, homey.’

‘Well, we need to find him.’

‘Why are you asking me for? You’re the detectives, aren’t you? So detect.’

‘That’s what we’re doing, genius.’ Garcia walked over to the open-plan kitchenette. The smell of pot mixed itself with that of rancid milk. The old-fashioned sink was piled high with dirty dishes. The counters awash in paper plates, takeout containers and empty beer cans. ‘I like what you’ve done with the place,’ Garcia said, pulling the fridge door open. ‘Do you wanna beer?’

‘You’re offering me my own beer?’

‘I’m trying to be nice here, but you’re spoiling it, big time.’ Garcia slammed the fridge door shut and stepped on the pedal for the flip-top trashcan. As the lid came up, so did the overpowering smell of cannabis. ‘Damn!’ Garcia took a step back and screwed up his face. ‘Are those joint butts? There must be over a hundred of them.’

‘Hey, what the hell, man?’

‘Tito,’ Hunter sat down in front of him – a much less intimidating position, and he wanted Tito to relax a little. ‘We really need to find Sands, do you understand?’

‘How the hell would I know where he is? We weren’t even friends.’

‘But you were friends with others who might know a thing or two.’ Hunter observed Tito’s eye movement. He was searching his memory. Seconds later the eye movement stopped and his stare became fixed and a little distant. Hunter knew he had thought of someone specific.

‘I don’t know who to ask, man.’

‘Yes you do,’ Hunter hit back.

Tito and Hunter locked eyes for an instant.

‘Listen, man.’ Garcia circled the table to the other side. ‘The only thing we want is some information. We need to know where we can find Sands, and that’s very important. In return, you get to avoid a visit from your parole officer and a few of our friends in vice squad in the next hour. I’m sure they’d love to search these premises, especially that room with your two young friends.’

‘Ah, this is bullshit, homey.’

‘Well, it’s the only deal we’re selling.’

‘Shit.’ One more nervous tic followed by a heavy sigh. ‘I’ll see what I can find out, but I need some time.’

‘You’ve got until tomorrow.’

‘You’ve gotta be kidding me.’

‘Does it look like we’re kidding?’ Garcia asked.

Tito hesitated.

Garcia reached for his cellphone.

‘OK, homey, I’ll see what I can find out, and I’ll get back to you tomorrow. Can you leave now?’

‘Not yet,’ Hunter said. ‘There’s someone else too.’

‘Oh, no way.’

‘Another inmate – Raul Escobedo. Heard of him?’

On their way to Tito’s house, Hunter had told Garcia all about his meeting with Detective Seb Stokes and his mention of Raul Escobedo.

‘Who?’ Tito’s eyes narrowed.

‘His name is Raul Escobedo,’ Hunter repeated. ‘He was a guest at Lancaster as well. A sex offender.’

‘A rapist?’ Tito cocked his head back.

‘That’s right.’

‘Nah, man, are you high or something? Are police donuts made of hash these days?’

‘I don’t like donuts.’

‘Me neither,’ Garcia added.

‘I was in Facility A, man, which houses real bad mothers and the Seg – the Segregation Unit. There’s no way in God’s creation they’d put a rapist with us, you feel me? Unless the police wanted him dead. He’d be gang-raped and dead within the hour.’

Tito wasn’t lying. That was the way prisons in California worked and Hunter knew it. Every inmate, no matter which crime they’d committed, hated rapists. In prison, rapists were viewed as something lower than scum – as cowards who didn’t have the guts to commit a real crime, and who weren’t good enough to get their own women without the use of force. Plus, every inmate in the country had a mother, a sister, a daughter, a wife, a girlfriend – someone who could easily have become a rapist’s victim. Rapists were usually placed in a separate prison ward or block, away from all other inmates, otherwise they’d surely be given a dose of their own medicine, before being brutally murdered. That had been proven many times over.

Fifty-Nine

Alice Beaumont was getting more and more frustrated. She had spent the entire day researching images on the Internet and waiting for the California State Prison in Lancaster to send her the information she was after. Despite the many phone calls and the urgent requests, they seemed to be in no hurry to oblige.

Her image research had hit a dead end every time. She’d spent hours poring over mythology and cult websites, but she’d found nothing new to add to what she’d found previously.

Alice wasn’t the kind of woman who’d sit on her hands and wait for things to get done around her. She needed to be involved, and she sure as hell was tired of waiting.

The drive from the Police Administration Building to the California State Prison in Lancaster took her just over two hours. She had called DA Bradley, explaining what she needed. Two phone calls and less than fifteen minutes later he had everything arranged. Warden Clayton Laver said that Alice was welcome to go over and gather together the records she needed herself. They could do it themselves, as the warden had said, but they were understaffed, underfunded and overworked, and it could still be a day or two, maybe more, before they got around to it.

Alice parked in the second of the two large visitors’ parking lots and made her way into the reception. She was greeted by Prison Officer Julian Healy, a black, six-foot-four mammoth of a man built like a water dam.