The fact that the sun was shining in San Francisco when I landed completed the whole reverse axis the planet seemed to be spinning on. No clouds, no fog, no haze. Just sunshine lying across the water in some sort of alternate universe.

I called San Quentin and managed to arrange a visit for mid-afternoon. I rented a car and, with some time to waste, drove to a place I’d always wanted to see.

Forty-five minutes later I was perched on a cliff watching waves the size of buildings rise out of the ocean. A group of six was out in the frigid water, along with two more guys on jet-skis toting huge cameras.

Maverick’s was arguably one of the most dangerous surf spots on the planet. It had gone undiscovered for a long time until a guy named Jeff Clark paddled out and realized he’d found a gold mine, albeit one laced with dynamite. The waves rose out of the harbor in monstrous heights and then broke onto a wall of rocks that were sharpened like razors and axes. If you managed to survive a fall onto the rocks, you were just as likely to get your board tangled in the jagged reef beneath the surface of the water. All the while, the massive waves kept breaking on your head like hammers.

Brutal.

But the waves looked like they were drawn by an artist, with faces like ski slopes. Hard to resist.

I didn’t have any plans to get in the water. I didn’t have the right equipment nor did I have the right mindset. You had to be totally dialed in to paddle out, and as pretty as the waves looked, I knew that my head was too much of a mess even to give it a shot. But sitting on the cliff, watching those who knew what they were doing, felt like a brief escape from the rest of my world.

There were maybe twenty of us watching. The rare sunny winter afternoon had brought out folks who knew there’d be a show. Any other time in my life, I would have called Carter on my cell and told him what I was watching. He’d been talking about Maverick’s for years. Knowing that I was sitting above the water would have killed him, and I would have enjoyed hearing him whine.

But even that didn’t sound fun.

Two boys, maybe sixteen, came up and sat down on the rocks next to me. Shorts and T-shirts with surf company logos. Uncombed hair and year-round tans. Probably what I had looked like at their age. They were pointing and grinning. Their excitement was tangible.

The nearest one glanced at me. “Any idea who’s out there?”

I shook my head. “Nah. Just got here.”

“We heard Mel was gonna be out,” the other one said, scanning the lineup.

Peter Mel was a local and one of the greatest big-wave surfers of his era. He had helped get Maverick’s onto the map. Among other surfers, he was a rock star.

“Really?” I said, looking to the water. “Didn’t know that.”

“We saw him out here two weeks ago,” the nearest one said, his face busting into an electric grin. “Man, he was just awesome.”

I smiled, and it felt awkward. “I’ll bet.”

“I don’t see him,” the other one said.

“Bummer,” his pal said, but he didn’t really seem that disappointed.

The waves smashed to the surface with a ferociousness I had never seen. It sounded like a train wreck every time one of them closed out, a mixture of chaos and beauty. We watched a surfer paddle into one that looked twenty-five feet high. The wave picked him up and launched him down the face. Against the huge wall of water, he looked like a flea on a dog’s back. He raced along the bottom of the wave, the water crashing behind him on the fall line. Right before the wave closed out over him, he shot up its face and jettisoned over the lip, saving himself the torture of being caught beneath the falling behemoth.

Several of the spectators on the cliff clapped. The boys high-fived.

A cell phone rang, and the kid nearest me reached for his pocket and extracted the ringing phone. “Hey.”

He listened for a few seconds, kind of rolled his eyes. “Yeah. No. Me and Denny are out at Maverick’s.”

Denny laughed on the other side of him.

“I know,” the kid was saying. “Yeah, but … I will. I swear.”

Then he held the phone out as far away as possible and made a face at it.

He pulled it back to his ear. “I’ll call you as soon as we leave, okay?”

He punched the phone off and slid it back into his pocket and glanced at me. “My girlfriend.”

“Ah.”

“She doesn’t surf,” he said with a sigh. “She doesn’t get it. Thinks we’re just wasting time out here.”

I thought about my own experiences. Liz hadn’t always surfed. It was just beginning to become something we shared. But she’d never acted like she didn’t understand.

A sudden pang of loneliness struck my gut. She and I weren’t ever going to be in the water together again.

“Sometimes it takes awhile,” I said.

“I’m not sure,” the kid said, a skeptical look on his face.

I watched one last wave pulverize the rider, crushing him beneath a falling wall of white water.

I stood and put my hand on the kid’s shoulder.

“Give her time,” I said. “Or she’ll be gone before you know it.”

SEVENTY-ONE

The prison looked different.

When I’d visited last, it had looked sullen and isolated. Now, it resembled a shopping mall on the weekend.

Gathered near the main entrance were maybe five hundred people holding signs and candles. They seemed to be equally divided between those calling for Simington’s death and those who were opposed. The scene was calm at the moment, but I knew as the day wore on, the tension would grow.

I spotted Kenney lurking at the perimeter of the crowd. He saw me, too, nodded in greeting, and walked toward me.

“Surprised to see you,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Not really sure why I’m here.”

“They letting you in to see him?”

“I called earlier and set it up.”

Kenney shoved his hands in his pockets and lifted his chin in the direction of the cameras and crowd. “These clowns know who you are?”

“They did in San Diego. Hoping they don’t up here.” “If they swarm you, I’ll come run interference,” he said. “Thanks.”

We stood there, awkwardness filling the space between us. “I’m not sorry for him,” he said. “But I’m sorry you have to go in there.”

I understood what he was getting at, and I appreciated the effort. But at the same time, if he’d known what I’d done earlier in the day, I didn’t think we’d be having the same kind of conversation.

“Thanks,” I told him. “I’m gonna head in.”

He held out his hand. “Good luck.”

We shook, and I nodded without saying anything. Kenney turned and walked back to where I’d first spotted him. He put his arm around a woman whom I’d failed to see initially. She leaned into him, her head on his shoulder.

His sister.

One more victim.

I looked at the prison and went in for the final time.

SEVENTY-TWO

Security was tighter. I was patted down twice, and my ID was checked three times. I was led to a different area this time, a room off the hallway past the usual visitors’ area. The room was about twenty by twenty, with a table in the middle and several folding chairs.

Simington sat in one of the chairs, a plate with a huge hamburger and a pile of French fries in front of him. Two guards, at opposite ends of the room, watched him with the same pleasure they might watch a late-night infomercial.

He smiled and gestured at the plate. “All day. I get pretty much whatever I want. I’ve got a pizza, a lasagna, a plate of pancakes, and a six pack of Pepsi coming in tonight for the last one.”

When I’d called to arrange the visit, they’d told me he’d be in a different room, but I wasn’t prepared to be so close to him. Not having the glass between us was unnerving. The barrier had provided a buffer for me, something that kept me from realizing he was a real person. Without it, I couldn’t escape that he was a living, breathing human being.