CHAPTER 9

Sunday, April 23

8:15 A.M.

CALIFORNIA CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION

TEHACHAPI, CALIFORNIA

CALEB waited at a table in the inmate visitors’ center.

He had awakened at four this morning, a little earlier than usual for a Sunday, because of the rain. The trip from Las Piernas to Tehachapi took just over two and a half hours when everything went perfectly. Since Los Angeles lay between Las Piernas and the prison, things never went perfectly. If he missed traffic, he caught construction. Rain caused further delays.

Still, this was by far the most convenient of the three locations where Mason had been kept. The first few weeks, when the CDCR-the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation-was deciding where Mason should be incarcerated, Mason had been in one of the euphemistically named “Reception Centers” in the desert east of San Diego. He had then been placed in Susanville, at the High Desert State Prison-a Level IV facility, surrounded by a lethal electrified fence, the kind of facility where someone sentenced to “life without possibility of parole” must be kept.

LWOP-life without possibility. Caleb tried to keep that phrase out of his head.

By car, Susanville was ten hours north of Las Piernas. The CDCR said they tried to place prisoners in facilities close to where family members lived, but with half the prison population coming from the Los Angeles basin and only one prison in L.A. County, something had to give.

For a year, Caleb and his mother made the long drive every weekend. During the second year, Grandmother Delacroix-widowed by then, and having a change of heart toward Mason-joined Uncle Nelson (who wanted to impress Caleb’s mom) in the battle to get Mason moved closer to Las Piernas. Grandmother became a determined advocate for Mason. She was joined by the legions of Fletchers enlisted by Uncle Nelson, which made a difference. Mason was transferred to Tehachapi, formally known as the California Correctional Institution.

Tehachapi was overcrowded, as were all the California prisons. More than five thousand inmates were held in a prison built to hold half that many. At first, since Mason had to adjust again to a new group of inmates, Caleb was worried they might not have done him any favors. But if there were new problems, Mason never mentioned them.

Throughout most of the state’s prison system, inmates could only have visitors on Saturdays and Sundays and five holidays: New Year’s Day, July Fourth, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day. Here in Tehachapi, the visiting hours on those days were from 7:45 A.M. to 2:45 P.M., and Caleb could usually stay most of that time. Once in a while, if a lot of visitors showed up on one day, the first visitors in had to leave a little earlier so that the next group could come in. Father’s Day, Easter Sunday, and similar holidays were usually the only times Caleb’s visits had to be shorter for that reason.

He had carefully dressed in conservative clothing, in accordance with inmate visitors’ regulations. Clothing that resembled inmate clothing-blue denim or chambray shirts, blue denim pants-was forbidden, as were clothes that resembled law enforcement or military clothing, including rain gear. It had been raining when he woke up before dawn today, but by now Caleb was an old hand at dressing for prison visits and didn’t make the mistake of carrying a poncho.

He knew the list of allowable items by heart:

His driver’s license, which could not be carried in a wallet, but was necessary for identification for each visit.

One handkerchief-no bandanas.

A package of tissues, unopened.

A clear change purse, holding no more than thirty dollars, which must be in coins or one-dollar bills only. None of it could be left with the prisoner.

A comb or brush.

Two keys on a key ring with no attachments.

Up to six photographs, to be carried in a clear plastic bag.

No chewing gum, cigarettes, food, cameras, pagers, cell phones.

He never wore a belt or shoes that might have metal in them.

He had parked his car and walked to the first processing area. He was in line early, and completed the necessary paperwork, which was checked against computer records to ensure that Mason had agreed to the visit and was available that day. He got the ultraviolet-ink hand stamp and went through security screening-taking off his shoes, walking through the metal detector, putting his shoes back on. He rode the van that took him to the visitors’ area for the facility where Mason was held, checked in through a second security screening and went downstairs, checked in again at the booth on this level, then staked out a table and waited the twenty additional minutes it took for Mason to make it through his part of the process.

He tried to shake off the effects of the nightmare he had every Saturday night-that he drove to the prison and waited there, only to have a guard come to the table and say that Mason was dead. On other nights, the dream would be of a phone call to his home-he would drive and drive and never reach the prison to reclaim Mason’s body. Only his fear-filled dreams about Jenny were worse.

As Mason came into the room, Caleb felt the sense of relief he always had at first sight of his brother. Dread that he had been hurt or was ill or worse was dispelled, and he could see relief on Mason’s face as well. They gave each other the quick embrace allowed as a greeting.

“You’re looking tired,” Mason said, studying him.

“Just finished a presentation for a class last week.” He studied Mason in return. His brother had changed dramatically over the past five years. He was leaner, more muscular. What had once seemed like toughness to Caleb had been hardened, brought to an edge.

For a time, early on, Mason had been depressed. He had come out of that, but the emptiness Caleb had noted in him then had been replaced by constant wariness. On any visit, Mason knew where every other person was in the room, and tracked any changes-when people left, new ones entered, others moved.

In contrast, he told Caleb that he should never make eye contact with, or even look toward, other prisoners during visits, an edict Caleb followed when he learned that Mason could receive a beating if someone else thought Caleb had dissed them with a look.

Caleb was allowed to get up from the table and use the vending machines, but Mason had to stay at the table at all times.

“How was your week?” Caleb asked.

A shrug. “Same as last week.” Later, Caleb would coax a little more out of him, although he knew Mason would never discuss much that happened here. He might say more in a letter. Injuries-cuts, bruises, or worse-were never explained.

They had passed through times of awkwardness, the hard adjustments Mason had to make, while Caleb tried to understand what no one on the outside could, even through a period when Mason had refused the visits. Caleb kept asking to see him anyway, but it was when he wrote a letter to say that with Dad gone, he needed a man to talk to about his problems, that Mason quickly relented. Mason now viewed him as an adult, but even prison could not keep Mason from being protective of his younger brother.

“Seen Mom?” Mason asked. He always asked, even though the answer had been the same for the last three years, from the moment she had become engaged to her second husband.

“No.”

“She was up here yesterday. With Uncle Nelson.” He paused. “She’s looking a little tired of him, you ask me.”

“That didn’t take long.”

“She asks about you.”

Caleb didn’t reply.

“You enjoy hurting her?”

“No. She made her choices.”

“This is some mistaken kind of loyalty to me, I suppose. Or is it to Dad?”

“I don’t think loyalty to either of you is a mistake,” Caleb answered in a low voice, looking down at his hands on the table, forcing himself not to curl his fingers into fists.