“You want to know what name he uses when he comes to visit Hernandez.”

“Exactly.” Decker nodded.

“That shouldn’t be too hard to find out, Lieutenant. Like I said, he comes every year on Hernandez’s birthday and during Christmas and New Year’s. Hold on and I’ll check the logbooks.”

“Thank you. I appreciate your help.” Decker laughed. “You have no idea how much I appreciate it. We’ve been hitting a lot of walls.”

“I know the feeling. While you’re waiting for me to come back, I’ll send in Curly and Doug.” Kruse smiled, showing teeth the color of egg yolks. “I betcha a Franklin they’ll pick him out first try.”

“I’ll pass on the bet.”

Kruse’s laughter was between a snort and a cackle. Decker could hear it even after the man left. Curly came in ten minutes later and picked out Holmes straightaway. He matched Kruse’s words about Holmes’s visits to Hernandez almost verbatim. When Doug came in, he played the same tape loop as Curly and Kruse. For good measure, a third man named Jimbo rounded out the quartet of identifiers. None of the four remembered Holmes by name, but they all remembered his face and the man he visited. The three guards were swapping Martin Hernandez stories when Kruse returned. He had made a copy of the logbook page dated December 27. The signature was bold, loopy, and very clear.

Raymond Holmes

It would be appealing to confront Holmes right now, but it would be more profitable to get a partial DNA match. Then they could challenge Holmes with the indisputable forensic information and see how he’d react.

Of course the DNA identification was predicated on Martin Hernandez being Manny Hernandez’s biological father.

Decker’s thoughts pounced upon another idea. He wondered if Holmes had ever been fingerprinted as Ramon Hernandez. If Holmes had been in the prison system in the last fifteen years under any name, his fingerprints would be in AFIS. But since he’d been a model citizen in San Jose for twenty-two years, it was unlikely.

Decker pondered other alternatives. If Holmes had ever been in the military, even under a different name, his prints would be on file with the army. His mind was sprinting past a panoply of ideas when Kruse’s voice interrupted him. “I suppose you’ll be wanting to talk to Martin Hernandez?”

“That would be terrific.”

“You stay right here, sir. I’ll bring in the Dog Whisperer.”

36

L ED BY CURLY on one side and Kruse on the other, Martin Hernandez, in his jail jumpsuit, looked like a walking orange. His girth appeared to measure half his height and his face was grizzled and gray. His gait was a slow shuffle due to age and leg chains. They placed him down on one of the bolted chairs and cuffed an ankle to a table leg. He sat back, crossing his arms in front, his buttocks spread over the seat.

Kruse said, “You gonna behave, Martin, or do I have to put on the handcuffs?”

“I’m gonna be a free man, sir.” His voice was high and raspy. When he smiled, there wasn’t much tooth matter left-a couple of pegs in front and a couple of molars in back. “I’m not gonna do nothing to stop that from happening.”

“Now, that’s thinking smart.”

“Can I trouble you for a smoke, sir?”

Kruse looked at Decker. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all.”

“Thanks,” Hernandez said to Kruse.

“Thank him,” Kruse said of Decker. “Now, I’m gonna take you at your word, Martin. I’m gonna figure you to behave properly. Am I wrong for thinking that?”

“Not wrong at all, Officer Kruse.”

“This man wants to ask you a few questions. You answer them honestly and to the best of your ability, okay?”

“Okay, I can do that.” When Hernandez spoke, he forced out sound from his throat. “A smoke will help. Maybe a cup of coffee, too. My throat.” He cleared phlegm. “It gets dry when I talk.”

“So why are you smoking, Martin?”

“Man’s gotta have something to do here, sir.”

Kruse laughed again. “That’s true. Okay, I’ll be back with your smoke and coffee.”

Decker regarded the con. A multilane highway of scars ran across the man’s neck, all of them keloid bumpy and shiny white. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had gone wrong with the man’s vocal cords.

Curly told Kruse, “I’m going to get back to my beat. Call me when you need me to take him back.”

The two men walked out together, leaving Decker alone with Hernandez. The man’s face, though speckled with liver spots, had few wrinkles. Several small open sores had rooted at his left temple, looking nasty enough to be the big C. His hands were worn and callused, his nails were yellow and thick and cut way below the tips of his fingers. He was missing part of his right thumb.

“When are you getting out?” Decker asked him.

“Two years, three months, eighteen days, and about sixteen hours. I served my time. I deserve to be a free man. That’s what the law says.”

“Are you going to continue with your work with the dogs?”

“Zactly right.” Hernandez’s head bobbed up and down. “We understand each other. Those dogs that we got…they were one step from the green room, if you know what I mean.”

The green room was the gas chamber. “You saved them from death.”

“Zactly right. The program over here…it was their last chance. We train them so they can be adopted out.”

“That’s nice.”

“It was their last chance…I was.”

“You identify with the dogs?”

“Zactly right. Everybody deserves a second chance. They’re not bad dogs. No one understands them. That’s the problem. They bite ’cause they’re scared. They bite ’cause they’re lonely. They bite ’cause they don’t got anyone who loves them.”

“They also bite because they’re not trained and disciplined.”

Hernandez smacked his lips together. “But there’s discipline and then there’s just plain meanness. Yeah, you gotta be sure of yourself if you work with untrained dogs, but you don’t crack a stick over the dog’s head to just get him to listen.”

“But the animals have to be taught to respect your authority.”

“Zactly right. It’s a good lesson in life…to learn to respect authority. It took me a while ’cause I didn’t have anyone to teach me properly.”

“You had the stick cracked over your head, Mr. Hernandez?”

“Zactly right. My daddy was a mean drunk and he didn’t raise me right. If he’d showed a little mercy and a little less stick cracking, I would have been a better person.”

“Do you have children, Mr. Hernandez?”

“I do.”

“Boys? Girls? Both?”

“Boys.”

“And you raised them with a little mercy?”

“I raised them not to be fools.”

“Were you a stick cracker?”

“I wasn’t much of anything because I’ve been incarcerated for a long time. It’s going on forty-three years. Most of the raising went to my wife, God rest her soul. I miss that woman. She did good, considering what she had.”

Kruse returned with two cups of coffee. He placed a cigarette between his lips. After he lit it, he gave it to Hernandez.

The con took a deep drag. “Ah, this is living.”

“You smoke it slow, Martin, you’re only gonna get one.”

“I will, Officer Kruse, I’ll do just that.”

Kruse said to Decker, “There’s someone monitoring the cameras twenty-four/seven, so you shouldn’t have any problems. Just look up at the videos and call when you need us to take him back.”

“Thanks for all your help.”

“No problem.” Kruse smiled. “Be good, Martin, you don’t have that much longer to go.”

“I know that, sir, I think about that every day.” After Kruse left, he said, “That’s the truth. I do think about it every day.”

“I’m sure you do.” Decker sipped the coffee: as thick as mud and bitter.

“It ain’t easy for an old man to be here,” Martin complained. “The cold in the winter goes right through to the bones. My lungs aren’t too good. I always worry about pneumonia, you know. Then sometimes, I’m glad to be sick because the infirmary is better than the cell block, know what I’m saying?”