“The Hall still under m
artial law?” she quipped, referring to the mayor’s moratorium on the press.
“Trust me, it’s no picnic on the inside either.”
“Why don’t you meet me? I’ve got something.”
“Sure. Where?”
“Look out your window. I’m right outside.”
I peered out and saw Cindy, leaning on a car parked outside the Hall. It was almost seven. I cleared my desk, called a quick good-night to Lorraine and Chin, and ducked out the rear entrance. I ran across the street and went up to Cindy. She was in a short skirt and embroidered jean jacket, with a faded khaki knapsack slung over her shoulder.
“Choir practice?” I winked.
“You should talk. Next time I see you in SWAT gear, I’ll assume you have a date with your dad.”
“Speaking of Marty, I called him. I asked him over tomorrow night. So, Deep Throat, what’s so important that we’re meeting out here?”
“Good news, bad news,” Cindy said. She pulled off her knapsack and came up with an 8 × 11 envelope. “I think I found it, Lindsay.”
She handed me the envelope, and I opened it: a Chronicle article dated two years ago about a prison diary, Hell-hole, by someone named Antoine James. A few passages were highlighted in yellow. I began to read.
“Aryan… worse than Aryan. All max guys. White, bad, and hating. We didn’t know who they hated worse, us, the ‘swarms’ they had to share their meals with, or the cops and guards who had put them there.
“These bastards had a name for themselves. They called themselves Chimera….”
My eyes fixed on the word.
“They’re animals, Lindsay. The worst troublemakers in the penal system. They’re even committed to carrying out each other’s hits on the outside.
“That’s the good news,” she said. “The bad news is, it’s Pelican Bay.”
Chapter 58
IN THE ANATOMY of the California state prison system, Pelican Bay was the place where the sun don’t shine.
The following day, I took Jacobi and “req’d” a police helicopter for the hour’s flight up the coast to Crescent City, near the Oregon border. I had been to Pelican Bay twice before, to meet with a snitch on a murder case and attend a parole hearing for someone I had put away. Each time, as I flew over the dense redwood forest surrounding the facility, it left a hole in the pit of my stomach.
If you were a law-enforcement agent—especially a woman—this was the kind of place you didn’t want to go. There’s a sign, as they process you through the front gate, warning that if you’re taken hostage you’re on your own. No negotiations.
I had arranged to meet with the assistant warden, Roland Estes, in the main administrative building. He kept us waiting for a few minutes. When he showed up, Estes was tall and serious, with a hard face and tight blue eyes. He had that clenched-fist unconfidingness that comes from years of living under the highest discipline.
“I apologize for being late,” he said, taking a seat behind his large oak desk. “We had a disturbance down in O block. One of our resident Nortenos stabbed a rival in the neck.”
“How’d he get the knife?” Jacobi asked.
“No knives.” Estes smiled thinly. “He used the filed-down edge of a gardening hoe.”
I wouldn’t have had Estes’s job for a heartbeat, but I also didn’t like the reputation this place had for beatings, intimidation, and the motto “Snitch, Parole, or Die.”
“So, you said this was related to Chief Mercer’s murder, Lieutenant?” The warden leaned forward.
I nodded, removing a case file from my bag. “To a possible string of murders. I’m interested in what you may know about a prison gang here.”
Estes shrugged. “Most of these inmates have been in gangs from the time they were ten. You’ll find that every territory or gang domain that exists in Oakland or East L.A. exists here.”
“This particular gang is called Chimera,” I said.