Gregg Hurwitz: Last shot

"We were hoping to get your perspective."

"Pretty cut and dried. Guy got shanked in the neck."

Bear rose to his tiptoes and made a shape with his mouth as if to whistle-gonna be a long night.

Tim said, "Maybe we could ask you a few questions before we head over."

McGraw snapped a cell phone from his belt, tapped a button to quiet it. "If we can make this quick. Full plate, as you can imagine."

"We'll do our best," Tim said. "You catch any whispers from the snitches this week?"

"None at all."

"I saw Jameson kept perfect behavior."

A glimmer of a smirk. "Until now."

"How was he today?"

"How are any of them any day?" Sasso said.

"Anything different?" Tim asked.

McGraw again: "Another day, same shit."

"We don't keep track of every mood shift in every prisoner," Sasso added.

Bear cleared his throat. "All that sensitivity training gone to waste."

Tim forged ahead. "Can we get his medical files?"

"Nothing in 'em," McGraw said. "He's a healthy guy."

"I'd like to look at them anyway."

"Maybe we should get a sample of his toilet water, too."

"You volunteering?"

McGraw's radio squawked, and he muttered into it, "I told you-be there in a sec," then glanced up at Tim and Bear. "Look, I'm sure all this background shit helps when you're running down a serial rapist in the world, but it's different in here. Not like the street. We've got cages and captives. It's the jungle, and it's got different rules."

"It would seem he's no longer in here," Bear noted evenly.

Tim tried another tack. "I've spent some time inside."

"Unless you're full-time, you don't understand."

"Twenty-four/seven."

McGraw looked perplexed, so Bear clarified. "He means as an inmate."

This shut McGraw up. He studied Tim. Then his eyes glinted with recognition and he sat down. Spun by the media, Tim's vigilante rampage after Ginny's murder was remembered by some-particularly in law enforcement-as Charles Bronson-style legend.

"Listen," Tim said, "we're not here to bust your balls. Our job is to find your inmate and deliver him back to you, and to do that, we're pretty much dependent on your expertise."

McGraw matched Tim's stare, then thumbed down the volume on his radio.

Tim said, "Any tracks or sightings outside the facility?"

"Would we all be standing here?"

"Any security irregularities?"

"A family of raccoons wreaked havoc a few weeks back with two of eight motion sensors along the beach, so we turned 'em off. Just those two. You can't do anything from that point anyways except swim straight out-if Jameson tried a hook-around, the tower would have him in seconds."

"Any chance of a water escape?"

"Unlikely, but possible. We have coast guard out in the harbor."

"What was the murder weapon?"

"We still aren't sure. You know there was a building mood in here, right? The slashing last week? I briefed your guy-Guerrera? — over the phone." McGraw waited for Tim's nod. "After the incident, we tossed the cells. Took everything-razors, pens, even spoons. So I've got no clue what Jameson used for the stabbing, and you can't make it out on the tape."

"Did Jameson seem caught up in the tension this week?" Bear asked. When McGraw didn't answer right away, he added, "On edge?"

McGraw's first hesitation. "Not that I noticed, no."

Bear said, "Tell us about the victim."

"Boss Hahn. Shotcaller for the AB, good for three murders. Armed heist that went south. He was serving his second-life on the installment plan."

"Jameson have a beef with him?"

"No more than anyone else. Boss ran the show."

Sasso added, "But you never know when someone steps on someone else. What sets them off. They're good guys, most of them. The only difference between them and human beings is the length of their fuse." He held up his pinkie.

"Why do you think Jameson would risk an escape with a year and change on his sentence?" Tim said. "He was serving perfect time? Why now?"

"Why does anyone break out?" Sasso said. "To be free. People flip out sometimes, can't do the time anymore."

McGraw shook his head, and for the first time Tim sensed an element of rivalry between the two of them. "He had to escape. You don't kill Boss and stay alive in here."

"Square one," Bear said. "What's Jameson have against Boss?"

"Nothing," Tim and McGraw said at the same time.

"Who'd Jameson run with?" Bear asked.

"No one, really," Sasso said.

"Was he religious?"

"He wore a cross, but he never went to chapel," McGraw said. "I monitor attendance personally."

No chaplain to question-another dead end.

Bear pressed on. "Tight with his cellie? Imaad Durand?"

McGraw hoisted his eyebrows and riffled through the nearest mound of paperwork. "Bill, toss me Jameson's jacket." One of the mute COs threw Walker's central file across the table, and McGraw thumbed through it. Exasperated, Bear blew out a breath-they were looking for the kind of information that wouldn't be recorded in a prisoner's C-file. Still reading, McGraw said, "Not particularly."

"He have any females come to see him?"

"You mean like conjugal visits?" Sasso asked.

McGraw grinned. "We don't have a Felon Reproduction Program in the federal system."

"Right. I meant regular visits," Tim said.

McGraw shuffled back through the files. "Not a one."

Bear whistled, jotting in his notepad.

Tim asked, "He have any jobs?"

McGraw's eyes scanned down the page. "Food service, Unicor, maintenance detail, trash orderly, laundry detail. The usual shit."

"How was his money situation?"

McGraw flipped the page. "He had about seventy bucks on the books. Put twenty on his canteen account this morning."

"What was the balance before?"

"Eleven bucks. Would've lasted him another week or so."

"Why bother adding to it if he was planning to escape that night?"

As it became apparent that no one was going to produce an answer, the door opened and a young CO leaned in. "Look what we just picked out of the shitheap." He let a plastic Baggie unroll dramatically; it gave a satisfying snap. Nestled in the bottom was a blue toothbrush.

"Lemme see that, Newlin." McGraw laid the bag on the table, and the men leaned over it. The hard rubber end of the toothbrush had been whittled to a point. A good two inches of red stain. Strips of cloth wrapped the handle, secured with paste. A shoelace served as a pommel. The bristles were dark with ash.

"Where'd he get the paste?" Sasso asked. "Unicor?"

"Imaad kept a little jar of it for his posters. He won't use gum, cuz he's Muslim and they can't chew gum for some reason. So he made his own paste out of soap and wax he traded for with Zeller." Newlin offered Tim and Bear a slightly embarrassed look and smoothed his sandy mustache, which he no doubt wore to try to add years to his boyish face. "I've worked J-Unit six months now."

Sasso offered a dry smile. "Long enough to remember your jacket, I'd imagine."

"Right. Sorry." In place of a union guidebook, Newlin had a pack of cigs stored in his breast pocket. On his belt, in addition to the normal accessories, was a latex-glove packet. Informed, relaxed, and prepared. He'd even referred to Walker's cellie by first name. Bear and Tim shared a quick, impressed glance.

"Listen," Tim said to Sasso and McGraw, "we've already taken up enough of your time. If…?"

"Cary Newlin." The youthful CO offered his hand to Bear first, then Tim.

"…wouldn't mind showing us the tape and walking us over, we can get out of your hair."

"Me?" Newlin shrugged his accord. McGraw bowed his head, extending his hands as if in benediction. Sasso steered them out, depositing them in the control center across the hall.

Manned by another team of zombie COs who barely noted Tim and Bear's entrance, a bank of closed-circuit TVs monitored the various prison buildings. The screen labeled "J" showed mini-frontloaders clearing away mounds of smoldering trash. Officers patrolled the perimeter of the mess while workers loaded more burned refuse into rolling bins. A few roaming COs wielding fire extinguishers continued to blast real or imagined embers, mist settling in a sci-fi layer about their knees. The barn-style steel door had been shoved back to accommodate the equipment, while an officer with an M4 guarded the ten-foot gap and checked the creds of the workers and COs passing through.