John Sandford - Broken Prey

“Not even their families?” Sloan asked.

“Their families have disowned them,” Beloit said. “Chase’s sister said we should kill him if we ever got the chance. She was serious. Nobody in any of their families has ever come here or even called, except Taylor’s, years ago. He was left some property, and his brother came in here to get him to sign it away. But that’s been five or six years.”

Grant said, “We know everything that goes in and out of their cells. We have people comb through their food before it goes in.”

“Do they have access to TV news?” Sloan asked.

“Well, sure. . They have TVs in their cells.”

“So, if they programmed him, they could be getting off on it by watching the news.”

O’Donnell nodded: “They could. Maybe that would be enough. . to get them off, anyway.”

“If Pope’s a robot,” Lucas asked, “do you think they sent him out there deliberately, or he just went?”

“Charlie was going after women no matter what,” Grant said. He was the skeptical one: “But this? Robots? I don’t know.”

“Let’s talk to Taylor and Lighter and Chase,” Sloan said to Lucas. “What have we got to lose?”

Lucas looked at the others: “What do you think?”

They all shrugged or nodded. “Really don’t have anything to lose-but don’t go making any deals with them unless you get an okay in advance,” Hart said. “They’re gonna want something for talking.”

Beloit looked at Grant, who showed a small smile and said, from the corner of his mouth to Hart, “Better read them the semen warning.”

Sloan bit first: “What’s that?”

“Lighter tends to hide semen around his cell. Or just keep it in his hand. We have a screen we keep up most of the time, but when we need to talk to him. . Well, when you’re least expecting it, zip, it’s all over your face.”

“That’s why prison guards carry clubs,” Lucas said.

“Yeah, clubs,” Hart said. He stood up and stretched. “We’ll keep him under control. But if the worst should happen. .”

“Yeah?”

“There’s a reflex to lick your lips. Don’t do that.”

They had to go back to the unsecured side of the administration building to arrange the visit to Taylor, Lighter, and Chase. Darrell Ross, the assistant administrator, was a friendly codger with a ring of white hair around his bald pate and a pipe rack on his desk. He leaned back in his leather chair and said, congenially, “There’s a question here of whether you’re investigating them for a crime. If you’re investigating them for a crime, you’ll have to read them their rights. Then they’ve got a right to an attorney.”

“They’re nuts ,” Lucas said. “They’re locked up in a nuthouse.”

Ross frosted up: “We don’t use that language here. It’s a little like referring to a paralyzed person as a crip. Most of them are harmless, and their problems are not of their own making.”

Lucas held his hands up: “Sorry. I know that.”

Ross nodded at him, laced his fingers over his ample gut, and twiddled his thumbs for a second. “Anyway, the Supreme Court says they get a lawyer. So if they ask, they get one. There are ways to work around that, and we’ll try, but I’m just letting you know that there could be a hangup.”

“What ways to work around it?” Lucas asked.

“We’ll tell them that if they want a lawyer, we’ll have to isolate them for a few days before we can bring them up to the visiting room. Just to make sure that they don’t have any contraband concealed inside their bodies. They hate the isolation. That might convince them that they don’t need an attorney.”

“Is that legal?” Sloan asked.

“Supreme Court says we can use reasonable security measures.” The friendly old codger smiled a smile that suddenly looked a lot like a prison guard’s smile. “We get to say what’s reasonable. Anyway-we’ll try to get you in.”

Ross talked to all three inmates personally, through the intercom system, told them what Lucas and Sloan wanted, recited their rights, and offered them privileges if they agreed to be interviewed. All three agreed to talk.

On the way to the security unit, Hart, who was escorting them, said, “The main thing to keep in mind, these guys are desperate for company. Except maybe Chase; we’re losing Chase. His personality is coming apart. Anyway, they’ll want to talk, if you handle it right.”

The unit was separated from the hospital by a locked security door; Hart pushed a call button, a monitor looked at them, and the door lock released. “They monitor us from the cage,” Hart grunted.

“How did Charlie get down here, with this door?” Sloan asked.

“Most of the inmates have duties. Charlie worked as a janitor,” Hart said. “He was suited for it. He could lean on a broom with the best of them.”

Twenty cells lined the hallway, ten on each side. The walls were steel, with a steel door to one side and a barred window inset in the wall. A flat fluorescent light shone from each window, like a line of exhibits in a museum. They could hear inmates talking back and forth as they went in, and could see silhouettes in most of the windows. Hart called, “Temporary shutdown,” and groans and shouts rang along the hall. Hart punched a code into a wall phone, another camera looked at them, and Hart waved at it. Heavy plastic panels slid down across the windows.

“They can’t talk with the windows down,” Hart said. With the windows shut, they could still hear a few of the inmates shouting.

“Didn’t seem to shut them down,” Sloan said.

“Yeah, they can still hear each other, but they have to yell. Can’t keep it up,” Hart said. “If you keep your voice down when you’re talking, the rest of them won’t be able to hear you.”

The cells were not large, but they were more spacious than typical prison cells. Each was equipped with a bed, a sink, a toilet, a chair, a desk, all bolted to the floor; fixed lights overhead, and a two-by-three-foot steel dining table that folded down from the wall. A television was built into a wall and covered with security glass; two glass-covered ports on opposite sides of the cell showed video camera lenses.

Of the twenty cells, fifteen or sixteen had men in them.

Carl Taylor was a tall man, thin, square shouldered, with high cheekbones, pale blue eyes, and closely cropped hair; he looked like a retired air force major. He was neatly dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and plastic slip-on shoes. He sat at the desk, reading a Bible. He looked odd, Lucas thought, and it took him a moment to put his finger on the oddness. Then he had it: Taylor looked rugged, trim, outdoorsy-but his skin was bone white from a lack of sunlight.

He was waiting for them: Lucas could sense it. He was too studied in his disregard to be really engaged with the Book. Hart glanced inside the cell, then pushed a metal plate six feet away from the cell window. The outer glass window slid halfway back. “Carl. .,” Hart said.

Taylor turned, raised his eyebrows, as if he were a little surprised to see them.

“Dr. Hart.” His forehead wrinkled. “I’ve been thinking about it, since Dr. Ross called. I’m no longer convinced I should talk to these gentlemen.”

“It’s up to you,” Lucas said. “If you don’t want to chat, we’ll go away.”

Taylor stood and stretched. “I think we might negotiate some ground rules.”

“There aren’t any ground rules,” Lucas said. “We ask questions, you answer. If you don’t want to answer, we go away. It’s that easy.”

Taylor stood up and lounged over to the window. “Nothing’s that easy. I-”

“This is exactly that easy,” Lucas said.