Four Walls

7

FOR A LONG TIME, Dr. Sheldon Hawkes never thought much about prison. He'd been a respected surgeon for a few years before one lost patient too many drove him to the medical examiner's office. He couldn't stand to bear even the slightest responsibility for a human being's death, so he put his medical skills to use in trying to catch those who did.

Intellectually, he knew that those who murdered the bodies he examined as an ME-and later, after he moved from the morgue to fieldwork, those responsible for the crime scenes he examined-usually went to prison. But still, that didn't have much meaning for Hawkes.

Then he was arrested, accused of murder, put in handcuffs, and taken to Rikers Island, and prison took on a whole new meaning.

He'd worked in law enforcement for years, but until that day, Sheldon Hawkes had never understood just how humiliating it was to be restrained by handcuffs, how helpless you felt with your wrists pulled behind your back, the metal biting into your flesh.

As a black man, Hawkes knew he had to live with the constant suspicion. The little old white ladies who would walk across the street to avoid him, simply because of the color of his skin. The state troopers who pulled him over, ignoring the white drivers who were going much faster down the highway. It didn't matter that he had a medical degree or that he had a badge of his own.

But even so, he'd never quite understood what it was like to be considered the scum of the earth until he was placed in pretrial detention at Rikers. He stopped being a person the moment those cuffs went on.

Hawkes couldn't call it the worst feeling he'd ever had in his life, as that spot was reserved for the way he felt the last time he'd lost a patient on his operating table. But it was pretty damn close.

He had been framed, of course. Shane Casey was a whack-job with a mad-on for the crime lab. Casey's brother had also been accused of murder, but he killed himself in prison. Casey was sure his brother was framed, and so he turned around and framed Hawkes, who had still been an ME at the time of Casey's brother's trial. Hawkes's testimony was part of what led to the guilty verdict.

Regardless of the circumstances, Hawkes never wanted to set foot in a prison again.

So when Deputy Inspector Stanton Gerrard had come by the crime lab that morning, a pit opened in Hawkes's stomach.

Gerrard had been the one leading the charge when Hawkes was arrested. Shortly after that, he was promoted to deputy inspector and placed in charge of the crime lab, just in time to lead a witch hunt against Mac for his role in Clay Dobson's death.

Nobody was ever happy to see Gerrard in the lab, and the feeling was mutual. Mac had dug up some dirt on Gerrard in order to get him to back off on the Dobson thing, but while that had helped Mac in the short term, it also put the CSIs even deeper in the inspector's doghouse.

"Detective Taylor," Gerrard had said, a grimace under his gray beard. "I just got a call from the DOC. We've got two suspicious deaths at the Richmond Hill Correctional Facility. Albany's requested a detective and a crime scene detail." He gave a half smile. "I'd say send your best people, but since you don't have any, I'll settle for whichever one of your screwups is hanging around."

Somehow, Mac had managed not to make a disparaging comment. Instead, he had just told Hawkes and Danny Messer to suit up and join him.

"Oh, and Detective?" Gerrard had added. "They've ID'd the bodies. One is a scumbag named Vance Barker. The other one's Malik Washburne."

That had brought Mac up short. "Is that who I think it is?"

Gerrard nodded. "The former Officer Gregory Washburne."

"What was he doing in RHCF?"

"Ten years for vehicular homicide. Don't screw this one up, Taylor." With that, Gerrard had left.

"Who's this Washburne guy?" Danny had asked. "Was he dirty?"

"Washburne wasn't a bad cop," Mac had replied. "In fact, he was one of the best. He quit for personal reasons and converted to Islam. That's why he changed his name. I had no idea he'd been arrested."

They'd met up with Flack at the NYPD helipad. Midday traffic would be murder (no pun intended), and it had already been a couple of hours since the crime took place. By the time the Department of Corrections bureaucracy worked its way from Staten Island to Albany and back down to Gerrard's office, the scene had probably already turned into a mess. Speed was of the essence, and they couldn't afford to sit in traffic on two different bridges, nor was Mac sanguine about taking their lab equipment onto the Staten Island Ferry.

But Gerrard had surprised everyone by authorizing the chopper ride. Dressed in his dark blue jacket with the letters CSI:NY in white on the back, and carrying his metal case, Hawkes had joined Flack, Danny, and Mac in the helicopter.

The pilot had taken a route that took them over the Hudson River immediately, hugging the New Jersey coast southward, going over the Goethals Bridge, which linked Staten Island to New Jersey, before coming down in the parking lot outside RHCF.

The prison was in the middle of nowhere on the west coast of Staten Island. As he stepped down from the helicopter, head lowered for safety, Hawkes saw a lot of fences topped with spools of razor wire. At the far end of the parking lot was the prison entrance.

Flack gingerly exited from the helicopter. Hawkes offered him a hand down, which he refused to take. "Flack, they prescribe Percocet for a reason," he said.

"What, you're my mother, now?"

"No, but I am a doctor, and my medical advice to you is to take the painkillers."

"As I recall," Flack said with a smirk as they walked toward the entrance, "your medical advice was for me to stay off my feet for another month. I'm fine."

Hawkes considered pressing the point, then decided it was a waste of time. He'd known Don Flack long enough to be quite familiar with his ability to be as stubborn as a jackass, with a personality to match if you pushed it.

They walked across the parking lot to the entrance, where a man with thinning white hair and a thick white mustache greeted them. He was dressed in a white shirt with a badge, which indicated a higher rank in the prison. With him were two COs wearing blue shirts; one had lieutenant's bars on his collar, and the other had three chevrons, indicating a sergeant.

"Gentlemen, my name is Captain Richard Russell. I'm the superintendent of security." The man in white offered his hand.

"I'm Detective Taylor from the crime lab," Mac said, taking the handshake. "This is Detective Flack, Detective Messer, and Dr. Hawkes."

"Pleased to meet you all. This is Lieutenant Ursitti and Sergeant Jackson. I'm going to have to ask you to leave your cell phones and weapons at the arsenal." Russell pointed at a sign, which read ALL ARMAMENTS MUST BE LEFT AT THE ARSENAL. Under those words was an arrow that pointed away from the front entrance to an alcove at the end of the building.

As Russell led them to the alcove, he continued: "You'll also each have a CO assigned to you while you're in my facility."

Danny leaned to Hawkes and muttered, "What, they think we're gonna steal the silver?"

The alcove had a window, a CO sitting behind it. A metal tray similar to those used at bank drive-throughs was under the window, and it slid out as they approached.

"If you place your weapons and phones there, Officer Simone will place them in lockers, and you'll keep the keys."

Hawkes reached into his holster and took out his nine millimeter. Mac did likewise. After a second, shaking his head, so did Danny. They also handed over their Treos. They each placed them in the tray as it slid out, then it slid back in. Moments later, the tray slid out again bearing three keys. Hawkes felt a little better about the whole thing once he realized he got to hold the key to the locker that held his weapon. He hated carrying the damn thing-it contravened the Hippocratic oath, to his mind-and he couldn't shoot it worth a damn, anyhow, but he was still responsible for it.

Flack asked, "What happened, exactly?"

Before Ursitti could respond, Russell said, "Detective, you have to hand over your weapon and phone as well. No exceptions."

"Fine." Flack's tone indicated the opposite, but he placed his weapon, his backup weapon, and his flip-top phone in the tray. His key came out a moment later.

Ursitti, meanwhile, said, "Both bodies are in the weight yard. It's a fenced-off part of the yard. There were forty-five Muslims in there, and one of the skinheads stabbed one of the Muslims through the chain-link."

"That's Vance Barker?" Flack asked.

Ursitti nodded. "Yeah. He's in on a drug charge, same as most of these guys. One of those organizational soldier types that'd rather do time than flip on their buddies."

"Looks like he took one for the team once too often," Mac said.

They walked inside. Hawkes felt the blessed cool of air-conditioning as they stepped through the double doors to the entryway.

Mac asked, "How do you know there were exactly forty-five in the yard?"

"That's the yard's max capacity. We had to keep two guys out 'cause they hit the limit."

Another CO sat behind a long desk inside. In front of the desk, in the center of the narrow entryway, was a metal detector. The CO pulled out a battered notebook and flipped white pages until he reached a blank one. "Sign in."

"You've gotta be kidding me," Danny said.

"Procedure," the CO said with a shrug.

"We have to keep track of everyone who comes in and out of here, Detective Messer," Russell said primly. "I would think you of all people would appreciate that."

"We do," Mac said quickly before Danny could respond. He grabbed the pen and signed his name, as well as the time and the purpose of his visit (he wrote NYPD INVESTIGATION in neat block letters; Hawkes intended to do likewise).

Ursitti continued: "Other body's Malik Washburne. Nobody saw what happened to him, but we figure somebody took him out while everyone was watching Barker bleed out."

Each of them in turn emptied his pockets, put the contents in a red plastic bin, and walked through the metal detector. Nobody set it off, for which Hawkes was grateful. He wouldn't have put it past Flack to have a third weapon on his person.

Once that was done and they each had the back of his hand stamped with fluorescent ink, a steel door started to slide open.

"Cameras can only be used in the weight yard and the immediate area around it," Russell said. "Any of my COs sees you taking any other pictures without authorization, your equipment will be impounded and you'll be escorted from the premises."

Hawkes frowned. "And why is that?"

Russell turned on him. "You have a problem with that, Dr. Hawkes, you can take it up with Albany. I'm just following the rules here. I suggest you do the same."

"Okay." Hawkes noticed that Sergeant Jackson was rolling his eyes behind Russell's back. Captain Russell apparently had a reputation.

They all walked into the alcove and were asked to place their hands on a tray with a hand-shaped indentation. Ultraviolet light was shone on their hands, and the fluorescent ink turned up blue where they'd been stamped. Hawkes thought that was a nice touch-putting something on visitors that they couldn't easily get rid of because they couldn't even see it.

Once they had all shown their hands, the door they had come through slid slowly shut, and a facing door slid slowly open. They walked back outside, the heat and humidity hitting Hawkes like a hammer.

They walked down a path that was lined with neatly arranged flowers; there was even a koi pond. Hawkes assumed that the landscaping was done by the inmates.

Mac said, in a tone that suggested he'd been simmering for a while, "Captain, you asked for us. I don't appreciate being told how to do my job."

"I'm not," Russell said. "I'm telling you what's allowed in my facility. Again, if you have a problem, take it up with Albany."

Going through another set of double doors put them back in the AC. Three COs, all with one stripe on their sleeves, were waiting for them.

Ursitti said, "Detective Flack, I'll take you to our interrogation room-you can start interviewing witnesses there."

Flack nodded, then looked at one of the COs and smiled. "Hey, Terry, we gotta stop meeting like this."

One of the COs-a big guy with a baby face-smiled and said, "Donnie."

Russell looked back and forth between the two. "You two know each other, Officer Sullivan?"

The CO with the baby face dropped the smile. "Yes, sir. Detective Flack's dad and my dad used to bust heads together in the one-one-two back in the day."

"Swell," Russell said with a scowl. "Officer Sullivan, you'll accompany Detective Taylor. Officer Andros, you'll accompany Detective Messer. Officer Ciccone, you'll go with Dr. Hawkes."

The six of them proceeded through a few more corridors, past several checkpoints and guard posts, and finally again went out into the heat and humidity. Hawkes wryly thought he was going to get pneumonia at this rate, although the AC inside the prison wasn't exactly what you'd call high-level. That was what Hawkes liked about both the morgue and the crime lab-high-tech equipment and dead bodies both needed to stay cool, so New York summers were bearable at work.

Except when you went out to a crime scene.

There was no shade to speak of in the open field between the building and the weight yard, so the sun was beating down mercilessly on the ground from the cloudless sky.

As he crossed the yard, the sun hot on the back of his neck, Hawkes tried not to think about the fact that he was, once again, in a prison, with a CO dogging his every step. With this Ciccone guy walking right behind him, Hawkes almost felt like he was in prison for real again, not just visiting. Like he wasn't a person anymore.

He really hated that.

After a long walk across the grassy field, they reached the weight yard. Behind the weight yard was a copse of trees, which provided shade for a batch of picnic tables. Beyond the cluster of tables was a basketball court.

The yard was completely empty, save for a few COs who were standing around the weight yard. Hawkes assumed that the place was currently in lockdown, with all the inmates confined in their cells.

An African-American man with a goatee very much like the one Hawkes used to wear stood at the gate. The CO with Mac, Flack's friend Sullivan, said, "Jay, these're the crime lab guys. Uncle Cal said they can do whatever they want in the weight room."

Jay nodded and took the keys out of his belt, then flipped through several before coming to the one that unlocked the padlock on the chain that kept the gate shut.

Hawkes took in the entire crime scene with a practiced eye as the gate swung open with the metallic whining of hinges. Inside were several weight benches, half a dozen barbells, and a huge number of round metal doughnut weights of various sizes.

One body was lying on the ground near the fence. There was blood all around him, splattered and smeared.

Mac asked, "Can someone describe exactly what happened?"

The man named Jay stepped forward and described the events of that morning, including forcing all the convicts inside the weight yard to lie on their stomachs. There were forty-five of them-the maximum occupancy, as Ursitti had said-and with them all lying down in there, it was a little cramped.

When he was finished with his account, Jay pointed to the ground outside the weight yard. "Found that shiv. Nobody touched it after I found it, I made sure."

"Thanks," Mac said as he walked over to where Jay was pointing. He yanked a latex glove out of his pocket and held it between his fingers, using it to pick up the item. "A toothbrush with a safety razor attached-and covered in blood."

Sullivan said, "They don't get points for originality 'round here, Detective."

"Good thing," Mac muttered. He pulled out an evidence envelope and dropped the makeshift murder weapon inside. "Blood's probably our vic, and this'll have the murderer's prints." He looked up. "Danny, you take Barker. Sheldon, check out Washburne."

Hawkes nodded. As he entered the weight yard, Ciccone on his heels, he muttered, "Reconstructing's going to be difficult in this mess."

"The hell you gotta reconstruct for?" Ciccone asked. "One of the skinheads killed Barker."

"It was Mulroney," Sullivan added.

Hawkes whirled around. Mac and Danny were looking at him, too. Mac asked, "How do you know that?"

"I saw him. I already gave my verbal report to the LT. Hell, half the Muslims in here probably saw it, and so did the gangbangers hangin' around outside. Skinheads won't say nothin', but they don't have to."

"Who's Mulroney?" Mac asked.

"Jack Mulroney," Sullivan said. "He's in for assault-bar brawl, him against two homosexuals." Smirking, Sullivan added, "Not the fairest of fights."

Ciccone muttered, "More like a fairy fight." Hawkes shot him a disgusted look, which the CO ignored.

"Anyway, this is a step up for him," Sullivan said. "He's a brawler, but this is the first time he's actually killed someone."

Hawkes nodded and walked toward the free weights, his mind already racing ahead to the true conundrum he had to solve: the death of Malik Washburne.

He asked Ciccone, "Anybody see what happened to him?"

The CO shrugged.

From the gate, Sullivan said, "We were all busy lookin' at Barker getting shivved. I heard a clunk, turned around, and Washburne was on the floor."

Hawkes knelt down next to the body. Here, at least, he was in his element. No matter how he was feeling, he knew that what he was good at-what he was here for-was using his medical degree and his experience to glean answers from dead bodies.

Like everyone else here who wasn't a CO, Washburne was wearing the green dickies of a convict, though he had removed the shirt and was wearing only a white tank undershirt for weight lifting in the hot summer sun. He had apparently been growing his hair long in a seventies-style Afro-but it wasn't enough to hide the giant gash in his forehead.

Putting on his latex gloves-and sighing with the inevitablility of spending the next twenty-four hours with his hands smelling like sweat-drenched latex, a stench that grossed Hawkes out even more than the smell of dead bodies-Hawkes examined the gash. It looked about the right size to have been caused by one of the weights.

Standing up, he took out his Nikon D200 and started photographing the body from every angle. Once that was done, he took out an L-ruler and balanced it on Washburne's cheek, to record the size of the abrasion on his forehead.

Lying near the body was one of the free weights: a twenty-pound doughnut weight, based on the number stenciled into it. It had blood on one part of its edge.

Looking up, Hawkes saw that barely two feet from the body and the fallen weight was a bench press. One side of the barbell had three doughnut weights.

The other side had two. On the end with three doughnuts, the outermost weight was also a twenty-pounder.

Hawkes photographed the bench from as many angles as he could think of, then did the same for the doughnut free weight, both with and without the L-ruler.

"Jesus Christ," Ciccone muttered. "You need a freakin' diagram, Doc? The weight came off that barbell. Whoever wasted Washburne probably conked him on the head with it. Hell, one of the cons figured that out while lying on his belly. In case, y'know, it ain't obvious."

"It is obvious, but we still have to document it," Hawkes said, kneeling back down beside the body. "Prosecutors like it better when we're thorough. So do juries."

"I done jury duty, Doc. Only thing we liked was to go home fast."

Blood had pooled near the wound, but there was more blood on various parts of Washburne's body, all near the head or in spots where the gash could, conceivably, have dripped. Head wounds tended to gush, after all. Still, there was enough blood all over the place in here that it was best to collect as many samples as possible.

Reaching into his kit, Hawkes took out several Q-tips and meticulously swabbed blood from the head wound, from several other parts of the body, and also from the doughnut weight. Each swab went into a separate evidence bags, which Hawkes labeled with a Sharpie. Hawkes noticed that one area of blood was significantly drier than the others. He noted that that batch should be tested first-in both mathematics and forensics, the discrepant part of a set usually provided the most useful information.

As he was swabbing, he noticed a thread on the victim's shoulder. It looked like a green fiber. It probably belonged to Washburne's own prison outfit. Still, Hawkes grabbed his tweezers and pulled the fiber off, bagging and labeling that as well.

"Y'know, I thought the most boring thing in the world was the overnight shift, when the convicts are asleep," Ciccone said, shaking his head, his arms folded. "Looks like I was wrong, 'cause this is way more boring. Don't know how you do it, Doc, this is the boringest damn thing."

Hawkes didn't respond. Having established that Ciccone found what he did for a living dull, Hawkes found it easy to disregard the man and continue silently with his work.

Danny Messer had been surprised when Mac had tapped him to be on this detail, since Danny had some relatives who were incarcerated at RHCF. The Messer family had a significant number of members in the Tanglewood Boys. Danny had managed to stay out of that quagmire, graduating at the top of his class at the Academy, after which Mac had specifically requested him for his team.

Being in the crime lab was the best thing for him. While nobody had said anything-and several people, including Don Flack, had said it wouldn't matter-Danny didn't think he'd be entirely trusted on the street. He'd grown up with his family under surveillance by the feds, after all.

Besides, he liked working in the lab.

Still, he tried to avoid his home borough of Staten Island as much as possible. Danny hated coming back home, a feeling he seemed to share with most people who'd grown up on the island and left it.

Today, though, it wasn't possible. Stella and Lindsay were in the Bronx, and that left Danny and Sheldon to go with Mac-and all three of them would be needed. This was two bodies in a case that came down from on high: Albany to Deputy Inspector Scumbag Gerrard his own damn self.

At least he could take heart in the fact that the place was locked down. All the convicts were in their dorms. They had stopped calling them "cells" in medium-and minimum-security places a while ago, for no good reason that Danny could see. Probably for the same stupid reason they started calling them "corrections officers" instead of "prison guards," and "sanitation engineers" instead of "garbage men," and "flight attendants" instead of "stewardesses." And, for that matter, "crime scene investigators" instead of "police scientists." Danny thought it was stupid. He knew that the term corrections officer was created to apply to licensed state peace officers, as opposed to guards, who were minimum-wage hacks with no authority outside the prison-and, for that matter, that flight attendant was more accurate and non-gender-specific. He still thought it was stupid.

But he could do a George Carlin routine on the degradation of language on his own time. Right now, Mac trusted him on this case, and he would give it his best. Danny hadn't always given Mac good reason to trust him, so he appreciated those occasions when he did.

Of course, he gave Sheldon the whodunit. Nobody had seen Washburne get iced. Danny's guy, though, everyone saw what happened.

Still, people lied. Evidence didn't. That was why Danny rejected the life of lies that came with being a Tanglewood Boy and joined the crime lab.

So he worked the scene.

First was pictures. You had to record the scene as it was before you started touching things.

Once he got the full Vance Barker photo album, he looked more closely at the wound. Whoever did it nailed him right in the carotid. It was almost a perfect kill shot; anybody who got that artery sliced open would be dead in seconds. Whoever did this was professional or very lucky.

Since this place was medium security, Danny tended to think it was the latter. But that wasn't his problem right now.

Looking at the rest of the vic's face, he noticed that Barker had a split lip. Danny had almost missed it thanks to all the blood. Glancing up at the CO with him-Andros?-he asked, "When did our boy get into a fight?"

"What day is it?" Andros said with a snort. "I've only been here a month, and this guy's gotten into twelve fights."

"This one was recent."

"Oh, yeah-yesterday's ball game. There was a brawl after Barker did a takeout slide at second."

"Party never stops around here, huh?"

"Tell me about it."

Danny shook his head and stood up. He looked around at the chain-link fence, taking pictures of the blood spray on the metal.

From the other side of the fence, Mac was inspecting the outside. "Looks like our killer reached in here." He pointed with a gloved finger through one of the holes in the chain-link.

"Yeah," Danny said, "that tracks with the splatter I'm getting here."

Mac said, "There's blood smeared on the lower part of this hole. It's smeared moving outward, and that's consistent with a hand being yanked back. Probably rubbed against the chain-link with his pinkie." He looked at Sullivan. "I'm going to need to see your suspect. You haven't changed his clothes, have you?"

Sullivan shook his head. "Nah, they're all safe and sound and not moving."

"Good. Can you take me to him, and anybody who might've been standing around him?"

"Sure," Sullivan said. "They're all in Alpha Block."

"Good." He looked through the chain-link at the weight yard. Danny thought Mac's ultraserious face looked comical broken up by the metal. "Danny, Sheldon, you two finish up here. Once you've bagged and tagged everything, meet me back at the captain's office so we can arrange to have the bodies shipped to the morgue."

"Sure thing, Mac," Danny said.