Four Walls

9

MAC TAYLOR WALKED THOUGHTFULLY across the prison yard, contemplating the life of Malik Washburne.

He'd been born with the name Gregory Washburne, and he'd been a uniformed cop, assigned to the one-oh-eight in Long Island City, the neighborhood in Queens where he grew up. Mac had met him once or twice, and he'd struck Mac as a good, conscientious cop. He always made sure that crime scenes were preserved and took some of the best notes of any uniform Mac had worked with.

Mac also knew that he, like far too many cops, was fighting alcohol addiction. He'd worn an AA pin on his uniform, which was against regulations, but his sergeant let him get away with it in light of his good work.

Four years ago, though, he had been instrumental in nailing a drug gang working out of the Robinsfield Houses. The gang had been led by one of Washburne's childhood friends.

Mac knew how difficult that could be.

Once the trial ended and Washburne's friend was convicted, Washburne handed in his shield and his weapon and became a community activist. He'd already converted to Islam, mainly because of its provisions against drinking alcohol, and after resigning from the department, he also changed his first name to Malik. He'd been doing good work helping to keep Long Island City clean after the arrest of their main drug gang. Last Mac had heard, he was volunteering at the Kinson Rehab Center on Queens Boulevard.

Turning to the CO escorting him-Flack's friend Sullivan-Mac asked, "How did Washburne wind up in here?"

Sullivan shrugged. "Fell off the wagon. Way he told it, one of the kids he was workin' with at that rehab center in Queens he volunteered at OD'd on him. He just lost it. Went to a liquor store, bought the first bottle he could grab off the shelf, and started guzzlin'. Then he got behind the wheel, ran a red light, and killed two people."

"That's a damn shame." And Mac meant it. Washburne was a good man, and it saddened him to see such a man brought so low by his addiction.

"Model prisoner, though," Sullivan said. "He did lotsa mediatin' between the Muslims and the skinheads. Honestly, he did more good than the damn ball game did."

The pair of them had now walked most of the way across the yard and were heading into the long building that housed Jack Mulroney.

"It's funny, Detective, me and Donnie were just talkin' about you today."

"Oh?" That surprised Mac.

"Yeah, we had breakfast-catchin' up, y'know? He told me you were the best."

"That was good of him." Mac knew the words sounded inadequate, but taking compliments had never been his strong suit. Besides, lately he didn't really feel like the best. How much of that was due to the way he lost control with Clay Dobson and how much was due to the way he was stumbling through his relationship with Peyton Driscoll, he couldn't say.

"Look, Donnie don't pay compliments that don't mean nothin'. He's got sincerity oozin' outta those blue eyes of his. So if he says you're the best, I'm inclined to believe him." He hesitated. "Which is good-'cause I can take or leave Barker, but Washburne was a good guy."

"We'll find out who killed him, Officer." Those words were said with more confidence. Barker's stabbing had distracted attention from Washburne, but Mac knew the evidence would point to his killer.

Just as Sullivan moved to open the door to A Block, the door opened from the inside. Another CO, a small, pale man with a large hook nose, was escorting a prisoner outside. Said prisoner was in leg irons. Mac was surprised a medium-security prison even had leg irons, since those were generally reserved for maximum-security facilities.

"Jesus, Grabowski, we were just comin' to see this asshole."

"This Mulroney?" Mac asked.

The other CO, Grabowski, said, "Yeah. I was told to bring him to interrogation."

"Perfect timing," Mac said. Mulroney's right arm was covered in blood. "Hold him still, please." He held up his camera and took several pictures. "I'm gonna need those clothes. I'll clear it with Flack," he added quickly when Grabowski started to object. "Just take us to where he can change. I'll bag his clothes, he can change into fresh ones, and then we'll talk to him."

Grabowski shrugged. "Fine, whatever."

Mulroney was quiet throughout these proceedings. He wasn't smiling, exactly, but he wasn't frowning either. Based on what Sullivan had said earlier, this was Mulroney's first kill. Mac remembered the first time he was responsible for taking a human life, when he served in the Marines in Beirut. He hadn't thought it would be a big deal-they'd trained him in this, after all-but the image of the bullets from his M16A1 slicing into an enemy soldier's body had been seared on his brain ever since. He didn't sleep for several nights after that.

Killing a person changed you. Jack Mulroney was about to learn that lesson the hard way.

But while Mac had taken a life in the service of his country, Mulroney had done so for personal reasons. He would be punished. Mac would see to that.

The procedure took several minutes: Mulroney had to have the leg irons removed, the dickies were taken off his person and put in one of Mac's evidence bags, Mulroney put on fresh dickies, and then Grabowski reapplied the leg irons. Sullivan and Grabowski then escorted them both to interrogation, where Flack and Ursitti were waiting.

The interrogation room was a bland room that they got to by walking down a bland corridor. Most municipal buildings in New York City had a similar look to them: off-white brick walls, brown or green molding (brown, in this case), and filthy linoleum floors. RHCF was no different.

Sullivan and Grabowski led them through a wooden door into a small room that had a Formica table with one chair on one side and two chairs on the other. It looked like most every other interrogation room in the world: no clocks, no windows, no hint that there was a world beyond the room, aside from a small video camera in the corner. (Thanks to television, everyone knew that there was somebody watching on the other side of the two-way mirror, so most places had abandoned the pretense and lost the mirror, just sticking with a camera to record the interview. Besides, having a recording made things easier at the trial phase.)

Grabowski sat Mulroney down, leaving the leg irons on. A single handcuff was attached to the table, but the leg irons made that redundant.

Ursitti dismissed the other COs, leaving Mulroney alone with Flack, Ursitti, and Mac. Flack sat down across from Mulroney and started to remind him of his rights, but Mulroney cut him off.

"Let's cut the crap. I killed the asshole, all right?"

Flack looked up at Mac. "Damn, I'm good."

"Very funny," Mulroney said, "but what's the point of playing coy? El-Jabbar and the rest of his towelheads all saw me shiv the prick, and you guys probably got eighteen kinds of tests you can do on the shiv to show that I held it."

"Why'd you do it?" Flack asked. "You're just a garden-variety gay-basher. Why'd you graduate to murder?"

Mulroney shrugged. "Sonofabitch did a take-out slide."

"This was at the ball game?" Flack was taking notes now.

"Yeah." Mulroney looked up at Ursitti. "Some genius thought it'd help 'foster a commonality' between us and the towelheads if we played a nice friendly game of baseball. National pastime and all that shit." He snorted. "I don't even know what 'foster a commonality' means."

"So what happened?" Flack asked.

Mulroney shrugged again. "It was the top of the third. The towelheads were up. I was playing second, Hunt was at short."

"Brett Hunt," Ursitti added. "He's in for gay-bashing, too."

"Good guy," Mulroney said. "We made a good keystone."

"Yeah, I'm sure Derek Jeter and Robinson Canу bonded over beating up gay guys, too," Flack said sarcastically. "Get on with it."

"So Barker gets up and he draws a walk. Next guy was Yarnall."

"Ryan Yarnall," Ursitti said. "He's in for check fraud."

Mulroney laughed. "He hits like an accountant, too. He struck out on three pitches. Swings through every damn thing, it was hilarious. Then Yoba gets up."

"Greg Yoba, in for robbery."

"Right, and he grounds it to Hunt. I run to second, Hunt flips it to me, and I'm all set to turn around and throw to first, when, wham! The sonofabitch picks up his leg as he's sliding into second. My shin still hurts."

"That when the fight broke out?" Mac asked.

"Yeah. Bastard shouldn't have done that."

"So you killed him," Flack said.

Mulroney shrugged. "It wasn't right. And the COs broke it up before I could get my own back."

"In the majors," Flack said, "they don't shiv guys who do that."

Smiling, Mulroney said, "Well, maybe they should."

"This isn't a laughing matter," Mac snapped. "A man is dead. Before, you were getting out of here in a couple of years. Now, assuming you don't get the death penalty, you'll be spending the rest of your life in those green dickies, and not in as nice a place as this."

"Maybe," Mulroney said. "But he deserved it. At least I showed that sonofabitch what for. It was worth it just for that."

Flack had a few more perfunctory questions for Mulroney, but the interview was essentially over. The man had confessed. Mac would make sure the evidence supported that confession-and if it didn't, he'd find out what Mulroney was hiding.

But the Barker murder wasn't the real mystery here-Washburne was. To Ursitti, Mac said, "Lieutenant, I'd like to interview some of your COs."

"Well," Flack said, "we're definitely interviewing one of 'em. See, they're really not supposed to be able to make those toothbrush shivs."

Mac looked at Ursitti. "How would one of the inmates get their hands on a razor?"

"When they shave. They try that crap all the time, putting tinfoil in the safety razor so it looks like the blade's in there."

Frowning, Mac said, "Don't they use magnets to test that?"

"In max security, yeah. I, uh, managed to finagle getting us one." Ursitti suddenly was interested in the pattern on the linoleum floor.

Mac regarded the lieutenant. "You're not supposed to have one of those?"

"Ain't in the budget, and if it ain't in the budget, it ain't in the prison." Ursitti said those words as if they were a mantra he'd heard over and over again-probably from Russell. "But-well, let's just say we got us an electric magnet under the table."

"So who handled shaving this morning for Mulroney's block?"

Flack said, "According to the duty roster, it was Ciccone."

"That's the guy guard-dogging Hawkes."

Ursitti said, "Well, your guy's getting a new guard dog, 'cause Ciccone's ass'll be in that chair in a minute."

Sure enough, Ciccone came in a few minutes later, palming sweat off his forehead. No doubt he was grateful to be in the air-conditioned interview room after being outside for so long. Looking for all the world like an eight-year-old who'd been summoned to the principal's office, Ciccone fell more than sat in the chair.

Flack flipped through the pages of a clipboard that Ursitti had handed him. "According to this, you had shaving duty this morning in A Block."

"Yeah, that's right." Ciccone studied the table intently, not looking into Flack's, or anyone else's, eyes.

"You gave them each a safety razor."

"That's the procedure, yeah. They go inside, they do their business, then they gimme back the razors."

Mac said, "Isn't procedure also to check each of those razors when they give them back to make sure that the razors are intact?"

"Yeah, but there's, like, sixty guys in there, and they start pissing and moaning when you stop to check every single one. 'Sides, most of 'em don't bother, so I just check 'em randomly. That's SOP around here."

Flack put the clipboard down on the table. It only made a mild clack when he did, but Ciccone flinched.

"SOP is also to use a magnet to check the razor," Mac said. "According to Lieutenant Ursitti here, you've been issued an electric magnet that you're supposed to place every safety razor on to make sure that the blade's still in there."

Now Ciccone rolled his eyes, and Mac couldn't help but notice how bloodshot they were. Fresh sweat was beading on his forehead even though it was still nice and cool in the interrogation room.

"Right, SOP, sure. I wasn't 'issued' anything, and there ain't no procedure for that. Yeah, we got the magnet, but it ain't on any list of prison equipment, right, Lieutenant?"

Ursitti had remained calm throughout, but his eyes were blazing now as he said, "You know damn well we got that on the down-low, Ciccone-that doesn't change the fact that I ordered you to use the thing."

"Order? How can you order me to use something we ain't supposed to have?"

"I swear to you, Ciccone, there will be a disciplinary hearing, and-"

"Knock yourself out, Lieutenant." Ciccone was now looking straight at Ursitti. "But I didn't do anything wrong by not using that magnet."

Mac said, "Nevertheless, Officer Ciccone, Jack Mulroney was able to create a weapon used for murder thanks to your negligence. Even if you hadn't used the magnet, you didn't actually check Mulroney's razor."

"I told you, I was doing a random-"

"It didn't occur to you to check the razor of the man who got into a brawl the previous day?"

Ciccone had nothing to say to that, which didn't surprise Mac, so he continued: "I don't suppose the fact that you didn't use the magnet had anything to do with your four-alarm hangover?"

At that, Ciccone tensed. So did Ursitti, though it was due to anger rather than nervousness. The CO said, "I don't know what-"

"You're sweating, your eyes are bloodshot, you're sensitive to noise. The magnet's electric, so it makes a humming noise-that probably would've driven you crazy." Mac leaned forward, his palms resting on the table, and stared right at Ciccone. "A man's dead because of your negligence, Officer Ciccone. Maybe we can't nail you for not using the magnet, but I intend to make sure that you pay for your role in this."

"Fine," Ciccone said, "then I ain't saying a goddamn thing without my lawyer."

"Then we're done here," Flack said. He looked at Ursitti, who sent Ciccone to wait in the captain's office.

They talked to a few more COs, among them Sullivan. They all more or less repeated the same story, corroborating what the evidence seemed to indicate.

At least as it pertained to the Barker murder. The details of the Washburne murder remained elusive.

"I didn't see a damn thing," Sullivan said. "And I don't mind tellin' you, I'm really pissed off about it. Washburne was a good police back in the day, and he was what you call your model prisoner. I mean, mosta these guys, the ones that aren't stone-cold assholes, they try to be polite, y'know? They figure it'll help with parole and all that-but Washburne was genuine. He was-what's the word-repentant, that's it."

Mac smiled. "That's where the word penitentiary comes from. A place intended to make a criminal repent."

"Yeah, that's prob'ly why they changed it to correctional facility, 'cause these guys mostly don't go in for repenting." Sullivan snorted. "Course, they ain't all that correct, neither."

When they were finished with Sullivan, a final CO came in: Randy Andros.

Flack was looking at a different clipboard this time. "You've only been here a month?"

Andros nodded. "Worked in Sing Sing for the last few years. My wife got a job in Jersey, so we moved to Elizabeth, and the commute to Ossining from there sucks." He shook his head. "I'm sorry I bothered."

Ursitti said, "They'll get over it."

"Over what?" Mac asked with a frown.

"The COs," Ursitti said. "They assume any new guy is a rat."

Mac hardly needed that bit of slang to be translated: a new CO was assumed to be a mole from Internal Affairs. Having recently been subject to the whims of the NYPD's own Internal Affairs Unit, Mac could understand the disdain.

"So I get treated like crap. Kind of a comedown after actually getting invited to weekly poker games and dinners and stuff."

As much as Mac sympathized, he really wasn't interested in this man's personal life. Neither was Flack, as he immediately started asking questions about Mulroney, about Barker, and about Washburne.

Andros had nothing new to add about the former two, but he had a radically different perspective on the latter: "He was just another asshole. Probably pissed somebody off and got himself conked on the head."

"You didn't like him?" Mac asked.

"We're not supposed to like the convicts, Detective, we're supposed to guard them. I don't get why this guy was supposed to be treated differently just because he used to be a cop. He's just like all the rest." Andros barked a bitter laugh. "He even tried the usual crap with his meds."

"What do you mean?" Flack asked.

"Most of these guys are on medication. Some of them try all sorts of tricks to not take their pills. This morning, I was supervising the distribution of meds in Charlie Block, and Washburne tried to palm his Klonopin."

"That's used to treat anxiety," Mac said. "Not surprising for a morally centered man who committed vehicular homicide."

"Morally centered, right," Andros said with a shrug. "If he's so damn morally centered, why'd he start drinking again? And don't give me that 'alcoholism is a disease' crapola. You get a disease, you don't have a choice, but you choose to walk into the bar and order a beer, know what I mean?"

Mac was starting to suspect that there was more to Andros's socialization troubles than just the COs' belief that he might be a rat, but said nothing.

Once they finished with Andros, Danny and Sheldon joined them in the interrogation room. Danny said, "Hope that 'copter ain't got a weight limit, 'cause we packed up half the yard to bring back with us."

"Plus two bodies," Sheldon said. "I'll do up the receipt for that."

Mac nodded. RHCF would need receipts for the bodies of both Washburne and Barker. Normally, it would have to be from the medical examiner, but Sheldon's time as an ME meant he was authorized to provide it in the absence of someone currently attached to the ME's office.

Flack leaned back in his chair. "I've got about eight million more people to talk to."

"I'll stay and give you a hand." Mac turned to his subordinates. "You two, get back to the lab, start processing everything. And tell Peyton, or whichever ME's on duty, that Washburne's the priority of the two."

Sheldon nodded. "Sure thing, Mac."

They headed for the door. Mac followed them both into the corridor. "Sheldon, any thoughts on what happened to Washburne?"

"Looks like somebody hit him on the head with a weight. Beyond that…" Sheldon shrugged. "With any luck, we'll find something on the weight, but there were forty-five people in there, and it's a public place. It's going to be hard to find any trace evidence that'd be meaningful, especially with a murder weapon that's been touched by so many people."

"Well, Flack and I will be talking to all forty-three suspects. See what you can find."

"We're on it, Mac."

With that, the pair of them headed down the corridor, accompanied by two COs.

Mac knew that convictions usually came from a combination of eyewitness testimony and forensic evidence. One was good, but both were better. With that in mind, he trusted Sheldon and Danny to find the latter, while he stayed behind to help Flack with the former.