Raveneau got absorbed in another set of photos, several of which were of a younger Thomas Casey. He looked up as Candel tapped him on the shoulder.
‘How’s it coming, dude?’
‘There’s a young woman in here. I’d like to know her name.’
‘I saw her. She’s hot.’
‘Ask him her name.’
‘That’s easy.’
‘And see if you can find out when he took most of these.’
‘Why don’t you sign up and I’ll see if he’s cool about adding you.’
‘Or my partner since she’s already signed up.’
‘Yeah, maybe, want me to text him?’
‘Sure.’
An answer came back within seconds.
‘He says that’s fine.’
‘What’s fine, friending la Rosa or do I have to sign up?’
‘Oh, yeah, right, hang on.’ Raveneau heard the return ping. ‘He wants you to sign up.’
‘What’s the matter with my partner’s page?’
‘Want me to ask?’
‘No, I’ll sign up.’
‘I’ll help you. It won’t take long.’
It didn’t and then it didn’t matter because Matt Frank didn’t respond. Raveneau shut his computer down. He knew there was something more Candel needed to say and it came out as they left the Hall.
‘Matt said it got weird after you left that day. His uncle is seriously angry about you going into Dad’s house. He also ripped him for showing you the memorial. He told Matt he’ll be the reason his dad’s remains end up in a box in some police storage building. His uncle doesn’t think much of the police, dude. And he gets super tweaked when people show up uninvited and blow off the No Trespassing signs on the gate.
‘But still, Matt’s pretty cool about his uncle. He said he owes him for just about everything. He said Dad acted closer to people he had just met than him, that he liked new people more than he liked people he knew, but Uncle Thomas isn’t like that. His uncle is his main investor in the coffee thing.’
‘Ask him how his uncle made his money.’
‘I already know. They had land, dude, like a whole lot of it.’
‘Where?’
‘I don’t know, but it wasn’t in Hawaii. He like sold land here and bought that ranch. He says his uncle has megabucks. But bottom line is Uncle Casey is planning to get even with you.’
‘For what?’
‘I don’t really know. He told Matt to do like a video of what he saw when he went up to our dad’s house and you were there. Matt was supposed to FedEx it out today.’
‘Did he?’
‘Yeah, I think he did.’
‘So it’s on its way here?’
‘Yeah, like FedExing to your boss, whoever that is. He said it would get here tomorrow.’
FORTY-SIX
Late that night a new storm out of the Gulf of Alaska arrived and this one lived up to the hype. When the phone rang at 3:00 a.m. Raveneau automatically reached for it as he had so many years when he was on-call. But it was the alarm company calling for Celeste to tell her the power was out. It was out here too and on the roof the cold rain blew sideways and he didn’t see any lights on south of Market Street.
By 5:3 °Celeste was anxious to get to the bar, worried about food spoiling with the small walk-in and the refrigerators down. The power was still on where her chef, Bo, lived and she wanted to get crab meat and a few of the more delicate things over to his refrigerator. Raveneau drove with her and loaded the food in the back of his car. It was raining so hard he barely heard his cell ringing when he got in his car.
‘Is that rain?’ Coe asked.
‘It is.’
‘Well, that’s not good. Drury wants to talk to you. I want to get you on a flight this morning out of SFO. I’ll be going with you.’
‘Going where?’
‘Colorado. He’s at ADX Florence.’
‘What plane is going to take off in this weather? SFO will be backed up for hours.’
‘We’ll get out on the corporate side. How are you with turbulence?’
‘Oh, I love bouncing around in the air not knowing if the plane is going to come apart. That’s my idea of fun.’
It was anything but fun when they crossed over the Sierras. Underneath them, the interstate was closed, not even the snow plow drivers were out. As they crossed into Nevada the plane dropped suddenly and way too long for Raveneau. He heard the engines power-up, and the long fall ended in plane-shuddering turbulence that slammed the jet sideways, and wrenched his gut. He thought anyone who didn’t notice these storms were getting more intense wasn’t paying attention.
An hour and forty minutes later they were on the ground in a black Suburban eating sandwiches and crossing flat plain covered in snow, rolling toward what Coe jokingly called San Francisco’s sister prison because of its nickname ‘Alcatraz of the Rockies.’ The Unabomber was here. So was the ‘Shoe Bomber,’ and Timothy McVeigh before his ticket got punched. Ramzi Yousef had a cell, and others.
Drury was in solitary. Raveneau slowly ate the turkey sandwich and thought about that.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Coe said. ‘You’re thinking the FBI has too much money.’
‘Why is Drury all the way out here?’
‘He’s out here because I really don’t know where the threat to him might come from. Weren’t you the one who said he might be our one link?’
When they turned off Highway 67 Raveneau looked from the guard posts to the snowy mountains beyond. They went through the gate and then it took awhile before Raveneau sat down with Drury.
When he did, Drury was sullen and angry. He was disconnected. His answers came sporadically and he looked away purposefully. Contempt radiated from his eyes. He was nothing like the social animal Raveneau saw at the bar in San Leandro and that wasn’t all that long ago.
‘Do you know where you are, John?’
‘Prison.’
‘But do you know where?’
‘I don’t fucking care where.’
‘You’re in a supermax in Colorado.’
Drury rattled his shackles and spittle worked its way to the corners of his lips.
‘I’m here because I made a deal with scuzzbag liars.’
‘You didn’t keep up your end.’
‘Fuck you, man.’
‘I went back to the cabinet shop; I’ve figured some things I want to talk with you about it.’ Raveneau waved his hand slowly at the walls of the room. ‘But, I agree, you don’t belong here.’
‘So get me out now.’
‘Your lawyer is working on it. Remember, you wanted to do everything through your lawyer.’
The table was concrete and bolted to the floor. Drury’s shackles looped through an iron ring set in the concrete floor. This was a prison that worked on prisoners until they were broken down enough or old enough to get fed into lesser security prisons. Drury had the energy of a young man and was not aware of how systematically and relentlessly his psyche would get destroyed.
‘Where are you at on the police officer who was killed?’
‘He pushed me. I tripped and fell backwards into him. He fell on to the freeway. It was an accident.’
‘Do you think you should do time for the accident?’
‘I’m already doing time.’
‘Five years, ten years, two years, what do you think?’
‘It was an accident. With the woman I got scared the police were going to kill me.’
‘They probably were.’
‘They definitely were so I didn’t have a choice.’
Drury stared and then surprisingly allowed, ‘I know I’ll do some time.’
‘OK, then what’s a fair sentence?’
‘Fuck your games, man.’
‘Give me a number and then we’ll talk about how to get you out of here. It’s why I flew out from SF this morning.’
‘Three years.’
‘That might be right.’ Raveneau paused. ‘But I think it’s going to be longer. Here’s where you really are, right now. You’re where the rule of law doesn’t matter, despite what your lawyer tells you. You’re being looked at for possible terrorism charges and once they do that they can keep you forever. I mean literally forever. This isn’t your parents’ United States any more. They can keep you and never charge you. You could go ten years, twenty years, your whole life, just like the guys in Gitmo, and I’m not exaggerating at all. So what you need to do is get yourself back to the place where the rule of law applies, then get sentenced and do your time and get out. You do that by giving up the guys you’re protecting.’