He punched the phone off and slid it back into his pocket and glanced at me. “My girlfriend.”
“Ah.”
“She doesn’t surf,” he said with a sigh. “She doesn’t get it. Thinks we’re just wasting time out here.”
I thought about my own experiences. Liz hadn’t always surfed. It was just beginning to become something we shared. But she’d never acted like she didn’t understand.
A sudden pang of loneliness struck my gut. She and I weren’t ever going to be in the water together again.
“Sometimes it takes awhile,” I said.
“I’m not sure,” the kid said, a skeptical look on his face.
I watched one last wave pulverize the rider, crushing him beneath a falling wall of white water.
I stood and put my hand on the kid’s shoulder.
“Give her time,” I said. “Or she’ll be gone before you know it.”
SEVENTY-ONE
The prison looked different.
When I’d visited last, it had looked sullen and isolated. Now, it resembled a shopping mall on the weekend.
Gathered near the main entrance were maybe five hundred people holding signs and candles. They seemed to be equally divided between those calling for Simington’s death and those who were opposed. The scene was calm at the moment, but I knew as the day wore on, the tension would grow.
I spotted Kenney lurking at the perimeter of the crowd. He saw me, too, nodded in greeting, and walked toward me.
“Surprised to see you,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Not really sure why I’m here.”
“They letting you in to see him?”
“I called earlier and set it up.”
Kenney shoved his hands in his pockets and lifted his chin in the direction of the cameras and crowd. “These clowns know who you are?”
“They did in San Diego. Hoping they don’t up here.” “If they swarm you, I’ll come run interference,” he said. “Thanks.”
We stood there, awkwardness filling the space between us. “I’m not sorry for him,” he said. “But I’m sorry you have to go in there.”
I understood what he was getting at, and I appreciated the effort. But at the same time, if he’d known what I’d done earlier in the day, I didn’t think we’d be having the same kind of conversation.
“Thanks,” I told him. “I’m gonna head in.”
He held out his hand. “Good luck.”
We shook, and I nodded without saying anything. Kenney turned and walked back to where I’d first spotted him. He put his arm around a woman whom I’d failed to see initially. She leaned into him, her head on his shoulder.
His sister.
One more victim.
I looked at the prison and went in for the final time.
SEVENTY-TWO
Security was tighter. I was patted down twice, and my ID was checked three times. I was led to a different area this time, a room off the hallway past the usual visitors’ area. The room was about twenty by twenty, with a table in the middle and several folding chairs.
Simington sat in one of the chairs, a plate with a huge hamburger and a pile of French fries in front of him. Two guards, at opposite ends of the room, watched him with the same pleasure they might watch a late-night infomercial.
He smiled and gestured at the plate. “All day. I get pretty much whatever I want. I’ve got a pizza, a lasagna, a plate of pancakes, and a six pack of Pepsi coming in tonight for the last one.”
When I’d called to arrange the visit, they’d told me he’d be in a different room, but I wasn’t prepared to be so close to him. Not having the glass between us was unnerving. The barrier had provided a buffer for me, something that kept me from realizing he was a real person. Without it, I couldn’t escape that he was a living, breathing human being.
About to die.
I slid into the metal folding chair across the table from him. “That’s great.”
He stuffed a fry into his mouth and nodded. “Like they’re trying to make up for what they’re about to do to me. Oh well, huh?”
