Banning didn’t seem eager to let us go, despite all of his assurances. He finally nodded. “Well then. I guess I’m done here.”
Keith nodded once, dismissing the man as anyone accustomed to authority might. I was a basket case under my short blonde wig and stony mask, but Keith’s training as a sheriff kept our cover smooth.
The warden’s assistant turned and left us on our own.
“Where’s Danny?” I whispered, keeping my eyes forward.
“We’ll get to him. First things first.”
“Then Randell first,” I said. We’d planned on getting a few samples of milk first and then interviewing a couple of random inmates to put up a good show before zeroing in on Randell and Danny. But Danny’s name wasn’t on the register, and that changed everything for me.
“Agreed,” he said.
“I don’t like it.”
“Just stay focused. We’ll find him. Let’s go.”
I walked next to Keith as we headed through the huge domed atrium, struck by just how different Basal was compared to what I’d seen of Ironwood. New and clean, for one thing. Ordered and quiet. My experience visiting Danny was always filled with prying eyes, chattering wives, and families in a crowded visiting room. Kids crawling on the dirty floor, crying.
Basal looked more like a casual resort. The inmates were called members and dressed in neat dark blue slacks and tan shirts. The guards all wore black, cleaned and pressed. If they had weapons they were hidden.
I took it all in, but my mind was buzzing with images of Danny. I was scanning for him, searching every face and coming up only with winks, smiles, and scattered comments as we passed.
“Welcome to Basal, honey. Any time, baby.” None of it was loud or obnoxious, just isolated men reacting to a woman. I expected nothing less. If anything, their natural behavior took some of the edge off my anxiety.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw that Banning was talking idly to a CO by the door to the administration wing. Danny was below them in the bowels of the prison, I was sure of it. I wanted to grab Banning by the collar and demand he immediately take me to the member named Danny Hansen who wasn’t on their roster.
I wanted to throw myself into Danny’s arms and tell him that I had come to save him. That I’d found a way to get him out of here. I’d found the judge whose son Danny had killed. The man would help us, because I’d heard his confession and would tell the world of his own crimes if he didn’t help us.
The commons wing was a long hall with two tiers of cells on one side and a guard station on the other. The station was unmanned. Was that normal?
I didn’t have time to worry. We were suddenly there, not only inside Basal, but twenty yards from a cell on the ground floor with the numbers 134 stenciled in black above the barred door.
Two members leaning on the upper tier railing watched us idly as I followed Keith toward Bruce Randell’s cell.
“Nice,” one of the men muttered.
The whole thing was utterly surreal. The towering gray walls, the barred cages for convicted criminals like Danny, the raw power of incarceration in the great state of California reinforced by billions of dollars and millions of tons of concrete.
And there we were in the middle of it all, audacious enough to think we could walk in and out with impunity. Just like that.
I slowed and trailed Keith as we approached the door to Randell’s cell, unsure how I felt about seeing Danny’s enemy.
We had to make Randell our friend, because it wasn’t enough to put him on notice that we were going to bust his chops wide open if he touched one hair on Danny’s body. We also had to convince him to take our side. We might have gotten the keys to the prison, but we needed the keys to the warden and to Danny.
Keith spoke before I could see who was inside the cell.
“Bruce Randell?”
No answer.
I stepped up and saw a large man with a pitted face and light hair staring over a book from the lower bunk, unimpressed.
Keith showed the man his badge. “We’re with the inspector general’s office and we’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Randell sat up, immediately more amenable than he’d initially appeared. Naturally. Among other things, OIG stood alongside prisoners by investigating their grievances. He stood and dropped the book onto the bed.
His eyes glanced down my body, then met my own. I had expected to feel rage and was surprised when I didn’t. I only wanted him to help me save Danny now.
“Can we come in?” Keith asked.
“What’s this about?”
“Just a few questions about the milk supply. We’ve had complaints about spiking.”
Randell nodded once and stepped back.
I followed Keith into the cell, leaving the door open behind me. There was little privacy, but the cells on either side were unoccupied and no other members were close enough to hear us if we kept our voices down.
“Have a seat.” Keith motioned to the bed.
“I’d rather stand.”
“Sure. I don’t see why not.”
“I’d rather you sit,” I said, stepping to the side for a better view. “If that’s not too much to ask.”
Randell gave me a long look, then took a step back, leaned back against the edge of the sink, and crossed his arms.
“Good enough,” Keith said. He slipped a pen out of his pocket, peeled back the first page on his clipboard, and scanned the page.
Our first concern had been whether Randell might recognize Keith, the deputy sheriff who’d put him behind bars, but clearly he didn’t. The dye and facial hair threw him off.
“Bruce Randell. Number?”
Bruce rattled it off.
“You’ve been here how long?”
“Here or in prison?”
“In prison.”
“Eight years.”
“What were you convicted of, Bruce?”
“Distribution.”
“So you know substances, I take it.”
“You could say that. I used to, anyways.”
Keith lifted his eyes and stared at the man. “How about in Basal? Any that you know of?”
“Nope.”
“Really? Because that’s not what we’ve been told. What do you know about the milk here in Basal?”
Randell just looked at him and it struck me that maybe he actually did know something about spiked milk in Basal.
I knew that Keith wanted to play it out and go through the questioning as we’d agreed to, but that was before I knew Danny was missing. There was an open door at my back and beyond it a prison with a warden who might be breathing down our backs.
I couldn’t think of any reason to wait, so I stepped in front of Keith, hoping his body made a good enough shield behind me, and cut to the chase.
“Do you know a woman named Constance?”
He shook his head. “Don’t think so. Nope.”
His eyes were blank, not a hint of recognition. I’d expected to open the door with that question, but his reaction took me off guard.
