money when he left here. Have you looked for stolen cars? Or friends who might loan him a car?'
'That's one of our biggest questions,' Lucas said, tapping his finger on the tabletop. 'How's he getting around? He had to get a car from somewhere. Do you have any records of him talking about friends? Or did he have any friends here who might have hooked him up?'
'There were a couple of people he sort of hung with,' Hart said.
'But they're all still here, as far as I know.'
'Mike West,' Beloit said.
Grant snapped his fingers: 'I never thought of him.' To Lucas: 'West is a schizophrenic personality who can't stay on his meds. He'd get freaked out, you know, sometimes life would get on top of him, and he'd get violent- though it was aimless, more like excitement than rage. He never hurt anyone, maybe a couple of cut lips, but he scared people. Anyway, he knew Charlie on the outside, when they were growing up.'
'That's good,' Lucas said. 'We need to talk to him.'
'He's right in Minneapolis, at a halfway house,' Hart said. 'We can check before you leave. I'm not sure, but it seems to me he might've gotten out a couple of months before Charlie did.'
Beloit said, 'That's a possibility, I guess. But you know what bothers me?' She paused, getting her thoughts together, and then again held Lucas's eyes. 'When Charlie was out in the population, sometimes he'd stop and talk to the Big Three. They were friends, I think. Much as those people can be.'
Lucas: 'Big Three?'
Hart: 'Chase, Lighter, and Taylor, Lawrence Chase, Benjamin Lighter, and Carl Taylor. We think he killed at least two women, Charlie did, so they had something in common.'
Sloan said, 'Ah, shit. Biggie Lighter was a friend of his?'
Lucas leaned back and grinned at him. 'Your old buddy.' To the others: 'Sloan's the guy who put Biggie away.'
'I'd be more worried about Carl Taylor,' O'Donnell said. 'He's the one who spins out all these theories about why women need to be killed. He's the preacher. And some of these guys… I mean, some of them, go along.'
But Sloan looked at Lucas: 'Biggie Lighter used to cut the…' His eyes flicked sideways at Beloit, then back, '… penises off his victims, after he raped them. I don't know if he posed them.'
Hart said, 'Rice had his penis cut off?' When Lucas nodded, he said, 'That does sound like Biggie. His files say that he… there was some cannibalism involved.'
Beloit: 'Oh, yuck.'
'He's not a guy you mess with,' Grant said. 'When we're dealing with him, we use full protective restraints.'
THEY ALL SAT AROUND silently for a moment, looking at one another, until Hart picked it up again.
'But you know, when it's all said and done, none of this really sounds much like Charlie Pope. He's a crazy killer, but he was clumsy,' Hart said. 'Sam is right: that first one, the woman, sounds more like Carl Taylor. He's the one who goes on all the time about punishment. He told me once, in a therapy session, that if he had to do it all over again, he'd punish the women before he killed them so that they'd have a taste of hell before they went there. He said he'd hang them up naked and whip them like Jesus was whipped. He's welded together sex and punishment like…' He shrugged. 'Listening to him is like reading the Marquis de Sade.'
'Hang them up naked,' Lucas repeated.
'Yes. You know, so they were dangling and he could whip them all around…'
'Goddamnit,' Sloan said.
Lucas: 'Do you guys think Taylor and Lighter could be operating Pope by remote control?'
Dick Hart jumped in: 'Couldn't really be remote control, because they can't talk to him. These are the most highly restricted prisoners in the state. They have no contact with the outside.'
'Not even their families?' Sloan asked.
'Their families have disowned them,' Beloit said. 'Chase's sister said we should kill him if we ever got the chance. She was serious. Nobody in any of their families has ever come here or even called, except Taylor's, years ago. He was left some property, and his brother came in here to get him to sign it away. But that's been five or six years.'
Grant said, 'We know everything that goes in and out of their cells. We have people comb through their food before it goes in.'
'Do they have access to TV news?' Sloan asked.
'Well, sure…they have TVs in their cells.'
'So, if they programmed him, they could be getting off on it by watching the news.'
O'Donnell nodded: 'They could. Maybe that would be enough… to get them off, anyway.'
'If Pope's a robot,' Lucas asked, 'do you think they sent him out there deliberately, or he just went?'
'Charlie was going after women no matter what,' Grant said. He was the skeptical one: 'But this? Robots? I don't know.'
'Let's talk to Taylor and Lighter and Chase,' Sloan said to Lucas. 'What have we got to lose?'
Lucas looked at the others: 'What do you think?'
They all shrugged or nodded. 'Really don't have anything to lose- but don't go making any deals with them unless you get an okay in advance,' Hart said. 'They're gonna want something for talking.'
Beloit looked at Grant, who showed a small smile and said, from the corner of his mouth to Hart, 'Better read them the semen warning.'
Sloan bit first: 'What's that?'
'Lighter tends to hide semen around his cell. Or just keep it in his hand. We have a screen we keep up most of the time, but when we need to talk to him… Well, when you're least expecting it, zip, it's all over your face.'
'That's why prison guards carry clubs,' Lucas said.
'Yeah, clubs,' Hart said. He stood up and stretched. 'We'll keep him under control. But if the worst should happen…'
'Yeah?'
'There's a reflex to lick your lips. Don't do that.'
THEY HAD TO GO BACK to the Unsecured side of the administration building to arrange the visit to Taylor, Lighter, and Chase. Darrell Ross, the assistant administrator, was a friendly codger with a ring of white hair around his bald pate and a pipe rack on his desk. He leaned back in his leather chair and said, congenially, 'There's a question here of whether you're investigating them for a crime. If you're investigating them for a crime, you'll have to read them their rights. Then they've got a right to an attorney.'
'They're nuts,' Lucas said. 'They're locked up in a nuthouse.'
Ross frosted up: 'We don't use that language here. It's a little like referring to a paralyzed person as a crip. Most of them are harmless, and their problems are not of their own making.'
Lucas held his hands up: 'Sorry. I know that.'
Ross nodded at him, laced his fingers over his ample gut, and twiddled his thumbs for a second. 'Anyway, the Supreme Court says they get a lawyer. So if they ask, they get one. There are ways to work around that, and we'll try, but I'm just letting you know that there could be a hangup.'
'What ways to work around it?' Lucas asked.
'We'll tell them that if they want a lawyer, we'll have to isolate them for a few days before we can bring them up to the visiting room. Just to make sure that they don't have any contraband concealed inside their bodies. They hate the isolation. That might convince them that they don't need an attorney.'
'Is that legal?' Sloan asked.
'Supreme Court says we can use reasonable security measures.' The friendly old codger smiled a smile that suddenly looked a lot like a prison guard's smile. 'We get to say what's reasonable. Anyway-we'll try to get you in.'
