Ransom

Carlton Waters had been convicted of the murder of a neighbor and his wife, and attempting unsuccessfully to murder both their children. He had been seventeen years old at the time, and his partner in crime had been a twenty-six-year-old ex-con who had befriended him. They had broken into their victims' home and stolen two hundred dollars. Waters's partner had been put to death years before, and Waters had always claimed that he did none of the killing. He had just been there, and he had never swerved once from his story. He had always said he was innocent, and had gone to the victims' home with no foreknowledge of what his friend intended. It had happened quickly and badly, and the children had been too young to corroborate his story. They were young enough not to be a danger in identifying them, so they had been badly beaten but ultimately spared. Both men were drunk, and Waters had claimed he blacked out during the murders, and remembered nothing.

The jury hadn't bought his story, and he'd been tried as an adult, despite his age, found guilty, and lost a subsequent appeal. He had spent the majority of his life in prison, first in San Quentin, and then in Pelican Bay. He had even managed to graduate from college while there, and was halfway through law school. He had written a number of articles, about the correctional and legal systems, and had developed a relationship with the press over the years. With his protestations of innocence throughout his incarceration, Waters had become something of a celebrity prisoner. He was editor of the prison newspaper, and knew just about everyone in the prison. People came to him for advice, and he was greatly respected within the prison population. He didn't have Morgan's aristocratic good looks. He was tough, strong, and burly. He was a bodybuilder and looked it. Despite several incidents in his early days when he was still young and hotheaded, in the past two decades he was a model prisoner. He was a powerful, fearsome-looking man, but his prison record was clean, and his reputation was bronze, if not golden. It was Waters who had notified the paper of his release and he was pleased that they were there.

Waters and Morgan had never been associates, but they had always been distantly respectful of each other, and had had a few minor conversations about legal issues while Waters waited to see the warden, and Peter chatted with him. Peter had read several of his articles in the prison newspaper, and the local newspaper, and it was hard not to be impressed by the man, whether innocent or guilty. He had a fine mind, and had worked hard to achieve something in spite of the challenge he had had growing up in prison.

As Peter walked through the gate, feeling almost breathless with relief, he looked back over his shoulder once, and saw Carl Waters shaking the warden's hand as the photographer from the local paper snapped his picture. Peter knew he was going to a halfway house in Modesto. His family still lived there.

“Thank you, God,” Peter said as he stood still for a moment, closed his eyes, and then squinted up at the sun. This day felt like it had been a lifetime coming. He brushed a hand across his eyes so no one would see the tears springing from them, as he nodded at a guard, and set off on foot toward the bus stop. He knew where it was, and all he wanted now was to get there. It was a ten-minute walk, and as he hailed the bus and stepped aboard, Carlton Waters was posing for one last photograph in front of the prison. He told his interviewer again that he had been innocent. Whether or not he was, he made an interesting story, had become respected in prison over the past twenty-four years, and had milked his claims of innocence for all they were worth. He had been talking for years about his plans to write a book. The two people he had allegedly killed, and the children who had been orphaned as a result, twenty-four years before, were all but forgotten. They were obscured by his articles and artful words in the meantime. Waters was winding up the interview as Peter Morgan walked into the bus terminal and bought a ticket to San Francisco. He was free at last.

Chapter 2

Ted Lee liked working swing shift. He had done it for so long by now that it suited him. It was an old comfortable habit. He worked the four to midnight in General Works, Inspector Detective Lee in the San Francisco police force. He handled robberies and assaults, the usual smorgasbord of criminal activity. Rapes went to the Sex detail. Murders to Homicide. He had worked Homicide for a couple of years in the beginning and hated it. It was too grim for him, the men who made a career of it always seemed strange to him.