Silent Joe by T. Jefferson Parker Read Free Book Online

and a guy like Sammy Nguyen wants to parlay her for new rattrap.
    You tell me about human nature. I give up.
     

CHAPTER THREE
     
     

 
    L unchtime in the Men's Central Jail mess hall, two hundred fifty inmates and three guards armed with nothing but pepper spray to keep the order. I stood with my back to one wall and watched the men walk in. The rules are: single file, hands in your pockets, seat yourself left to right at the next available table, no talking until you sit down with your tray. No talking with inmates at other tables.
    It's quiet. Most of these guys can get along. Anyone who can't is put into protective custody in Module J, or given administrative segregation in Mod F, and they eat in their cells. Still, this is where the trouble happens if it's going to happen. The violence is usually quick. Nobody sees anything.
    Last week one of the young Mexicans shanked a big black man— earning respect. The blacks will retaliate somehow, someday. If there's big violence in the air—the kind that trickles down from San Quentin or Pelican Bay—we guards can feel it. It gets even quieter than usual. Inmates do odd little things that are out of character for them: a glutton doesn't eat his food; an amiable guy goes froggy on you; nobody wants to use the shower or the day room. So we know something is going down, just by the feel of the place.
    The inmates get fifteen minutes to eat and file out. Eyes usually down.
    Laceless, jail-issue sneakers slapping quietly on the floor. They turn their pockets inside out when they pass the guard.
    In the mess hall the inmates travel in self-segregated gangs known as cars. We're a "brown" jail—predominantly Latin. We've got two Latin cars—one for citizens, and one for illegal’s. Then there's the Asian car, the black car. The white car is called the "wood" car. Wood is short for peckerwood. The driver is the guy in the back of each car. He's the heavy, the leader. If we've got a problem with someone, we'll go to that heavy, let him establish some discipline. Otherwise we'll punish the whole car. In jail, peer pressure can be intense.
    I made it through lunch before Sergeant Delano told me to go home and stay home.
    "The shrinks will be in touch with you, Joe—the Deputy-Involved Shooting people. That's Sergeant Mehring and Norm Zussman. Don’t worry about it, you did the right thing. They're not out to get you. Besides, you look like you could use some rest."
    "Can't I come to work, sir?"
    "You're on a paid leave, Joe. Take it. Go to the beach. Date a girl fishing."
    "I'd rather work."
    The fact of the matter was that I didn't have anything better to do work. The jail was my world, just as Hillview had been my world until Will Trona took me out of it.
    "Go."
    So I didn't fight it. I was so tired I could hardly get myself to parking lot. The voice inside started to mock me, but even my conscience was too tired to keep it up.
    I just put one foot in front of the other and told myself that Will was dead, but life would go on, life would go on, life would go on.
    When I finally got to Will's car one of the FBI guys from the Federal Building was standing there looking at the BMW. His name was Steve Marchant. Thirty-five, maybe, slender but strong.
    "I wish I could work this homicide," he said.
    "Anaheim PD's got it."
    "Wrong—it's yours now. Birch and Ouderkirk have it. The sheriff prevailed because you're one of their own."
    I didn't know what to say. I wondered how it would go, to have my fellow deputies investigating the murder of my father. Rick Birch in the homicide detail had a great reputation. I'd met him—he was old and weathered and smart. I didn't know Ouderkirk.
    "Joe, this the girl you saw last night with Will?"
    He palmed a wallet-sized school picture at me. Held it low and kind of secretively, like he was trying to sell me something he'd stolen.
    Easy enough to answer, though.
    "Yeah," I said. "That's Savannah."
    "Bingo," he said, pocketing the photo. "Describe