Deadlock (FBI Thriller #24)(58)
“Amazingly, she survived surgery, but the surgeon says her odds aren’t good. She’s in the ICU at Washington Memorial. Grayson is frothing at the mouth at the prison personnel. What’s worse for her is she specifically asked to be assigned the case, and now it’s blown up in her face. She told me news of their deal with Veronica got out faster than they thought it would.” He sighed. “They were moving Veronica to Regional today, a day too late.”
“It sounds like a monumental screwup on all sides.”
Savich said, “Now there are consequences. I’d like to drop you off at Washington Memorial to deal with all the folk there, media, Metro, politicians looking for a sound bite. It’ll be a madhouse. Grayson said she tried to call me last night, but she’d heard someone set fire to our house.” He grinned at Sherlock. “Grayson made it sound like I was a slacker.”
“Not a problem. I’ll get a whip and a chair if I need to, keep control of the zoo. You, a slacker? Find out how this happened, see how Marsia Gay managed it.”
Savich dropped Sherlock off at Washington Memorial Hospital with a quick kiss for good luck and drove directly to the D.C. Jail on D Street, fighting the ever-insane morning traffic. Grayson had asked to meet him there so they could question Marsia together, but Savich had asked her to wait. He wanted to speak to Marsia himself first.
The D.C. Jail, as the facility was called, was a huge campus housing both men and women, its large, plain buildings standing stolid behind well-maintained grounds. There were always lots of parking spaces. Savich looked around as he climbed out of his Porsche. He walked to the main entrance and was met there by Warden Putney, a tall, thin man with a bit of a stoop. He looked like he’d already been beaten about the head and shoulders since Veronica Lake’s attempted murder happened on his watch.
Savich wondered if Warden Putney would try to find excuses for what had happened, and sure enough, he started talking fast as he shook Savich’s hand. “I hate it when you think you’ve done everything right, when the guards do what they’re supposed to be doing, and still something like this happens. Veronica Lake was under watch by rotating guards. She had no contact whatsoever with Marsia Gay in the months they’ve been incarcerated here. After Lake made her deal to testify, we amped up her protection until she could be transferred to Regional. She was to be transferred today.” He drew a pained breath. “A frigging day too late. I’ll take you to the security room. It’s down the hallway.”
They were met by Wallace Freed, head of security for the women’s wing. He was comfortably in his fifties, bald with a bit of a beer belly, thick brows, and sharp eyes behind black-framed glasses that kept sliding down his nose. Freed showed them into a small security office where six large screens displayed live feeds from both inside and outside the prison. Freed sat down and typed on a keyboard, and soon they were watching a recorded video from the cafeteria. The warden said, “There are currently three hundred–plus inmates to feed, so meals are served in shifts. This is the early shift, for about eighty prisoners.”
Freed pointed. “Here’s Veronica Lake, head down, walking toward the serving line. See, there is no roughhousing, not a whiff of impending violence. Everything appears calm. Now watch.” Again, Freed pointed. “Look, eight prisoners are walking toward Lake, each from a different part of the cafeteria. It all looks accidental, their movements are fluid, easy. They’re even talking to each other, nothing loud, nothing threatening.”
Freed said, “Watch now, see Lake’s face? She knows something is wrong.” The prisoners are weaving around her, smooth and easy, until finally they begin to melt away and there’s only Veronica Lake left, lying on her back on the floor with a knife wound in her chest.
Savich leaned in close. “Did you find the shiv?”
“No. They got rid of it somehow, out of sight of the cameras,” Freed said.
Putney picked it up. “No way to know who stabbed her, either.”
Savich said, “Did you get anything from the prisoners who were in on this murder dance?”
“We’ve identified them from the video, isolated all eight. Prosecutor Grayson and two Metro detectives have interviewed each woman. None of them knows a thing. They claim they didn’t even see Veronica. They must have rehearsed what to say afterward when questioned. I’ve got to say, for a murder in plain sight, it was well planned and perfectly executed.”
Savich said, “I wouldn’t expect an amateur job from Marsia Gay. Of course, she’s behind it. You’re seeing her fine brain at work. Somehow, she got herself a small army she could trust to take Veronica out. I’d say to start, she picked one specific prisoner who has enough juice to keep the others in line, even now. I imagine each of them was offered a good deal to talk?”
Putney nodded. “Even early release for three of the nonviolent prisoners. No go. No one will say a word. Wallace, wind it back. There, stop. See that big woman with the tattoo of the rattlesnake on her biceps? Long dark hair in a braid? Looks like she eats nails for breakfast?”
At Savich’s nod, he said, “That’s Zanetti, Angela Zanetti, awaiting trial for murdering her boyfriend and his lover, for want of a better word, when she caught them in her bed. She’s one of the gang leaders, rules with an iron fist. Believe me when I say no one refuses a demand from Zanetti. She enjoys violence, incites it. Funny thing is, three of the eight weren’t under her thumb, at least that’s what I thought. The one prisoner with enough juice to pull in the others? Zanetti’s got the juice. She gets my vote.”