The Next Accident - Lisa Gardner [118]
After all this time. Years of being alone, decades of having no family left.
“Son of a bitch,” he whispered. And then more gutturally, “Pierce Quincy, goddamn son of a bitch! Look at what you made me do! You’ll pay! You’ll pay. . . . Now, now, NOW!”
32
Portland, Oregon
Kimberly reread the Miguel Sanchez file for the fourth time in two hours. Strands of fine blond hair kept working themselves loose from her hastily constructed ponytail and falling over her eyes. She impatiently brushed the strands back with her left hand. She should shower and change now that she had the hotel room to herself. She kept reading the file. Something was in here. She understood her father’s point that his personal conversation with Sanchez was purely random. She understood that Special Agent Albert Montgomery’s assignment to the case was most likely coincidental. But something was in here. She had her own instincts, and they were screaming at her to revisit Miguel Sanchez.
An odd sound came from the hallway outside her room. Slow, squeaking wheels laboriously rolling down the hall. Most likely some rusted-out metal cart. Kimberly frowned. She continued to read the file.
As a death row inmate in San Quentin, Sanchez now lived alone in a six-by-ten-foot cell. That ruled out the possibility of him having a roommate who might have been released and taken up efforts on his behalf. On the other hand, some condemned prisoners spent up to four hours a day in the rec yard with sixty other inmates, lifting weights, shooting hoops, and doing God knows what.
Kimberly delved deeper into Sanchez’s file. According to San Quentin corrections officers, prisoners were classified as two types: Grade A or Grade B. Grade A covered prisoners who had assimilated well to prison life. They followed the rules, didn’t give the guards any hassles, and were seen as successfully “programming.” These inmates were eligible for privileges such as daily rec time with their fellow deviants.
Grade B inmates, on the other hand, were men who hadn’t taken to their cells like hens to a chicken coop. They threatened corrections officers, they threatened each other, they actually inflicted physical harm. These men spent lots of quality time in ad seg—administrative segregation, according to the staff, or the hole according to the inmates. Miguel Sanchez was familiar with the hole. According to his file, he’d started out as a Grade B inmate, managed to calm down to Grade A status for about six months in 1997, then went back to his Grade B ways. In other words, Miguel should not have had the opportunity to make many friends in San Quentin. Then again, Richard Millos wound up dead while Sanchez was ad seg, which seemed to indicate that even the most severe type of incarceration had not rendered Sanchez powerless.
That damn squeaking was driving her nuts. Room service should oil the wheels of its carts. Something. Sheesh.
In the good news department, she had found tons of press on the convicted serial killer. Partnerships for psychopaths were unusual, and Sanchez had carved out quite a niche as a professional guinea pig for criminologists writing case studies on famous homicidal duos. The interviews probably helped Sanchez ease the boredom of his now tedious existence. They also allowed him to gloat, reliving the glory of the kill under the guise of an academic exercise.
As Kimberly learned, there had been a couple of male-female sexual-sadist killing teams, but in those cases, the female was completely subservient, more of a live-in victim than a live-in partner. Most psychopaths were loners with no genuine ability to relate to others and thus little need for any kind of relationship. In Miguel and Richie’s case,