San Quentin State Penitentiary
Marin County, California
“THERE’S A CROWD UP AHEAD.” Kendra was gazing out the window of the rental van she was sharing with Lynch, Griffin, Metcalf, and Reade. Metcalf was driving, and they had just completed the forty-five-minute drive from the airport. As they approached the penitentiary’s East Gate, they were greeted by the sight of twenty protestors. “They all have anti-death-penalty signs. Are they here for Colby?”
“They’re here for everybody on death row,” Lynch said. “But yes, Colby’s upcoming execution is what brings them here now. There will be hundreds more this weekend. By Monday night, there will be thousands. On both sides of the issue.”
For an instant, those staring eyes were once more with Kendra, haunting her. “Thousands…”
“It’s their right,” Griffin said.
“I know that.” She looked straight ahead and away from the protestors. “Just as it was our right to put that bastard here in the first place.”
After checking in at the gate, they were escorted to a two-story administration building where they soon found themselves in the office of Warden Howard Salazar, a sixtyish Latino man with wire-rimmed spectacles and close-cropped gray beard.
“When people ask what I do for a living, I say I just take meetings about Eric Colby,” Salazar said sourly as he hung up his phone and rose to his feet. “Or answer the phone from journalists about what happened at the last meeting. It’s pretty much all I do these days.”
“Sorry to make you take this one more meeting, Warden.” Griffin shook his hand and introduced him to the team.
“At least you may have a different agenda.” Salazar motioned for them to join him in a seating area beneath a large leaded-glass window. “I’m curious about your agency’s sudden interest in Colby. When law-enforcement officials come to see me about a prisoner this close to his being executed, it usually means he may be responsible for more killings than those for which he was convicted. Are you trying to close some old cases while you can?”
“No, nothing like that. But it is possible there’s some connection between him and a current investigation.”
“I see. Well, we’ve pulled together the information you requested. I hope it will help you.”
Reade leaned forward. “Mr. Salazar … What kind of prisoner has Colby been?”
Salazar shrugged. “From the moment he arrived, he’s been a model prisoner. He keeps to himself, he reads, he writes in his notebooks, and that’s about it.”
“How can you say that?” Kendra said. “I’ve been keeping track of him. I know for a fact that he murdered a man within these walls.”
“Self-defense. Child murderers aren’t treated kindly by the general prison population. Over the years, he’s been targeted a few times, but he’s always been able to take care of himself. One of those attacks involved a sharpened railroad spike that had been smuggled in from a work detail. It happened at the athletic track. During the confrontation, Colby wrested it away from his attacker and almost decapitated him with it. There were plenty of witnesses, two of whom were guards. They testified that it was a clear matter of kill or be killed. Of course, the media just saw ‘Eric Colby’ and ‘decapitate’ in the same sentence, and all those other details receded into the background.”
“Does his family visit him?” Lynch asked.
“He won’t allow it. His parents, sister, and a few other relatives have submitted applications to be included on his visitor list, but he won’t approve them. They tried again just last month. They wanted to see him before the execution. He hasn’t laid eyes on anyone in his family since his trial.”
“So who visits him?” Griffin asked. “Friends? His legal team?”
“You’d know better than I if he actually has any friends. From what I understand, he sees no one from the life he had before he came here. But one of the products of worldwide notoriety is that he gets mail every day and he has a mile-long visitor’s list of people with whom he’s exchanged e-mails. Plus, a lot of television and documentary crews come to interview him. He’s an unrepentant monster, and they just eat that stuff up. As for attorneys, he dismissed his early on. His case would probably be tied up in appeals for the next ten years if he wanted it that way.”
“So he wants to die?” Kendra asked.
“He’s never come out and said that. He has agreed to meet legal representatives provided by anti-death-penalty groups. But each time, he’s sent them away. He says they’re trying to tamper with his legacy.”