He caught up with Cole three blocks away in a residential section of the town. Tackling him hard, he twisted his arms behind his back and cuffed him.
“See now, Cole, that’s exactly what you’re not supposed to do.” He puffed out a long breath and hauled the parolee to his feet, glowering down at him. “Running from your P.O.? Worst thing you can do.”
Cole looked like a cornered animal. “Don’t violate me, please. I can’t go back to Pelican Bay.” Surprisingly Cruz saw tears squeeze out of the corners of the man’s eyes. “I’m a dead man if I go back there.”
“Jeez, Cole, are you going to cry like a little baby? Come on, man up.” Cruz felt uncomfortable disrespecting the man, but he knew it was the best way to handle this situation.
He tugged on Cole’s arm and looked around. No one had followed them, but there might be a crowd when they got back to his car. They took their time returning to allow any church stragglers to disperse. The brief spurt of fight had gone out of Cole.
Cruz shoved Cole into the back of his jeep and drove off, getting on Interstate 80 and heading to Placer Hills and the Bigler County Jail. Halfway there, he realized he didn’t want to drag Cole into the office where everyone could see him in handcuffs. Once that happened, he’d be forced to violate the man’s parole.
What was he going to do with Cole?
Impulsively, he pulled off the road, put on his hazard blinkers, and called Frankie Jones’ number – the one he’d programmed into his cell phone.
“I found him,” he said as soon as she answered.
“Officer Cruz?”
“Chago,” he corrected. “I found Cole.”
Cruz looked over his shoulder, but Cole was staring gloomily out the window, his hands and shoulders twisted awkwardly from the cuffs. “Idiot ran as soon as he laid eyes on me.”
“Is he hurt?”
Hurt? Did she imagine he would abuse one of his parolees?
“No,” he said abruptly, “of course not. Where are you now?”
Frankie hesitated. “At the – the house, the place I told you about.”
“Right.” Cruz thought a moment, then lowered his voice, trying to imagine what kind of house she had and how secluded it might be. “We both need to question Cole and find out what he knows before I decide if I’m going to violate his parole.”
“Do you have to violate him? If he goes back to jail or prison – ”
“I have some discretion,” he interrupted impatiently. “Right now I have to decide where to keep him.”
“Wait until dark and bring him here,” Frankie suggested after a moment.
Cruz sighed heavily. “Think about that. Do you really want Cole Hansen to know where you live?”
Cruz could hear the shrug in her voice, her being brave. “It’s not my primary residence. Besides, if you arrive at night he won’t remember the address or how to get here. It’ll be okay.”
“All right,” Cruz capitulated reluctantly. “See you soon.” He clicked off and watched Cole through the rear-view mirror. The man slumped against the back seat, a look of abject desolation on his face, as if his world was fast coming to an end.
Maybe it was.
The newspapers screamed about the recent murder. It had happened not here in Rosedale, but in a park in Sacramento County. Why was someone interfering with his work? Some lunatic killing on a whim. Were they imitating him? Mocking him for what he’d done by accident?
He was having a hard time keeping it together – at work, the demands, the pressures.
Who was it? Who’d have the balls? Who’d take the risk?
He gnawed on the skin around his right thumb until it bled. Gnawed on the problem until it drove him crazy, tearing his brain apart. He didn’t want to repeat that first – accident. He wanted to bury the whole experience so deep in his mind he’d never have to deal with the – with that – with it, again.
He couldn’t allow himself to even think the word. Murder, it whispered, like a wicked siren, enticing him to madness.
Murder was what had happened in Sacramento to that poor, homeless woman. Only a monster would attack someone weaker than himself.
He knew he drank too much – not often – but when he drank heavily, sometimes he passed out, waking up in the most bizarre places with no memory of what he’d done. Was it possible? Could he have ... No! He wasn’t a monster. He was a regular guy with a job, friends.
His mind stumbled on the idea of family and stuttered to a halt. His family – his father was – No! Better not go there.
Chapter 32
Although Folsom Prison inmate number Z143973 – Roger Franklin Milano – was a level four inmate, he was allowed a level two exercise yard, and therefore, had a kind of freedom. Although freedom within a prison setting was a paradox.