He shoved his legal pad into his messenger bag, closed his eyes, and took a moment to steady his nerves. Coming off as anxious or unsure around a master manipulator wasn’t the best idea. He needed to control the situation, and insecurity wouldn’t cut it. “You are Lucas Graham,” he murmured. “You can do anything.” But it rang hollow, as if it was a hard sell.
Halcomb had already convinced Lucas to move to Pier Pointe. It had taken no effort. If Lucas said no, Halcomb would go somewhere else. It didn’t matter if he claimed to be a fan of Lucas’s work. If Lucas didn’t want the gig, a thousand other writers would clamor at the opportunity. Lucas could already see it, walking by the display window of a Barnes & Noble, some other writer’s book about the Halcomb case stacked halfway up to the ceiling. Cardboard displays toting it as the most incredible read since some guy had discovered the Zodiac Killer had been his biological dad. And that’s where Lucas would stay—outside the book store—exiled first by his wife, then by his daughter, and finally by his choice to not take a chance. Doomed by his decision to play it safe.
The prospect of talking to a figure that represented everything that was wrong with the world was dazzling. Jeffrey Halcomb’s trial had dominated the airwaves for most of ’83 and the first quarter of ’84. Unlike Charles Manson, who talked to anyone who’d listen, the world had largely forgotten about Halcomb because he had chosen steadfast silence. And unlike Manson, who insisted that he was innocent, Halcomb never made that claim. Judging by the trial footage, it appeared that Jeffrey Halcomb was completely satisfied with having convinced eight young Americans to take their own lives.
And then there was Audra Snow and her baby. There were the deaths of Richard and Claire Stephenson, almost certainly Halcomb’s doing, despite the prosecution not having enough evidence to convict. Other names had come up during Halcomb’s trial as well, names of drifters that had been found across various western states. Someone had killed a young San Luis Obispo family in their backyard in the late summer of ’81. Knifed just before Christmas of that same year, an elderly couple was found dead in their Fort Bragg home. A midtwenties drifter was discovered naked and hog-tied along a hiking trail just outside of Tillamook. All the drifter’s possessions—including his clothes—had been stolen. If he hadn’t bled to death, he would have frozen during that first week of January 1982. All instances placed Halcomb in or around Pier Pointe during the Stephenson kill.
But despite the jury’s suspicions and the prosecutor’s insistence, none of the other cases stuck. If there were any witnesses to the Stephenson case, they had died in the house on Montlake Road and Halcomb certainly wasn’t going to fess up. Not that writers hadn’t begged for interviews. Jeffrey Halcomb had been as in demand as Charlie for the first few years of his incarceration. Reporters had clamored for a chance to talk to the silent cult leader for nearly a decade, but Jeff refused. Interest eventually waned. As far as Lucas knew, this was the first time Halcomb had agreed to an interview since he’d been locked up.
His first stop was the visitor’s desk, manned by a stout woman sporting a light brown Annie Warbucks fro. He signed in, gave the woman behind the counter his ID, and fished out of his bag the media release that the prison had mailed him weeks before.
“You with the news?” she asked.
Lucas shook his head. He imagined that she didn’t break five feet tall standing up. Her name tag was missing, but it was probably Phyllis or Florence or Agatha—the kind of moniker that appeared on the endangered names list.
Observe the last existing Maude in her natural habitat.
“I’m a writer,” he said, giving the lumpy Annie Warbucks look-alike a smile.
She eyed him in a suspicious sort of way, as though not liking his face. “For the news?”
“No. True crime. I’m an author.”
She looked back down at his license, and for a split second he could see her searching her memory for why his name sounded so familiar. It seemed a natural fit. She worked at a prison. True crime was right up Lumpy Annie’s alley. Maybe she had been one of the millions of readers who had bought Bloodthirsty Times a dozen years ago. She may have watched him stumble through an interview on Good Morning America while having her morning cup of coffee.
Nope.
She slid his ID and credentials back to him and nodded toward the waiting area. “Have a seat, Mr. Graham. Ten minutes till in-processing. Then you go through security. And no cell phones, even for media. You leave it at the checkpoint. No exceptions, so don’t even ask.”
“All righty.” He turned toward the waiting room, took a seat in a scuffed hard plastic chair that reminded him of grade school, and dug through his bag to make sure he had everything in order. He tried to keep himself from getting cold feet by studying the folks waiting to be let in for visitation. An elderly woman sat across the room, clutching her purse with talon-like fingers of sinew and bone. When she noticed Lucas watching her, she narrowed her eyes at him and pulled her purse closer to her chest. And yet she’s brave enough to visit her convict son in supermax, he mused.
My son is not a convict, he imagined her squawk back at him. My boy has been wrongfully accused! Because wasn’t that always the case?