Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder

reason, although Yancy wasn’t sure what it was. He didn’t look gay, one of the reasons prisoners ended up in this tank. Yancy had never run into Bill before, so he figured that the guy might be a protected witness from out of state, wanted by the Feds, or some kind of known troublemaker. That didn’t seem likely; he was too fat to be any threat in a fight. Maybe that was why he was in protective custody; in the general population, any guy who weighed at least four hundred pounds would be a target of harassment and teasing by other prisoners.
    The two prisoners got in the habit of stopping by each other’s cells when their free hour came around. Bill told Yancy that he’d heard he was a “stand-up guy.”
    “Who told you that?” Yancy asked.
    Bill jerked his head toward a cell where a prisoner dressed in the white uniform of an “ultra security” inmate—a gang leader—was housed.
    Yancy nodded as Bill went back to his own cell.
    There weren’t that many secrets in their tank because the men there could hear one another’s conversations, even though they couldn’t always see who was talking. Yancy had heard Bill complaining about how much stress he was under, and all the problems he had. At first, he complained about his financial troubles, but then he said his wife was the one who had caused them. He wasn’t that different from anyone else in the King County Jail; a lot of prisoners had worries about the women in their lives, and the majority of them blamed their incarceration on someone else. And for the moment, none of them could exert much control over anyone else, although the gang leaders had a certain cachet, even locked up in jail.
    At the time Yancy Carrothers and Bill Jensen were locked up in the tank on the eleventh floor, there were, as Yancy referred to them, “a couple of other gentlemen—M.O.G. Gangsters: Crips, Bloods, B.G.’s.”
    One of them was awaiting trial for the cold-blooded murder of a young police officer in a small King County town. When he was asked for his ID, the gang member had pulled out a gun instead. Fortunately for Bill Jensen, none of the gang members had the slightest idea he’d been a cop for twenty years.
    Yancy himself told Bill that he had once been in the upper echelon of a lesser-known gang: the Kings.
    “They all know me—all the guys in here,” Yancy bragged to Bill as he polished his own image the next time they talked. “They’ll vouch for me. Maybe I can help you with your problems if you told me what they are?”
    Bill studied him for a moment or so, evaluating what he said.
    “Well…let me think about it.”
    “If you need any more recommendations, you can ask more of the guys here.”
    Yancy sauntered off to take his shower. He wasn’t averse to doing almost anything if the price was right. He’d be out on the street soon, in contact with his backup people, able to help the fat guy with whatever was bothering him. He didn’t know if the guy really had any money. He didn’t look like he did, but you never could tell—even though he was pissing and moaning about having money troubles. The guy didn’t have any visitors, and didn’t seem to be getting mail either.
    Yancy was prepared to wait, and let the guy dangle. Experience had taught him not to be too eager to make a deal.
     
    Sue Jensen and her sister, Carol Harris, were going to have to face Bill in court; every defendant has the right to face his accuser. The date of the first hearing after Bill’s arrest was set: July 28, 2003. They both dreaded it, and more than that, they hoped devoutly that neither Jenny nor Scott would have to appear.
    Bill was in jail, and it didn’t appear that he would be bailing out before their court date. That gave Sue a little sense of security, but she still jumped at sounds in the night, and often stared into her rearview mirror to watch cars that had taken what seemed like too many of the same turns that she had. She had a burglar alarm, a gun, and her dog. She tried not to hover over her children and let them have as near a normal life as she could. They were very angry with her for sending their father to jail.
    She understood that.

    The fourth of July came and went, and Yancy Carrothers and Bill Jensen spent quite a bit of time talking to each other for the two hours each day one or the other was out of his cell. They appeared to be becoming good friends, although friendships forged in jail are by their very nature not destined to last. The