Cross Cut by Mal Rivers Page A

twelve years ago.
    The colonel gave it some thought, and then changed his outlook and laughed at me, respectfully. “Oh, come now, really? What possible link could there be?”
    “Beats me. I’m going on what my boss says. Apparently, the method is the same.”
    “I won’t argue that, but it’s just coincidence.”
    “My boss says coincidences are always to be regarded as dangerous. I may as well get to the obvious question—Lee Lynch—he hasn’t escaped and started killing again, has he?”
    “Good God.” He laughed again. “No chance of that.”
    “Is there any chance I could see him?” I asked.
    “Absolutely not.”
    I stared at him for a while and he just smiled. He twisted his mustache once and shook his head. “You have me wrong, I feel. The reason you can’t see Lee Lynch is because he’s dead.”
    “Dead?” I said, my shoulders picking up.
    “Yup. Four years ago, at Leavenworth in Kansas. According to his records, he was unstable, never talked to anyone, and had to be confined constantly in a supermax environment. He was fighting a death row sentence for years, but that’s not what killed him.”
    I looked at him, bemused at why he was reading from the file. “You need the file to remember?”
    “Ha.” He twisted his mustache again. “I had little to do with the event back then, or Lee Lynch’s incarceration.”
    “I don’t want to be rude or anything, but I could do with talking to someone who knows more than the file.”
    “Good luck with that,” he said, smiling. “The people you want either aren’t here anymore or aren’t here anymore , if you get my meaning. The case back then was handled so discreetly, that there are only a handful of people that could possibly help you. And you won’t find them. Hell, I won’t find them.”
    “Aren’t they on the file?” I asked.
    “You kidding? This thing is redacted to high hell. Damn good thing too. Most of the names aren’t even visible.”
    “I suppose it’s wishful thinking that there’s a non-redacted file?”
    He laughed. “If there was, it would have been burnt in a furnace and then shipped to the moon.”
    “Our tax dollars at work, huh.”
    He laughed again. He continued to glance at the file while still eying me.
    “Anyway,” he continued, “Lee Lynch died four years ago in an attempted escape. He somehow managed to breach the first perimeter on the outside wing. He got as far as the secondary gate, when a guard from an adjacent tower shot him dead. And that’s it. Sorry, but your civilian has nothing to do with this.”
    “He just shot him dead—like that?”
    He nodded. “I suppose so. There was an inquiry, of course, but the guard claimed that he was going for a leg shot or something. It was a few hundred feet away, so nobody saw fit to argue. He left soon after, anyway.”
    I groaned at this point. It was a simple fact that didn’t warrant the two thousand mile flight to Virginia. It was a breeze to think Ryder was expecting something more substantial. Hoping for me to find this Lee Lynch and figure out if there was any way his influence had reached California. Fat chance.
    “You say he talked to no one, no one at all? None of the other prisoners, guards, imaginary friends?” I asked.
    “Well, this is a file, not a memoir. But as I said, it mentions he was in constant solitary confinement. His psych evaluation does mention an unsociable and anxious attitude. Whoever did the report managed minimal conversation and that was all. He became irritated and frenzied easily, especially in small spaces. Perhaps being in prison slowly drove him out of his mind, that’s why he decided to break free.”
    I decided to note some of this down on a notepad. I’m quite good at reporting straight out facts, but it never hurt to be thorough.
    The colonel continued, “So, if you’re thinking someone is continuing a legacy, of sorts, I’d forget it. He had no meaningful correspondence for such a thing. His psychiatric