Ransom Read Free Page B

several of his articles in the prison newspaper, and the local newspaper, and it was hard not to be impressed by the man, whether innocent or guilty. He had a fine mind, and had worked hard to achieve something in spite of the challenge he had had growing up in prison.
    As Peter walked through the gate, feeling almost breathless with relief, he looked back over his shoulder once, and saw Carl Waters shaking the warden's hand as the photographer from the local paper snapped his picture. Peter knew he was going to a halfway house in Modesto. His family still lived there.
    “Thank you, God,” Peter said as he stood still for a moment, closed his eyes, and then squinted up at the sun. This day felt like it had been a lifetime coming. He brushed a hand across his eyes so no one would see the tears springing from them, as he nodded at a guard, and set off on foot toward the bus stop. He knew where it was, and all he wanted now was to get there. It was a ten-minute walk, and as he hailed the bus and stepped aboard, Carlton Waters was posing for one last photograph in front of the prison. He told his interviewer again that he had been innocent. Whether or not he was, he made an interesting story, had become respected in prison over the past twenty-four years, and had milked his claims of innocence for all they were worth. He had been talking for years about his plans to write a book. The two people he had allegedly killed, and the children who had been orphaned as a result, twenty-four years before, were all but forgotten. They were obscured by his articles and artful words in the meantime. Waters was winding up the interview as Peter Morgan walked into the bus terminal and bought a ticket to San Francisco. He was free at last.

Chapter 2
    Ted Lee liked working swing shift. He had done it for so long by now that it suited him. It was an old comfortable habit. He worked the four to midnight in General Works, Inspector Detective Lee in the San Francisco police force. He handled robberies and assaults, the usual smorgasbord of criminal activity. Rapes went to the Sex detail. Murders to Homicide. He had worked Homicide for a couple of years in the beginning and hated it. It was too grim for him, the men who made a career of it always seemed strange to him.
    They sat around for hours looking at photographs of deceased victims. Their whole view of life got skewed by having to harden themselves to what they saw. What Ted did was more routine, but to him it seemed much more interesting. Every day was different. He liked the problem-solving aspect of matching criminals to victims. He had been in the police force for twenty-nine years, since he was eighteen. And a detective for nearly twenty, and he was good at what he did. He had worked Credit Card Fraud for a while too, but that seemed too boring. General Works was just his cup of tea, just as the swing shift was. He had been born and raised in San Francisco, right in the heart of Chinatown. His parents had come from Beijing before he was born, and both his grandmothers had come with them. His family was steeped in ancient traditions. His father had worked in a restaurant all his life, his mother was a seamstress. Both his brothers had joined the police force, just as he had, fresh from high school. One was a beat cop in the Tenderloin and didn't want to be more than that, the other was on horses. He outranked both, and they loved to tease him about it. Being a detective was a big deal to him.
    Ted's wife was second-generation Chinese American. Her family was originally from Hong Kong, and owned the restaurant where his father had worked before he retired, which was how Ted had met her. They fell in love at fourteen, and he had never even dated another woman. He wasn't sure what that meant. He wasn't passionately in love with her, hadn't been in years, but he was comfortable with her. They were best friends now, more than lovers. And she was a good woman. Shirley Lee was a nurse in the