Page 41 of The Chain House

“Because they, themselves, were trying to avoid the death penalty.”

“Were they your wives, Sal?”

“Marriage was not allowed at Freedom, Sam Harper, you should know that.”

“Except for the leader. The Breaker of Chains. You made the rules, right? Can you at least tell me that, were they or weren’t they—”

“They were,” he said. “I married Sylvia first. Nancy months later. And then Annie a year to the day of the unlawful invasion of my sovereign territory.”

“And they lived in the main house with you?”

“They did.”

“Why did you send them on that murder spree?”

“I plead the Fifth.”

“Was it like they say, all the journalists and detectives and writers, that that was your Tate-LaBianca murders? Or at least the beginning of it.”

“I was an infant at the time,” Batise said. “Had nothing to do with those either.”

“That’s not what I—”

“I know what you meant, son. I’m not thick. Spit it out.”

“You’ve never shied away from your … idolization of Charles Manson,” Sam said. “With your use of drugs on the ranch. You spent time as a pimp. You had your closest disciples. He took his followers out to the desert to protect them and told them they’d one day be rulers of the world, and you took yours to a wooded ranch. You even took his term ‘Creepy Crawling’ and you sent members of The Collective out wearing all black, into homes, to vandalize, eat their food, move furniture around, just to mess with people’s minds, their sense of security.”

“And to gauge their obedience to me,” he said, although it was clear he wished he had kept that in. But the narcissist in him wouldn’t allow it, Sam thought.

“And, like Manson, you eventually turned your followers into deadly weapons.”

Batise closed his eyes and pretended to snore.

“Manson was trying to convince the world of an impending race war, black versus white, that he called Helter Skelter. It didn’t take off, so he took matters into his own hands with the Tate murders. And the next night, LaBianca …”

Batise’s eyes flashed open. “Get to your point, Sam Harper, so I can shoot it down.”

“Were you hoping to start a culture war? A class war. The Haves and the Have-Nots?”

Batise said, “Like in my Mallard Malone series?” Sam knew as much, and now, in hindsight, couldn’t believe that no one, in all the time the books had been out, had connected those dots. That no one had thought of Sal Batise as the possible author. Batise added, “But I honestly can’t say why those three women did what they did that night.”

“You’re lying,” Sam said.

Batise grinned, chewed on a fingernail, spat it out toward one of the guards.

Sam said, “Were you planning a second attack somewhere like Manson did with LaBianca?”

“Next question.”

Sam glanced at his legal pad, but his next question came organically and with sudden rage: “Where does your anger come from?”

“What anger?” Batise asked calmly.

Sam leaned forward. “The anger I see in your eyes, right now.”

“The same anger I see now reflected at me, in yours, Sam Harper?” Chains rattled as Batise leaned forward, mirroring Sam’s pose. “Huh? Where does your anger come from?”

Sam leaned back, having taken an obvious blow, because he’d asked the same question of himself too often. And had he really just nearly come out of his seat challenging the Breaker of Chains?