Читать книгу Dead Secret - Ava McCarthy - Страница 10

Deadlock bolts clanked through metal. Latches snapped back, lights stuttered on, and a hundred and twenty-two cell doors clattered open.

6 a.m.

The hollering on A-Wing burst into Cell 5, filling the ten-by-twelve space. Noise in the prison never stopped. People screamed all through the night, kicking at doors, banging on walls, yelling about everything and nothing, as though to drown out awareness of where they were and why.

The steel bunks creaked in Cell 5. A bout of coughing started up, loose and wet, probably Magda’s. Someone urinated loudly in the alcove toilet, no door to screen off the sour smell.

‘The fuck out of my face, Dixie.’

‘Where’s my towel?’

‘You stink, you know that?’

‘Anyone seen my towel?’

‘I don’t fucking believe it, some bitch stole my soap.’

Seven people bumping around, cramped in a space designed for four.

‘Hey, Picasso! You dead up there or what?’

‘Leave her be, she’s got time.’

Jodie ignored them and stayed where she was, on the top bunk nearest the door. She closed her eyes, letting the racket wash over her, an unbearable weight settling into her chest. She worked hard to push against it, trying to summon up the strength to face another day.

Magda hawked into the toilet. ‘I find out who stole my soap, bitch is dead.’

Jodie waited till the woman had lumbered out of the cell, then hauled herself down off the bunk. Her limbs felt heavy, as though gravity had doubled. She bird-bathed at the sink, using the soap she’d stolen from Magda, before dragging on her Department of Corrections T-shirt and loose, elasticated pants. By the time she was done, the others had gone, all except for Dixie who was waiting by the door.

‘She sees you with that soap, she’ll cut your face.’

‘I know.’

Dixie rolled her eyes. In the light, her brown face looked as plump and shiny as a chestnut. Too fresh for a seasoned inmate serving her third prison term, this one a five-year stretch for forgery.

They joined the mob of inmates out in the corridor, all making their way down to chow like slow-moving cattle.

Massachusetts Correctional Institution was the oldest female prison in the country and it showed. Despair seemed to seep from the bare cinderblock walls, like residue from some Victorian asylum. Jodie shivered. She’d had the same bleak feeling as a child, in the shelters where she’d lived in between foster families. Those places had had the same austere, brick walls. The same absence of hope.

She’d spent a lot of time in between families. Some of them had lasted longer than others, but mostly it only took two or three months before her case worker would arrive to ship her out. She’d stopped asking why after the third move, coping the only way she knew how: by acting tough, by yelling and fighting. Which meant the next family dumped her too.

Joining a new family was always hard. She could still recall the rush of fear: I don’t know you. What do you want from me? Will it hurt?

‘Look at this slop. Like something my dog’d puke up.’

Dixie shoved her porridge away. Jodie sipped at her watered-down juice, not bothering with food. The over-boiled stench turned her stomach, though after two years, she should have been used to it.

Two years, two months and one week, to be exact. Eight hundred days she’d been in this place. Serving ten to life for murdering her husband.

Jodie stared at her juice. Eight hundred days. For a moment, her vision tunnelled, walls and ceiling closing in. Then she gripped the edge of the table, pushed herself to her feet. If things worked out, maybe this day would be her last.

Dixie looked up. ‘Where you going?’

‘Think I’ll line up for Meds.’

‘Again?’

Jodie kept her tone neutral. ‘Cramps.’

Dixie’s eyes probed hers for a long moment. Then she heaved her apple-round curves up from the table.

‘I’m coming with you.’

The line for medications was already forming, though the infirmary wasn’t yet open. Jodie joined the queue, Dixie by her side, and tried hard not to fidget. A lot would depend on which nurse had pulled duty that week.

Dixie flicked her a look. ‘Hey Picasso, you okay?’

‘Sure.’

Hardly anyone called her Jodie any more. At first, the inmates had called her Cleopatra because of her wide, up-tilted eyes. But when the art teacher learned she could paint and had made her teach a class, the nickname Picasso had stuck.

Dixie’s tone turned casual. ‘Hey, you ever write back to that guy?’

‘What? No, I told you, I’m not interested.’

‘Come on, why not?’

‘I’ve got nothing to say.’

‘What guy?’ Another inmate had joined the queue.

Jodie glanced around. The newcomer was small and wiry, maybe twenty years old, with the buzz cut and swagger of a teenage boy. Her name was Nate, a crack addict from Boston serving four years for aggravated robbery.

Dixie cocked a thumb at Jodie. ‘Reporter wrote to her, wants to do a story.’

‘Awesome!’

‘I’m not meeting him.’

‘Bullshit, you should do it.’ Nate’s angular face lit up. ‘Me, I’d take a visit from anyone on the outside. It’s a distraction, right?’

Dixie nodded. ‘That’s what I said.’

Jodie sighed, bracing herself for another debate on the topic. ‘I told you, he’s just some hack journalist desperate for copy.’

‘But he wants to write a story about you,’ Nate said. ‘How fucking awesome is that?’

‘What story? I killed my husband and they sent me to prison. You think I want to re-live all that with some stranger?’

Nate shrugged. ‘Me, I’d just talk to him. Beats seeing the same old faces in here every day.’ Her dark eyes widened. ‘Hey, maybe he’ll pay you.’

Jodie shook her head. They didn’t get it. Talking about Abby to some journalist was out of the question. And talking about anything else wouldn’t net the guy much either, since trauma had obliterated most of it.

She remembered pulling the trigger, but not much else. They’d told her at the hospital that the car had overturned; that she’d been thrown clear of the wreckage but that Ethan had been found dead at the wheel. They’d been kind at first. Until the police had discovered Ethan had died from a bullet to the head.

The trial had only lasted a couple of weeks. The letter she’d written to the District Attorney had proved without doubt her intent to kill and made it an easy conviction. Her lawyer had tried his best to plead extenuating circumstances, though she’d tuned much of his arguments out, absorbing only snatches.

‘Ethan McCall was a family annihilator. That’s what the criminologists call them. Fathers who kill their own children … ’

‘ … not the first father to decide that a dead child is better than a child he can’t raise himself. That killing his little girl is a fitting way to punish his wife … ’

‘ … monstrous self-obsession … incapable of perceiving his child as a separate human being … ’

‘ … a domineering man … determined to have the final word … to prove he was still in control … ’

‘Grave provocation for my client … unimaginable grief … ’

But in the end, no one had believed that Ethan had murdered his daughter.

Jodie hadn’t fought it. She’d killed him and was prepared to accept the consequences, not planning on being around to endure them for very long.

A lock snicked up ahead. Shutters rattled, and the line of inmates stirred. Jodie craned her neck but couldn’t see who was manning the hatch. Her nails dug into her palms.

Nate nudged her arm. ‘Orianne’s back.’

Jodie followed her gaze to the round-shouldered woman who’d joined the end of the line. Her recently pregnant belly looked slack and deflated. Dixie spoke out of the corner of her mouth.

‘Got back yesterday. Left her baby in the hospital, kissed him goodbye and walked out in shackles. Seven more years to go.’

Jodie stared at the woman’s dull eyes, made blank from the anti-depressants she was most likely on. Her flaccid midsection looked oddly barren.

Jodie looked away. Her own mother had given birth to her while in prison, triggering Jodie’s life on the move in the foster care system. She’d never given much thought to how her mother might have felt at giving her up. Too busy hating her for it.

Her mother had died shortly after giving birth, so when Jodie was old enough, she’d tried to track down her father. His trail had led her from Dublin to Boston, but ended abruptly when she discovered that he was dead too. It was while she was in Boston that she’d first met Ethan McCall.

Nate shifted from foot to foot, shoulders hunched. ‘This fucking line is taking forever.’

The inmates shuffled forward. Jodie glimpsed a white uniform at the dispensary hatch, the face obscured by the women at the head of the line. If Nurse Santos was on duty, she had a chance; if it was Kendrick, she was in trouble.

Dixie threw her an uneasy look. ‘Hey Picasso, let’s go. You don’t need nothing.’

Jodie didn’t answer. Dixie edged closer.

‘Honey, I know you’re stashing them pills.’

Jodie regarded her steadily. ‘You need to stop worrying about me.’

‘Bullshit. We’re family, we look out for each other.’

Family. Ironic that the closest she’d come to having one was in prison. Many of the women here built family structures amongst themselves: mother-figure, father-figure, sisters, brothers. Something most of them never had at home.

Dixie had taken Jodie into her family when she arrived, relegating her to the role of younger sister, though she and Jodie were the same age. Nate was the wayward brother, and there was an uncle called Meatloaf, a two-hundred-pound female wrestler serving ten years for second degree murder. The family unit was presided over by Momma Ruth, a lifer who’d been in prison for almost thirty-two years.

Jodie inched closer to the dispensary, her heart rate picking up.

She knew Dixie searched her belongings for pills, not trusting it to the Correctional Officers who conducted daily shakedowns of the cells. None of the inmates dared to sell Jodie drugs, not since Dixie had said Meatloaf would crush the kneecaps of anyone who tried.

The hatch was closer now. Two inmates peeled away from the head of the line, giving Jodie an uninterrupted view. Steel-wool hair, rimless glasses. Shit.

It was Kendrick.

Dixie lowered her voice. ‘You won’t die in your sleep, like people think. That stuff’ll take days to kill you. Days of pain, real slow, with you lying there waiting for your liver to fail.’

Jodie closed her eyes briefly. ‘I know.’

She moved up one more place in the queue, watching the nurse’s brisk dealings at the hatch. Santos would have given her the pills to take away, which meant she could have added them to her stash. But Kendrick was a stickler. Kendrick would remember Jodie’s stint on suicide watch, and the rule that all her medication had to be supervised from now on.

Kendrick was going to make her swallow the damn pills in front of her.

Jodie moved forward. Almost her turn. Small hairs prickled up her arms. She’d been planning this for some time, collecting pills no more than once a month so as not to attract attention. One more dose should do it.

Her termination plan, she called it. Ceasing to live, rather than planning to die.

Sometimes she woke up and forgot that Abby was dead. In her dreams, her little girl was alive and warm. Those mornings were the worst, full of gut-ripping pain, the agony waiting to annihilate her all over again.

She didn’t believe in the hereafter. Not really. She didn’t know where Abby was supposed to be now. All she knew was she wanted to be with her daughter. And if her daughter was nowhere, then nowhere was fine by her.

Jodie stepped up to the hatch. Coached herself to relax. The nurse watched her over her glasses, eyebrows furrowing up into her forehead.

‘Back again, Garrett? Let me guess, more cramps?’

Jodie shrugged. ‘Every month, regular as clockwork.’

The nurse eyed her for a moment. Then she tipped two tablets into the palm of her hand and passed them through the hatch, along with a plastic cup of water.

‘Tylenol. Let me see you take them.’

‘Can’t I save them for later? It gets worse as the day goes on.’

‘You know the rules, Garrett. Swallow them now, or I take ’em back.’

Jodie prised the pills up between her fingertips. Took the cup in her other hand. Physical movement was suddenly onerous. She clamped her mouth shut, biting down on the urge to cave in. She could wait till Santos was back. Another week, maybe two. She could last.

Slowly, she raised the tablets to her lips.

‘Hey bitch! Picasso!’

Jodie paused. Turned round. Magda was thundering towards her, the woman’s frizzy tangerine hair marking her out like a beacon. Her huge thighs swished together as she moved, pushing her legs outward, knock-kneed style. She barged up to the hatch and thrust her face close to Jodie’s.

‘I heard you stole my soap, bitch.’

The funk of sour sweat radiated from her like heat. Jodie made her face blank.

‘You hear me, doll-face?’

Jodie shrugged. ‘It was mine to begin with, you stole it from me.’

Dixie grew still beside her. Jodie sensed Nate stepping back a pace, while the other women in the queue shifted uneasily.

‘You know you’re gonna pay for that?’ Magda’s eyes looked dead; dull marbles, half-buried in pasty flesh. ‘You know I’m gonna cut you, right?’

Jodie kept her mouth shut. Rumour had it, the woman was in prison for kidnapping and assault, having tied up her best friend for seventeen hours while she tortured her with knives and hot skewers.

Magda whacked the plastic cup from Jodie’s hand, sending it airborne. Behind the hatch, the nurse was on her feet, craning her neck to locate a CO.

‘Got something for ya, doll-face.’ Magda’s tongue flicked along her lips. ‘You and me’ll get together later. You’ll enjoy it, I know you will.’

Then she held out her arm, wrist upwards, third and fourth fingers curled against something that poked out from under her sleeve: a razor blade melted into the tip of a toothbrush. A homemade slashing device.

Jodie’s gut tightened. She flashed on confrontations from the past, in the shelters where older kids had bullied the newbies. And on the advice from an ally: Make your face dead-pan, like a soldier on parade. Make them think that you just don’t care.

She stared straight ahead. Impassive. Aware that the faint tilt to her features helped to make her expression unreadable. Sphinx-like.

Beside her, Dixie snorted in disgust. ‘You’re wasting your breath, lunkhead. She ain’t afraid of you. She ain’t afraid of pain, nor death, nor nothing. Can’t you see that, you dumb bitch?’

Magda’s eyes became slits, still trained on Jodie’s face.

Then her gaze shifted. Rapid footsteps smacked along the corridor, and the line of women parted to make way for two approaching COs. In one practised movement Magda relaxed her stance, backed away, then raised her palms, the weapon already tucked out of sight.

She wheeled away, herded on by the COs, with a final look at Jodie that said this wasn’t over. One of the COs caught it, a gruff, heavyset guy by the name of Grochowski, though the inmates all called him Groucho. He threw Jodie an uneasy glance, then marched his charge away.

The line of women seemed to exhale. Movement rippled through them as the queue reformed, and behind the hatch the nurse was settling down, preparing for the next inmate.

No one noticed as Jodie slipped away, two pills buried deep inside her fist.