First Degree Innocence (2 page)

Carrie stood on tiptoes and dumped her issued items on the bare mattress. Marks of age crinkled the cold plastic. In a few ripped places, the cotton filling poked through—like her, it sought escape from a hellish confinement. A quiet chuckle bubbled to her lips until she tried picturing what type of people had slept on the bedding before her. She cringed.

At home, her downy mattress was practically new, still bearing the tags that threatened penalties if they were removed. How ironic. You couldn’t be more law-abiding than that.

She turned back to her cellmate. “Don’t we even get pillows?”

Susanna shook her head. “Not anymore. I hear they used to issue them, but some idiot tried flushing one and backed up the whole sewer system, so now…”

“I don’t think I can sleep without one.”

“You’ll learn.”

“So… we all get punished for what one person did?” Carrie hoped she misunderstood.

“That’s the way it works. It’s an incentive program.”

“Incentive for what?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet. I think they expect us to police one another, yet fighting isn’t tolerated. That seems pretty stupid, considering the best way to stop someone from doing something that’s gonna screw us all, is to beat the livin’ shit out of ’em. Go figure.” Susanna’s lips practically disappeared into a thin line.

Carrie was taken aback by Susanna’s language. At first sight, with her shoulder-length hair and big eyes, she looked like the all-American girl. The one you’d find in church or at the Red Cross. Carrie figured her for twenty-five at the most. She glanced around the cell, pondering Susanna’s last statement.

“I’m not sure I understand. How can they expect us to prevent things from happening if we’re all separately caged… like animals?”

“Oh, we get recreation time… a whopping two hours a day. You’ll love it. You get to socialize with the cream of the crop.” Susanna’s voice held a teasing tone
,
as she sat back on her bunk, pulled out a netted laundry bag and held it in the air.

“Here’s the answer to your pillow.” She plumped the contents. “Just add your clean clothes and, voila!” She ducked her head, plopping onto her back, and rested against her makeshift cushion. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to get some sleep. I work in the kitchen and have to get up at three a.m.” She pulled her scratchy woolen blanket up and rolled to face the wall, leaving Carrie with questions still begging for answers.

Susanna glanced over her shoulder. “Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

Carrie massaged the headache looming above one eye. “Carrie…Carrie Lang. Good night.”

An eerie silence filled the cell. She glanced at the top bunk, knowing that sleep would be elusive. The sleeping accommodations offered no appeal, and her mind raced far too fast to rest. She glanced around, taking in the harsh reality of her new home. Tears clouded her vision and frustration gnawed at her gut. This had to be a nightmare, the worst in all her twenty-four years. She prayed someone would wake her soon.

She walked to the bars separating her from the hallway, pressed her face between them and peered down the long corridor. Her hands clutched the icy steel so tightly her knuckles blanched. It was hard to believe in just a matter of weeks her life had been completely turned upside down. One day she was happy and carefree, and the next, a convicted felon. Why wouldn’t anyone believe she was innocent? She had nothing to do with that bank robbery.

The lights in the prison dimmed, signaling bedtime for all the inmates
,
she supposed. Carrie turned and stared at the toilet. She always peed before she went to bed… but maybe not tonight.

Her gaze returned to the long hallway and the depressing empty walls. As the murmuring voices from adjoining cells faded into quietness, fear gathered in the pit of Carrie’s stomach. Her eyes grew tired from straining to see someone—anyone—return to the cell to announce this was all a horrible mistake. She stood a long time before exhaustion gave the strange bed more appeal and reality sunk in. There was no yellow brick road, and she definitely wasn’t Dorothy.

Chapter Two

A loud clanking roused Carrie. She sat up and tried to focus in the darkness. Her mind churned in an attempt to wade through sleep’s haze. She saw bars. Unpleasant recollections flooded back—prison… she was in prison. She whimpered like a small child with a skinned knee. This wasn’t the bad dream she prayed for.

She caught a glimpse of Susanna’s back in the hallway, accompanied by a guard. Evidently, it was time for kitchen duty. With no clocks or windows, it was hard to estimate the hour, but Carrie swore she had just closed her eyes. The lumpy mattress, sheets sliding on bare plastic, and her makeshift pillow did nothing to contribute to a good night’s rest.

After she punched at the contents in her laundry bag, she laid back down, tucking her arm beneath the top sheet to avoid the scratchiness of the blanket—or what was left of it. Frequent laundering had worn the material thin enough to see through in some places, and cold air seeped through a hole and numbed her toes. With a grumble, she turned over and pulled her knees to her chest in an attempt to get warm.

Another loud noise intruded on her slumber. She rolled over and peered through half-lidded eyes. Ogden stood in the hallway, dragging her baton across the cell’s steel bars.

“Wake up, Lang; you’ve had enough beauty rest. It’s time to rise and shine. Breakfast is on the way.”

It was hard to decide which was more annoying, the grating of the baton or the woman’s tone. Recalling yesterday’s treatment, she listened to the little voice inside her head telling her she’d better comply. She pulled her stiff body to a sitting position and dangled her feet over the side of the bunk. The ugly face she expected to see leering through the bars was gone. Ogden’s raspy voice echoed in the corridor as she moved on, rousing other prisoners.

Carrie rubbed her eyes and stretched her arms over her head. Her mouth opened in a wide yawn. She glanced around the empty cell, consumed by isolation and loneliness. The judge might as well have sentenced her to life, because that’s what looking at ten years seemed like. Her fate was determined by the minimum time someone had to serve when involved in the commission of a crime that involved a firearm. Listening to the prosecution harkened back days when her mother read her story and Carrie had no idea how the tale would end.

She blew a breath through pursed lips. She didn’t have a black hat to pull a rabbit from, or a magic wand to wave. There was no one to miss her, or to call on. Her mother was dead and… well, who knew where her father was? When her parents divorced, he married his girlfriend, moved away, and totally forgot Carrie ever existed. She had no idea how to contact him even if she wanted to. Her ironic chuckle sliced the silence when she compared missed holidays with her dad to her current predicament. What had seemed like major issues a few months ago were now nothing but small potatoes. Squaring her shoulders, she resolved to deal with her fate.

The blasted clanking of steel doors drew her thoughts to the present. What was the routine in this place? God, she didn’t want to piss off that old crone again. What she wouldn’t give for a good romance novel to whisk her away to another time and place.

Her stomach rumbled. She sniffed the air and tried to get a hint of what was being served for breakfast. Instead, a dank mustiness invaded her senses. Hoping the smell was the cell and not the food, she slid off the bed and flinched when her feet touched the floor. She needed socks.

She snagged her extra pair from her laundry bag, perched on the edge of the bottom bunk and pulled them on. But something didn’t feel right when she stood. Glancing down, she realized her big toe had found a hole. She groaned. Everything about this place was horrid. Susanna was wrong. Hell didn’t hold a candle to prison.

While Carrie peeled off the holey sock and replaced it with one in better condition, a ruckus drew her attention to the hallway. The serving crew was a few cells away, delivering breakfast, and the catcalls and jeers about the food echoed off the block walls. Bothered less by the noise than a bladder begging to be emptied, she eyed the stainless-steel toilet and shook her head. There was absolutely no privacy. She dropped her pants and sat. The earlier coldness of the floor against her feet was nothing compared to the icy welcome her bottom received. Shivering, she finished, flushed, and yanked up her pants, then went to the basin to wash her hands. She searched for a hanging towel but discovered another absent convenience and wiped her hands on her pant legs. This definitely wasn’t the Ritz Carlton.

A crew of six inmates rolled a giant silver-colored box to the front of the cell. The contraption resembled a refrigerator, but when opened, revealed shelves of food trays. Evidently it was a warmer of sorts. She waited anxiously for her breakfast, willing to eat pretty much anything. A correction officer placed a key into a slot in the door and dropped a little window, just wide enough to pass the tray. Carrie grabbed the sides and tried not to spill the cup of ebony liquid she assumed was coffee. She curled her lip at the oily sheen floating on top.

Perched on Susanna’s bunk, Carrie rested her tray on her lap and took stock of scrambled eggs, a little runnier than she liked, a piece of toast, buttered while cold so that the spread didn’t melt, and three peach slices devoid of juice that had overrun its compartment and turned the toast soggy. It didn’t matter. Sustenance trumped taste in this case. Using the giant spoon provided, she dug in but scowled at the disappointing flavor of fruity eggs.

She was just taking a drink of her acrid brew when a guard ushered Susanna back. The squeal of the opening door made the hair on Carrie’s neck bristle.

“Welcome back.” She stood and placed her empty tray on the top bunk, then turned to smooth the wrinkles out of Susanna’s blanket. “I hope you don’t mind that I sat on your bed.” Best to be polite, she thought.

Susanna’s hair hung in dampened strands; dark circles ringed her eyes. “Not at all, but I plan to be napping in it very shortly. It was so damned hot in that kitchen, I thought I was going to die from heat stroke.”

“Funny. I’ve been freezing here.” Carrie wrapped her arms around herself for emphasis.

“That’s another of the quirks in this place.” Susanna kicked off her shoes, turned, dropped her pants, and sat on the toilet. “I don’t think the cells have thermostats, but you can bet it’s comfortable in the guards’ lounge.”

She didn’t miss a word while a steady stream of urine tinkled against the steel bowl.

Carrie turned her head away.

“Speaking of lounging,” she spoke to the wall, “where do they expect us to sit? We don’t even have a chair.”

“A chair? You’re kidding of course.” The toilet flushed and Susanna kept right on talking. “The warden figures it might become a weapon. Even the bunks are bolted to the floor. Did you notice you didn’t get any sharp utensils with your meal? I guess we should be grateful they give us a spoon and don’t make us eat with our hands.”

Carrie felt foolish for being so prudish. There was just something odd about watching a stranger pee.

“You can look now.” Susanna must have sensed Carrie’s discomfort.

With a sheepish grin, her gaze shifted back to her cellmate.

“You’ll get used to it,” Susanna added. “I felt the same way at first, but now if I have to go, I go. No one thinks anything about it.”

She washed her hands, brushed them against her shirt tail, then gestured to her bottom bunk. “And I don’t mind if you sit here… as long as madame’s not sleeping, we can use it as our settee.” She held up a crooked little finger and chuckled.

Susanna seemed so nice. Curiosity niggled at Carrie. What had her new friend done that landed her in “the joint?” It was probably too soon to ask. Better to start with a safer question. “What do we do with our trays?”

Susanna stretched out on her bunk. “Just set them by the door. The second kitchen shift will be by to pick them up.”

Carrie placed her tray on the floor and turned. “Before you go to sleep, can I ask you a few more things? They ought to give inmates some kind of handbook so you know the expectations. I sure don’t want to give that guard, Ogden, anything to hold against me.”

With arms crossed behind her head, Susanna gave a nod. “That old bitch can make your life hell if you let her. Just don’t admit she’s getting to you or she’ll never stop riding you.”

With no place to sit, Carrie leaned against the bars. “She must have had a field day with me yesterday. Everything she did and said got under my skin.”

“So, what do you want to know?” Susanna guided her back to her previous question.

“Is there a schedule? Do we get to shower? You mentioned recreational time. When do….”

“Whoa, that’s more than one,” Susanna teased.

“I’m sorry. I just feel so lost.”

“I totally understand.” Susanna propped herself up on an elbow. “Between breakfast and lunch we stay in our cells. If you have visitors, you can ask them to bring books or magazines, or if you have money in your belongings, you can ask the guards to apply it to a commissary account. That way you can buy what you want.”

“Anything?” Carrie widened her eyes.

“Anything… as long as it’s on the approved list. After the breakfast trays are picked up, they start shower rotation, and then serve lunch. At three o’clock our block gets to go to the rec room for two hours. Then it’s back in the cell for dinner. Visitation is between six and seven on Mondays and Wednesdays, and on Sundays, we’re allowed to go to the chapel for a generic religious ceremony. And that, my dear, about sums up your list of activities.”

“What’s in the rec room?” She hoped for something exciting like a wide-screen television.

“Let’s see…You can check out playing cards, watch TV if you can see through the snow, or get a book from the library cart. There are weight benches and free weights, and in the far corner there’s a stack of games people have donated. If you want some fresh air, you can go outside and play basketball if you like. Just make sure you stay close to me and watch out for Jet.”