For Good (18 page)

Kristen stood in front of her desk, a stack of DataBlast files in a neat pile before her. Across the table were strewn her notes from the night before: every hospital, every police station, every sheriff, in Portland, in Salem, in Tristess. Fourteen sleepless hours of searching.

Aldean had called her as soon as he realized what had happened. She had taken his call in the foyer of the University Club, surprised to hear his voice. He always made her a little nervous. Although they had drunk manhattans on the deck of the
Tristess
and chatted when she visited the distillery, he watched her warily. He reminded her of Lilith, circling Marydale, friendly but ready to lunge at anyone who threatened her. And Kristen liked him for the love he so obviously bore for Marydale. But when he called her at the University Club, he had felt like a stranger on the other end of the line.
Marydale's been arrested. You know she's on parole. I can't find her.

Now she clutched her phone to her ear.

“Holten State Penitentiary,” a woman's voice said.

There was no
How may I help you?

“I'm looking for…someone.”

The vocabulary didn't fit:
an inmate, an offender, a parolee.
She was looking for Marydale's cascade of golden hair.

“I'm with the Falcon Law Group in Portland,” Kristen said. “I'm looking for a parolee. She was arrested last night, and I can't track her down.”

“A client?” the woman growled.

“A client.” The lie stuck in her throat, but
client
mattered more.

“Arrested last night?”

“Yes. Probably around seven. Her name is Marydale Rae.”

The woman paused. “We don't have her.”

“No one has her!”

“Then she's probably in transit.”

“Probably? She's a human being. Someone needs to know where she is!”

“If she got arrested in Portland, she wouldn't be coming here.”

“She was paroled in Tristess. I've called everyone in Portland. Please check to see if you have a record of her.”

“Hold.”

Kristen could hear the force with which the woman punched the hold button. There was no friendly elevator music or public service announcements on the line, just silence. Only the green call icon on her phone told her she was still connected.

Eleven and a half minutes later, a man came on the line.

“Looking for Rae, Marydale Marie?” he asked. “She's in transit. Should be here tonight. They got hung up at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, waiting for some paperwork to come through. Looks like an abscond. She didn't have permission to leave the county.”

“I need to talk to her,” Kristen said. “This is a mistake. She had permission to be in Portland. She's a business owner.”

“I'd just call on Wednesday or Thursday. We're not as busy then. Her PO will put a sanction into the system within fifteen days, and then there'll be a hearing. Are you representing her?”

“There shouldn't even be a hearing. She didn't do anything wrong!”

The man sighed. “We just got a new director. Turns out some POs have been letting their nonviolent offenders do whatever. Move. Travel. As long as they stay out of trouble. New director's been cracking down on that. Cleaning house.”

“Why are they sending her back to prison?” Kristen asked. “Why not a county jail?”

“They closed down the women's jail in Tristess. Everyone's coming here. It's a damn mess, if you ask me. We can't keep a stable population. That's the whole point of prison. It's for people who've got a year or more. Now we got inmates coming in for two-week parole sanctions. But nobody wants to pay for a woman's jail, so what are you gonna do?”

Kristen checked the time on her laptop. She didn't need to call up Google Maps to know the answer to her question. It was Sunday, and it was nine hours and thirty-two minutes from Portland to Tristess if she didn't catch any traffic. It would be almost seven in the evening by the time she arrived. If she were going to get back to court in the morning for the first day of DataBlast, she'd be able to stay for only an hour or two before turning back around…if Marydale was even there.

“How late do you allow visitors?” she asked.

“Tuesdays and Thursdays,” the man said. “Ten to four.”

The nine-hour drive to Tristess County took twenty. Marydale sat in the transport van, dressed in orange scrubs, her hands cuffed in front of her, staring out the window. Eventually she closed her eyes, not to sleep but to see Kristen. Kristen stepping out of the shower, her hair damp against her face. Kristen sitting on a lawn chair on the deck of the
Tristess
, wearing one of Marydale's old sweaters, her glasses fogging in the steam from a mug of coffee. Kristen above her as they made love.

I love you
, Marydale thought. She repeated the words over and over in her mind, trying to recapture what she had felt as a teenager kissing girls in the back of her pickup: that it didn't matter if they got married or bought a parcel and raised sheep. They had
kissed
. Against all prohibitions, despite the pundits on the AM talk shows screaming about the
sanctity of marriage
and
sins of lust
, they had claimed a few seconds of life. That had mattered when she had lived in Tristess. That had comforted her. Now all she felt was a tight, hard pain in her chest.

After being photographed, fingerprinted, and made to sit in a body-cavity scanner the inmates called the Boss, Marydale was escorted to a windowless office off the main prison wing. She stood in front of the desk of the woman identified as her counselor. Around the office, someone had taped black-framed posters.
TEAM: TOGETHER EVERYONE ACHIEVES MORE.
DREAM AND THE WINDS WILL CARRY YOU.
The photograph of an eagle set against a blue sky made the windowless room even bleaker. The woman looked wilted, like a plant that had lived too long under fluorescent lights.

“The prison is like a city within a city,” the counselor began. “Everyone in our city has a role to play.”

The familiar speech: the city inside. They all had responsibilities and jobs. The guards were like the police, making sure that citizens of the city obeyed the laws. But it wasn't a city. A city had a sky. A city had cherry blossoms. A city had glass high-rises so tall the windmills on their rooftops looked like insects.

“If it were a city”—Marydale stared at the black ink on the pads of her fingers—”I could leave.”

“You had a choice about the behavior that put you in here,” the woman said. “Even though you're here on a parole violation, you'll be treated like the other inmates. You work. You keep your house clean. You get in trouble, you go to segregation.” The woman regarded her over the top of purple reading glasses. “Do you understand?”

“I think I should be in jail, not prison.” Marydale was careful to keep her tone level and her eyes down. “I don't know why I got remanded to prison. I haven't had a hearing.”

“They closed down the women's jail.” The woman looked at a file on her desk. “You've been here before. I'm sorry to see you back.”

“I'm sorry,” Marydale said reflexively.

“Okay,” the counselor called to a guard outside the door. “She's ready.”

A female guard appeared and nodded to Marydale to follow her.

“Everything comes off this main corridor,” the guard said as they walked.

The floors were shined to a high gloss. The air smelled like cheap detergent, clean but cloying at the same time. High above their heads, fans—painted the same dull yellow as the ceiling—rotated furiously.

“You walk on the right.” The guard continued her lecture undeterred. “Hands to yourself. No moving around the prison unless you're on work assignment or have a pass. You probably won't be around long enough to get one of the good jobs.” The woman paused at a guard station and took a couple slips of paper off the counter. “Kite forms.” She handed them to Marydale. “If you get sick, you need to make a phone call, you want to report bullying, you kite the guard on duty. They'll pass your message on. You can read and write, yes?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Make it legible. They're not going to send someone back to ask you what you wanted. Count is at midnight, three a.m., five a.m., seven thirty, noon, four fifteen, and nine p.m. Ten, noon, and nine on the weekends.” They had arrived at the block. Three stories of barred cells looked out at the desert.

“A13,” the guard called to the guard station.

Someone pressed the button that unlocked cell A13.

“Rae. That's Julie Kelso.” The guard pointed to Marydale's new cellmate. “Kelso, get her set up.”

Marydale froze in the doorway. The cell felt chillingly familiar: two bunks, one seatless toilet, a plastic mirror, a hand broom tucked against the bars so they could keep their
house
clean. Above the sink were installed shelves, their thin metal edges surprisingly sharp in a world where paper clips were contraband. There wasn't enough room on the floor to do a push-up.

Kelso lay on the bottom bunk. “Stay out of trouble for a couple of weeks, and you can probably get moved to the dormitory,” she said, without looking up from the battered
People
magazine she was reading. “If you don't like the cell.”

“Wait,” Marydale said to the guard. “I need to write a kite.”

“What do you need a kite for already?” the guard asked.

“I need to call my lawyer.”

From the bottom bunk, the woman said, “You're lucky if they care.” Marydale guessed the woman was about twenty, but she looked older. Her bleached-blond hair was growing out, and the roots were dark rings counting the months.

“Write it up and give it to me at count,” the guard said. “Kelso, loan her a pencil.”

Marydale felt a hand on her back, and she stumbled into the cell. The bars closed behind her. Kelso dropped the magazine she was reading and glared at Marydale.

“You been here before?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

Kelso slipped on a pair of flip-flops from beside the bed. Then she knelt down and opened the two drawers beneath her bunk. From one, she pulled a sweatshirt and some menstrual pads. She crammed them in the other drawer. “There. That one's yours.”

“Thanks,” Marydale said. She touched the two-rung ladder to the top bunk. “May I?”

“Whatever.” Kelso flicked a page of her magazine. “I don't got a pencil though.”

The dark blue mattress was stained around the seams. The blanket was rough, like the padding movers threw over wood furniture. Marydale lay down and crossed her arms over her chest.
You cry too much, Scholar.

Marydale woke to the sound of footsteps. She had been dreaming about the distillery. She was late to work, and Aldean was outside, stomping on the deck of the
Tristess
to wake her. She sat up quickly, almost hitting her head on the ceiling above her bunk before she remembered where she was. The women in the cells above hers were calling out insults and invitations to someone coming down the breezeway.

Marydale swung her legs over her bed. She had been cold under her blanket, but the air outside her blanket was freezing.

“What's going on?” she asked.

“Somebody's getting a visit,” Kelso said.

“A lawyer?” Marydale asked. She couldn't keep the excitement out of her voice.

“Not a lawyer. They got special rooms for that.” Kelso peered out the bars. “It's the new parole boss. He's in here all the time, givin' people shit. He'll be gone before I get out of this shithole though.” She flopped back on her bunk. “He's just some dumb—”

“Rae! Visitor!” The young female guard's voice was too deep for her small frame. “Wake up, Rae!”

Reflexively, Marydale came to the bars, wrapping her hands around the peeling metal. A moment later, she saw a familiar figure striding down the breezeway toward the guard. Marydale stepped back.

The guard softened her voice to a conversational tone. “Here she is, Mr. Holten. I can't believe you caught her. I can't believe the bitch who killed Aaron almost got away.”

Marydale must have made some sound because Kelso said, “You all right?”

Marydale shook her head. The cell tightened around her. She wanted to press her face into the corner of the wall, to throw her blanket over her, to pull the drawers out from beneath the bunk and break them against the blunt edge of the toilet. She didn't move.

Ronald Holten ambled up to the bars, the guard hovering at his elbow. He hooked his thumbs through his belt loops. “Marydale Rae,” he pronounced slowly.

His hair was still dusty blond, and he was still handsome, his lips smiling without actually radiating any cheer. It reminded Marydale of an African folktale she had read about a village girl who fell in love with a handsome man who lured her into the wilderness. Once in the bush, his head slowly transformed from a man's head into a bare white skull, with teeth that chattered and smirked even when he was sleeping.

“On abscond,” he said. Everything was a drawl. “For years.”

Marydale stared at his mouth, willing her face to reveal nothing. “I had permission from my PO.”

“Did you?”

“I paid my supervision fee every month. I wouldn't have paid it if I was trying to hide. I have phone records. I called in.”

“Your PO wanted you to go up to the big city so you could make friends?” Holten continued as if she hadn't spoken. “Couldn't find any of your type out here, could you? Apparently she had a lot of special arrangements with her cons, but she's not working for us anymore.”

He touched the plastic badge clipped to his shirt pocket.
DIRECTOR OF PAROLE, TRISTESS COUNTY
.

“I have a business. I didn't do anything wrong,” Marydale protested.

“You didn't get a transfer.” He strutted back and forth in front of her cell. “You didn't transfer because you couldn't keep your nose clean.”

“I couldn't keep my nose clean because Cody Densen wouldn't leave me alone.”

“Oh, we're supposed to leave you alone? Is that how it works? Maybe I should let you set up a meth kitchen, maybe get some kids to sell for you? Finance your lifestyle.”

“I didn't sell drugs!”

“What did you do in Portland?”

“I run a distillery.”

“Oh, and you don't sell drugs.”

“It's fifty dollars a bottle. We sell to restaurants.”

The first round of inmates was heading out to breakfast.

The guard yelled, “Stay to your left,” as the inmates filed around Holten.

Marydale held Holten's gaze. She knew she shouldn't. Deference was the only defense. Nod. Smile. Agree to everything. Then palm any stray piece of thread or wire, a bolt, the broken plastic handle off a pair of scissors. Watch the cameras.
You gotta learn the dance, Scholar.
But Marydale couldn't push her rage down far enough.

“I wasn't allowed to date. I wasn't allowed to be friends with people like me.” The blood pounding in her ears erased the sounds of the block. “You can't live like that. That's not the way the rest of the world works, and if you lived two days in a town where people didn't marry their fucking cousins—”

“Rae!” the guard warned, as though Holten needed her protection.

Marydale remembered Kristen pleading with her.
What happens if we've been together for two and a half years and then we get caught?

Holten stepped closer to the bars. She could smell his minty breath.

“People like you,” he said. “Listen to me, Rae.” She could see his skull-teeth clacking in his head. “I don't give a shit that you're a fucking dyke. You killed my nephew. You killed a Holten.”

“It was self-defense and you know it.”

“Maybe I do. I knew Aaron. I knew what he was like, and I say more power to him. I'm just sorry he didn't finish the job.”

Marydale stepped back, bumping into the sink.

“As far as you're concerned, I'm your PO now.” The cadence of Holten's voice was light. If Marydale had overheard the tone and not the message, she'd have thought he was discussing the Tristess High football team. But his eyes were little slits of black lava rock. “I am judge, jury, and prosecution. I don't care what some hug-a-thug parole board said when they let you out. You're right where you should have been all along, and I'm going to make sure you stay this time.”