Chapter 11 - Locker 2147
Officer Phelps had a locker in the staff changing area.
Locker 2147.
Ana did not know how Miss D knew that, and she did not ask in the unit.
The next morning, she requested a legal call.
Denise answered.
“I need you to tell Shaw one thing,” Ana said.
“What?”
“Locker 2147.”
Denise was quiet for a second.
“Where did that come from?”
“I can’t say.”
“Ana—”
“If I tell you, it puts somebody else at risk.”
Denise sighed. “Fine. I’ll pass it on exactly that way.”
Two hours later, staff movement changed.
Phelps was called off the unit.
Lucia’s closest friend, Tasha Greene, saw it happen and immediately went to the laundry room.
Ana followed at a distance.
She knew better.
She did it anyway.
Tasha opened a dryer that was not running and pulled out a folded brown paper bag.
Ana stepped into the doorway.
Tasha spun around.
“What are you doing?”
“Laundry.”
“You don’t have laundry.”
“Neither do you.”
Tasha shoved the bag under her shirt.
Ana did not block the exit.
She remembered Shaw’s warning.
No heroics.
Tasha passed her and hissed, “You think Lucia is the only person who can make things happen?”
Ana let her go.
Then she looked inside the dryer.
A torn strip of paper clung to the drum.
She peeled it off.
It contained three handwritten times and the letters S.R.
She turned the scrap over.
On the back was part of a printed staff schedule.
Ana’s pulse jumped.
Tasha had carried out more than commissary.
She had carried staff paperwork.
Ana handed the scrap to Grant in front of another officer so nobody could later claim it had disappeared quietly.
By evening, rumors spread that Phelps had been suspended.
At 7:20, Warden Keller summoned Ana.
Investigator Shaw was there.
“We searched Locker 2147,” Shaw said.
Ana held her breath.
“We found coffee, hygiene products, stamps, and food consistent with inmate commissary purchases.”
“That’s enough, right?”
“No.”
Ana’s face fell.
“Those items are not illegal for staff to possess.”
Shaw continued, “But we also found a second phone.”
Ana sat straighter.
“It contains messages from an outside number linked to Lucia Vega’s cousin.”
Keller slid a printed page across the table.
One message had been sent the night before the pills appeared beneath Ana’s mattress.
May you like
It contained only six words.
MAKE THE ACCOUNTANT LOOK DIRTY TONIGHT.
