Chapter 3 - The Price of Peace
Renee tried to hide what Lucia was doing to her.
She was bad at it.
One afternoon she came back from commissary carrying a tiny paper bag. Ana knew Renee had spent forty dollars because Renee had spent the previous night planning every purchase.
“Where’s the rest?” Ana asked.
Renee sat on her bunk.
“Nothing happened.”
“You bought one soap and two soup packets.”
“I changed my mind.”
“You talked about peanut butter for twenty minutes.”
Renee gave a humorless laugh. “Lucia had me buy things.”
“For what?”
“She says I owe her.”
“For what?”
Renee looked at Ana like the answer should have been obvious.
“For not making my life worse.”
Ana felt heat climb into her face.
“Report it.”
Renee almost laughed again. “To who?”
“The unit officer.”
“She knows which cameras are dead. She knows which officers are doing rounds. She knows when cells are getting searched.”
“Then somebody is telling her.”
Renee lowered her voice. “Don’t say that out loud.”
That evening, a fight broke out near the phones. It was loud enough to pull two officers from the main corridor.
Lucia never moved from her table.
But Ana watched one of Lucia’s friends slip into the laundry room with a grocery bag full of commissary items.
Three minutes later, Officer Phelps entered through the staff door.
He came out alone.
Ana said nothing.
The next morning, Renee found the photograph of her six-year-old daughter torn into four pieces beneath her pillow.
She sat on the floor holding the pieces as if someone had cut the child herself.
“I told you,” she whispered. “I told you not to make things worse.”
Ana knelt beside her. “Did Lucia do this?”
Renee’s eyes filled.
“She doesn’t have to.”
That sentence bothered Ana more than a confession would have.
At the legal phones, Ana called Denise.
Her attorney answered on the fourth ring.
“You sound strange,” Denise said.
“I need you to write something down.”
“What?”
“Three camera locations.”
Denise paused.
Ana gave her the laundry corridor, the rear recreation wall, and the camera above Table Seven.
“How do you know they matter?”
“Because one inmate knows when they don’t work.”
Denise became quiet.
Then she asked, “How would an inmate know maintenance status?”
“I don’t know.”
“That,” Denise said, “is the question I care about.”
When Ana returned to the unit, her mattress had been sliced open from top to bottom.
Tucked inside the foam was a note written in block letters.
YOU ASK TOO MANY QUESTIONS.
May you like
At the bottom was a second line.
NEXT TIME, IT WON’T BE YOUR BED.
