Lady Jail

by John Farrow

  ‘What’s wrong with them, these girls? They’re so crazy. I don’t understand them.’

  At least she was talking. ‘Doi, you don’t know this, but I read the psychiatrist’s report that was prepared for your trial.’ Ordinarily, he might not be permitted such a disclosure, but he was working at the prison without official designation. He believed he could say whatever he wanted. ‘You were raped as a young woman, Doi,’ Cinq-Mars said, and it seemed that everyone in the room, already still, stopped breathing.

  Doi went quiet, also.

  She was gripping Courtney’s neck in the crook of her elbow and squeezing her face against her own neck, while her hand with the knife worked menacingly up and down between her breastplate and abdomen as if searching for a vulnerable spot to slice open.

  She refused to look at her victim. Couldn’t.

  ‘She won’t visit,’ Doi whispered. ‘Why won’t she visit? I asked her to visit me. She never comes.’

  ‘Look at Courtney. How afraid she is, Doi. Your daughter’s afraid, too. You can show her she has nothing to be afraid of – if you can let Courtney go free.’

  ‘I’ll fucking kill her!’ Doi aimed the point of the blade right on Courtney’s cheek, nicking her, drawing blood, and this time it was the girl who uttered an outcry and the prisoners in the room all moved in their places in an involuntary reflex, some as though they wanted to leap forward to intervene while others fell back in fright. A few were halfway erect now, holding the railings at the foot of their beds. Others were halfway prone.

  Cinq-Mars put his arms out to indicate to everyone to stay put. He softened his voice even further to address Doi.

  ‘How about we start working on the possibility of your daughter coming in for a visit? It’ll take a while. Ultimately, it’s her decision. If you release Courtney as a gesture of goodwill, and I know that, in your heart, you are a woman of goodwill, Doi, and if you agree to therapy – we can give you more time than usual with a therapist, you know, and private time, not just group therapy – then the possibility becomes more real. Right?’ He spoke quickly to give her little time to think, and no moment to act. ‘We can arrange a visit. If you hold up your end, I promise to speak to your daughter myself. Doi, I need to be able to tell her that you have held up your end of the bargain. That you set Courtney free when you were having a hard time. Your daughter will need to hear that story.’

  Doi appeared to consider the offer. She seemed calmer while holding her aggressive stance.

  Facing her, Cinq-Mars went down on one knee, less like a suitor proposing marriage than a hunter surveying terrain. He continued to speak gently while Doi seemed mesmerized by his position on one knee.

  ‘When I come back around to you, Doi, in a little while like I said, there are two things I will want to find out. Think about those two things while I’m talking about Malka. Then Jodi comes next, then Courtney. Then you. Doi, I will want to know what set you off today. And this, this is very important to me, I will want to know how you got hold of that knife. Think about your honest answer to those two things, and I’ll get back to you.’

  Doi gave no indication that she was listening or considering his words, yet she seemed to have drifted away from her upset.

  ‘Shall we move on?’ Cinq-Mars suggested and didn’t really give her time to answer. Intuitively, he did not think she was going to relent, not yet. A step-by-step process. The next step was to relieve her of taking any immediate action, resuming the status quo prior to her outburst. ‘Will it be all right with you, Doi, if I continue around the room? It’s what you wanted me to do.’

  Doi took her time, but soon enough she nodded her acquiescence.

  iii

  Everyone in the room knew Doi to be volatile. She had not been placated; no one could count on her compliance. Occasionally, a voice spoke up to encourage Courtney to ‘Hang in there, doll,’ or to assure Doi that, ‘It’ll be OK, hon, it’s all right.’ Émile Cinq-Mars was not alone in fearing what might happen in a twinkling in Doi’s hyper-state: pretty much anything. But he was equally anxious about Courtney. The younger woman appeared to be close to the end of a frayed rope. For her to freak out might instigate a horrific result. He hoped to relieve the pressure on both Doi and Courtney by diverting their attention, giving each of them time to calm down, so steered the group’s scrutiny toward Malka.

  To change the atmosphere in the room, he elected to be dramatic with her.

  ‘Malka, as everyone knows, is tall enough and large enough to be considered a threat to Flo. Florence was tougher, meaner, more physically imposing from what I hear. I get that, and we have to bear in mind that Malka worked behind a desk her whole life. She’s softer, we can agree there. But something else comes up with Malka taking her husband’s life. First, she made him suffer terribly before he died. She’s got it in her. She’s a killer in a housewife’s frock.’

  The room concurred that Malka had to be marked down as wicked.

  ‘Except—’ Cinq-Mars held up a forefinger for effect.

  ‘Except what?’ someone – it was Temple – asked.

  ‘That line is pure malarkey.’

  ‘Pure what?’

  Cinq-Mars didn’t catch who asked the question, but explained, ‘Horseshit, in other words.’

  ‘What’s horseshit?’ Abigail spoke this time, her curiosity genuine.

  ‘Do you want to tell them or shall I?’ Cinq-Mars asked Malka. She scowled back at him, so he carried on. ‘Malka poisoned her husband, that’s true. Whether or not she should do time for that is a matter of opinion, although a court ruled against her, obviously, because she’s doing time in Lady Jail like the rest of you. Her husband was dying a miserable slow death – that’s also true – but brought on by cancer, not by Malka.’

  No one spoke up, but all eyes were on him, and a few jaws had relaxed. He took a furtive glance at Doi and Courtney and saw that they were more interested in him for the moment than in their own drama.

  ‘Not kidding,’ he stated, as though someone had suggested he was. ‘He pleaded with his wife to help him out, to end it for him. So Malka did. An act of love, you see. An act of kindness. An act of mercy. As far as she was concerned that’s what it was, even if society thinks differently. Society will probably change its mind someday, but the point is, she’s not the badass killer she pretends to be inside these walls. Her man was suffering, and she committed a mercy-killing. Telling you she poisoned him slowly? That was her way to get along with you badasses. A way to fit in. She wanted to sound tough. Right, Malka? Mere self-defense. Malka’s a puffball, just so you know.’

  She continued to scowl. This press release was not something she wanted distributed.

  ‘Fuck you, Cinq-Mars,’ she muttered under her breath, her only words on the subject.

  Courtney broke just then. No rhyme or reason to her sudden collapse. Something shattered inside her. Cinq-Mars had taken his eyes off her for a few seconds. Perhaps Doi had relaxed her grip, or had made a motion to tighten it, but Courtney suddenly erupted in a manic frenzy, putting herself at extreme risk but unable to control herself. Her arms flailed out, her legs kicked up somehow from under her, her body lurched forward and in that wild flailing and lurching Doi’s knife flashed and cut her and Doi recoiled from inflicting that injury and the knife seemingly leapt from her hand as she released it and skidded on the floor. It bounced and rattled. A momentary hush. Then bedlam. Not nine but nineteen women it seemed dove for the weapon. They might as well have been ninety. Courtney celebrated her release with a horrendous outcry and a brazen thrashing of her limbs with blood flitting about as though she was fighting off an army. Another voice, unidentified, hollered also. Cinq-Mars was looking for that voice when his right leg buckled. A body slammed into the back of his one upright knee and he toppled forward like a bowling pin. Flattened to the floor with weight on top of him he glimpsed the knife, close enough, and he, too, stretched for it when a foot either intentionally or accidentally kicked it from his reach back
the way it had come.

  The uproar both strident and plaintive. Someone was moaning strangely. Flattened and pressed to the floor, Cinq-Mars located the panic button in his jacket pocket – he was supposed to protect it in his palm – and considered what to do. Press or not press? When another woman tripped over him – Temple – he dropped it. Someone swore, a screech, an expletive that cut through the fuss and alarm as the chaos of bodies began to disassemble, retreat. When Cinq-Mars was able to raise his head off the floor and as the women around him picked themselves up, he discovered that the knife had apparently skidded right back into Doi’s possession again. She wielded it, threatening everyone who was near. This time, in her other hand, she held Jodi by the hair. The young woman squirmed and squiggled and kicked. Then she went tense and still as Doi brought the knife across her throat.

  One young victim exchanged for another. She had seized the nearest one at hand.

  Nothing personal, although her action may have belied a preference for the young.

  Noise was erupting behind him – that moaning – and most women were looking back there now.

  Malka was gripping her calf, which bled. She tried to stifle her moans, failing often.

  The women fell further back toward their beds, confounded by the conflicting scenes.

  At one side, Doi had found a new victim, and near her, her previous victim bled, although not profusely. Opposite that scene, Malka writhed on the floor with a nail protruding from her right calf, and her sudden blood loss was shocking.

  Cinq-Mars retrieved his panic button yet decided not to use it. Not yet. He returned it to his jacket pocket. But this time he kept his thumb on it.

  ‘Help her,’ he said to the room at large. Courtney was being held and comforted by Temple. They knew he meant Malka.

  iv

  The women were at a loss. One of their own twitched gently on the floor with a nail in her calf. Someone else had stabbed her with that nail. The culprit was not owning up to the deed and no one knew who she could be. Which cast another level of dread onto their general malaise.

  ‘Help her,’ Cinq-Mars instructed a second time as no one had budged. Abigail and Rozlynn responded then, going on to their knees to attend to Malka. Abi held her hand while Roz examined the wound. Looking back at Cinq-Mars, Roz inquired, ‘Should I pull it out?’

  ‘Do it. Watch out for a sudden gush of blood. Keep it clean. I brought extra bandages for Quinn. Use those.’

  Roz was the right person for the job. While others might have hesitated to pull the nail free of the wound, she managed it, both swiftly and with care. Temple left Courtney who had been squirming anyway and came on to the floor beside her. She passed Roz the gauze, bandages, and wrappings. Roz applied them and pulled the wrappings tight. A virtual triage unit, and an efficient one.

  Abigail looked up, though, when Roz was done, and asked, ‘Who the hell did this?’

  They all wanted to know exactly that.

  ‘How do you feel, Malka?’ Cinq-Mars inquired of her.

  ‘It hurts, all right? How do you think I feel? What the fuck happened? Who did it?’

  ‘Who’s got nails?’ Temple wondered. ‘Who’s got nails?’ She had trafficked in weapons, outside of prison and perhaps inside as well, but she was making it known that she was clueless here.

  ‘We’ll do a house search later. If there are any more, we’ll find them. But Malka, are you well enough? I can keep going with you?’

  She was pale, dismayed, subdued, yet she still had her wits about her. ‘Knock yourself out, copper. Just don’t fucking stab me in the leg.’

  ‘Let’s not have anybody stab anybody, all right? In the leg or anywhere else.’ He turned, as he said this, to impose his request upon Doi. She was keeping Jodi close to her through a combination of yanking on hair whenever the younger one tried to pull away, and by flashing her knife. That menacing blade kept her in place and in peril.

  Doi acknowledged his imperative by giving Jodi’s hair an extra tug, and by jutting out her chin.

  ‘Fine,’ Cinq-Mars determined. ‘As I was saying, Malka’s a puffball. She’s not the killer you ladies think she is.’

  ‘She still killed, though, didn’t she?’ Temple, having quit her nursing job, was returning to her bunk. ‘She went through with it. Maybe she got a taste, right? I’m kidding, but still, if she had a reason, she could do it again. She’s done it before. Once more for fun, right?’

  ‘We can take that into account,’ Cinq-Mars admitted. Truth was, he’d prefer they all chimed in with such remarks, which might spark an alternative outcome. ‘I’m not sure if you’re defending her or making a point against her, Temple. Which is it?’

  ‘Neither. No skin off my schnoz.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’

  Temple scrunched her forehead, surprised by the implied and abrupt accusation. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Hmm.’ The policeman’s murmur seemed to constitute a reply. The women did seem to believe that something of import had been conveyed, subject to interpretation.

  ‘No, seriously, what’s that supposed to mean?’ Temple asked again, her dander up.

  ‘I’ll get back to you. We’re discussing Malka now.’

  ‘Are we?’

  ‘Indeed. We’ve established that Malka’s a puffball who, despite that designation, when the chips were down, had the gumption to poison her own husband. As Temple pointed out. Plus, although we can’t hold this part against her, not really, somebody thought it necessary to stab her in the leg with a nail. Who took the trouble? Or was that an accident in the melee? Who knows? Malka’s an enigma. A small-town mayor, an upstanding member of society, not your customary criminal. And yet …’

  ‘And yet what?’ Malka, intrigued, wanted to know when Cinq-Mars appeared to drift off.

  ‘And yet, we’ve learned today, haven’t we, that an older woman who was a mom and a housewife before arriving at Lady Jail can be dangerous with a weapon in her hand.’

  ‘Not my nail, you can take that to the bank,’ Malka pointed out.

  ‘I believe you. But was it your garrote? You’re large enough, strong enough, a physical threat to Florence. Add in the element of surprise … it would be surprising, Malka, if you came up behind anyone intending to kill. I’m not saying otherwise. But give you the right weapon, then you, like everyone else in here, cannot be eliminated as a suspect.’

  Malka considered that, then scoffed.

  ‘What?’ Cinq-Mars asked her.

  ‘You’re forgetting. I’m a puffball. Your words.’

  ‘You poisoned your husband, as Temple said. You did so out of love and mercy. That was your story in court. It can be argued that you’ve never been part of the criminal element, so you’re right. A very big checkmark in your favor. Let’s move on, then. Doi! Is that all right with you? Next up is Jodi, and it will really be better if you let her go, you know? How can I talk to the poor girl with your knife at her throat? Not to mention, I’m giving reasons why everyone here has to be considered a suspect, and reasons why not. If I say something untoward about Jodi, how do I know you won’t do something rash?’

  ‘You don’t,’ Doi spat back. ‘That doesn’t matter. She’s staying where she is.’

  ‘No,’ Cinq-Mars stipulated. ‘Let her go. For God’s sake.’

  ‘Please.’ The one word, plaintive and sincere, humbly spoken, caught the attention of the room. Cinq-Mars thought that Jodi was begging for a reprieve, but no, it was Courtney speaking up in favor of her pal, and she further entreated Doi. ‘Please, don’t hurt Jodi. She’s my friend. She did nothing wrong. Please don’t hurt her.’

  Courtney looked so exposed, so bare, down on her knees with blood trickling from her collarbone. The pain, the worry, evident in her tone even caught the attention of Doi herself. She looked at the girl, finally, as Cinq-Mars had been asking her to do, and like the others, she was moved by the young woman’s entreaty. Tears broke from the girl then, undoubtedly an effect of he
r trauma and having been abruptly released, but the knife aimed at Jodi’s throat and at other times at her belly prompted both her tears and her intervention.

  ‘Listen to her, Doi,’ Cinq-Mars remarked quietly. ‘Two young women. You may have a dispute with your daughter – as I said, we will try to help you out with that – but you have no dispute with Jodi or Courtney. Let her go, all right? How can I talk to her, how can I get to the bottom of this, if you’re threatening her with a knife? I’ll make a deal with you, Doi.’

  Doi seemed hardly to notice the young woman in her grip. She did look at Courtney though, and listened to her, too. Anyone in the room might guess that she was suddenly brought up short, made aware of her own transgressions for the first time.

  ‘What deal?’ Doi asked Cinq-Mars, her voice barely above a whisper.

  ‘Let Jodi go, but keep the knife. I’ll stay far enough away that you can grab somebody else before I can make a move, so you’re still in complete control. You’re still calling the shots, Doi. But let Jodi relax. Let me talk with her. You’re still in charge, but you asked me to find out who killed Flo—’

  ‘Isaure, too,’ Doi demanded.

  ‘Isaure, too. But one step at a time. Help me do this, help me identify the killer, which is what you say you want me to do. Just let Jodi go. You grabbed the knife back when you dropped it and we had that mad scramble. I’m proposing something much easier. If anyone makes a move toward you, or if I make a move, just grab hold of somebody else. But let Jodi relax. Let her talk freely. Let her go. Doi? Let her go.’

  Doi was thinking about it. The others could tell that, conflicted, she didn’t know what to do. She saw sense in the policeman’s request, but she didn’t want to surrender her perceived advantage. Cinq-Mars gave her something else to think about to tip the argument to his side.

  ‘It’s very possible, Doi, that this can be Step One. Let Jodi go. Keep the knife. I’ll stay away from you. If, after this talk, there are things that happened today that might land you in solitary, or worse, well, we might find a way to forgive and forget. You know? But take Step One.’