Tortured Teardrops

by P. D. Workman

  “How many locked doors did you go through taking her back to her room?”

  “Uh…” Tamara could see Gomez trying to estimate. He was sweating heavily. The whole room was rank with sweat. The smell of fear. “I would guess… maybe… five.”

  She felt bad for him. But there was nothing she could do to help him. There was no alternative theory she could provide for how she had gotten his number. She couldn’t deny that she had seen his number. They had all watched her entering his number as she went through each door.

  “You might be closer if you doubled that.”

  “Okay. Ten, then.”

  “You gave her a chance to see your number more than ten times.”

  “I guess. I never really thought about it that way,” Gomez admitted.

  “And not once did you attempt to shield the number from her.”

  “No. I guess not,” Gomez admitted.

  A collective sigh went around the room. Like everyone had been holding their breaths to see if he had some explanation or excuse. But if he said straight out that he hadn’t been trying to shield his code from Tamara, then everybody else could admit to being in the same boat. He was a senior guard, experienced. If he had made that mistake, anyone could have.

  Buxton wasn’t willing to let it go at that. He jumped to the next video. Durham this time. Also escorting Tamara back to her cell. Also punching his security code into the keypad with complete disregard to whether his detainee could see it or not. Tamara appeared to be sleepy and bleary-eyed, but her subconscious had still picked up on it, storing it away for her next chance at escape.

  “It never occurred to any of you idiots that you were giving her your security code?” Buxton challenged, his voice rising into a harangue. “Not one person thought that maybe she kept getting out because she knew someone’s security code? And that if she knew someone else’s, maybe you ought to protect yours?”

  Buxton hadn’t dared yell at Gomez, a senior guard, but he was going to make sure that everyone else in the room got their due. Durham was red-faced. He looked down, throat working. Gomez raised both of his hands in a calming gesture.

  “Look… we get it. We screwed up. This has never happened before. We enter those numbers all day long, and normally there isn’t anyone close enough to see what they are. Even if I am escorting someone, I rarely have to go through more than one security lock to get them where I’m going. It’s hard to tell with any accuracy what number someone has entered on a PIN pad. Six digits is pretty safe. This was a unique case… a lock down… an inmate that was far from where she should have been at that time.” He looked briefly at Tamara, then back at Buxton and the rest of the room. “We’ll know better now. We’ll be more careful.”

  “In the meantime, you’ve facilitated a huge security breach.”

  Tamara put her elbows on the table and rested her head against her hands. She wished that they would just finish up and leave her alone. There wasn’t any reason she had to be part of the dressing-down. They would have been able to speak more freely if she weren’t there to listen in.

  “There was a security breach. But no harm was done. A sleepwalking inmate got a few hallways away from her room. She probably had no idea she was doing it and no plan to do anything wrong. She happens to be a well-behaved inmate. We have the advantage of learning something from this. So that next time it isn’t someone with a score to settle.”

  “You think you’re just off the hook because no one got hurt or escaped?”

  There was silence in the room. Gomez shrugged. “I admit I made a mistake. If you need to take disciplinary action…”

  “There will be consequences,” Buxton agreed. He looked around the room. “For everyone who was involved in this debacle. Everyone will be assigned a new security code, and they will be changed regularly. Just how regularly, I’m not sure, but we can’t take the chance of inmates being able to have the run of the facility. If this had been an attempt at a prison break or retaliatory action, things would look a lot different this morning. You will shield your number from anyone in the vicinity when you use a keypad. You will report any suspicious activity or suspected breaches to me.”

  No one objected. Eyes were downcast. Everyone was trying to look remorseful and cooperative. Buxton shook his head, biting off further recriminations.

  “There will be consequences,” he repeated. “I will be reviewing other security footage. It would appear that this is a wide-spread practice. That changes now.”

  If a pin had dropped, everyone in the room would have heard it. There was not a whisper of movement. Finally, Buxton nodded his head. “You’re dismissed. Those of you who are off duty can go home. You’ll be issued your new security code when you return for your next shift. Those of you who are on shift, report to the control room now for your new number. Mr. Gomez, please stay behind.”

  Everyone filed out of the room, shuffling their feet, coughing behind their hands, exchanging significant glances. Tamara was impressed with how calm and cool Gomez appeared, after being on the hot seat and then kept after like a kid on detention.

  “Can I go to my room now?” Tamara whined. “If everyone’s codes have been changed, then I can’t use them to get out now. Please?”

  Buxton ignored her request. He closed the door behind the departing guards and turned to face Gomez.

  “I’d like to know some more details about what happened last night when you found Ms. French in that hallway.”

  Gomez raised his brows. “Okay… what would you like to know?”

  “What she was doing there. What direction she was headed. What sort of… mood she was in.”

  Gomez nodded and scratched the back of his neck. “I’m not sure what direction she was going. The doors had already been locked for some time, so she couldn’t go in any direction. Unless she knew someone else’s code. She was on the move, but I figured she was just pacing.”

  Buxton looked at Tamara. She shrugged and nodded. Buxton could check the videos and see that for himself.

  “What was she doing there, so far off on her own?”

  “I don’t know for sure. She’s been having some difficulties with the Sharks. Maybe she wanted to get farther away from them.”

  “Off on her own? Vulnerable to attack?” Buxton was wily; he wasn’t buying it. “One of the girls who was killed was a Shark, wasn’t she?”

  “Waterson was, yes.”

  “But not the other one.”

  “Tabitha Smith. No. I guess the two of them ran into each other on the way in or out of the restroom, had words… one thing led to another…”

  “You don’t think French had anything to do with it.”

  “No.” Gomez looked at Tamara, frowning. Tamara hoped he wasn’t twigging to the fact that she had known which hall the incident had taken place in before he had. Such a little thing was hopefully lost in a sea of memories of far more important things that had happened that night. “French…? No.” Again, a sort of a hitch in his voice. A hesitation. Tamara had had a beef with the Sharks. She’d had words with Tabby. “I’ve never known French to be violent that way.”

  Buxton wasn’t buying it. “She’s been in fights here.”

  “Of course. Who hasn’t? But she isn’t a troublemaker. She wasn’t ever looking for a fight.”

  “She’s serving time for murder.”

  “Yes.” Gomez looked at Tamara. They had never talked about her convictions. She’d never had opportunity to tell him what had driven her to kill. It wouldn’t likely have helped if she had.

  “But she’s not violent.”

  “No, sir. She… hasn’t been.”

  Buxton tilted his head. “Hasn’t been?”

  “She’s never been a problem before.”

  “Before what? Before this?”

  “Her behavior has been… more erratic lately. She has been… more prone to outbursts.”

  Buxton looked Tamara in the eye, holding her gaze for too long. “Can you tell me why that is, Ms.
French?”

  Tamara shook her head. “I’m just tired. I just need to get some rest. Can’t I go back to my room now?”

  Buxton’s jaws worked like he was chewing gum or a big wad of tobacco. “What did you have against those girls?”

  “They attacked me,” Tamara snapped. “It wasn’t my fault.”

  “Yesterday? They attacked you together?”

  “They wouldn’t do that, they were enemies.”

  “Then what happened?”

  The room started to spin around Tamara. She didn’t want to think of the night before. She wanted it to be gone from her mind forever.

  “I don’t know.”

  The vertigo was too much for her. Tamara held her head, trying to stop the merry-go-round.

  She didn’t remember being taken to the infirmary. Everything was a spinning, sticky morass of images in Tamara’s head. She didn’t want to stay in that meeting room any longer. She didn’t want to have to answer questions about what had happened. As much as she wanted to say that she hadn’t been anywhere near three-west, they would know differently when they looked at all of the surveillance footage. Maybe they already had. Just like they had made copies of Tamara sleepwalking through the facility in the middle of the night. That would have been a higher priority than figuring out how Tamara was wandering around on her own.

  The surveillance footage would put her near the girls at the right time, but they wouldn’t be able to tie her to the killings because of the blind spot. They could see that she went to the restroom at the same time as the other girls had been around, but they wouldn’t be able to prove that she had anything to do with their deaths. Not if she’d done her job.

  “Tamara. Tamara, can you talk to me?”

  Tamara hadn’t noticed before that Dr. Eastport always called her by her first name. He was the only one. It was nice to hear her name now and then. She shook his fingers from her wrist.

  “Just leave me alone.”

  “How are you feeling, dear? Can you tell me?” he coaxed.

  Tamara lay with her eyes closed, not wanting to look at them. “I’m just tired. I want to go to my room.”

  “You can rest here once I’ve checked you out. Can you tell me what’s going on?”

  “She fainted,” Buxton said flatly.

  “That room was stifling,” Gomez contributed. “No air. It’s really no wonder.”

  “Mm-hmm. What room? What happened?”

  “She was being questioned about the killings and about her wandering the halls last night.”

  “You know you have to take care of her physical needs. If she’s not well, it’s too hot, or she hasn’t eaten, it could be a human rights violation. You need to look after your detainees.” Eastport’s tone was light, not accusing, but Tamara knew it was a serious warning.

  “I am tired,” she told Eastport. “Hot and tired and I don’t feel good. I just want to sleep.”

  “I know, dear. After I have a chance to examine you.”

  He put on his stethoscope and listened to her heart and breathing. He put the blood pressure cuff on her arm and, just like usual, started to pump the bulb to fill it with air. Tamara felt like it was choking her. She grasped at the edge of the cuff with her other hand.

  “Ow! Get it off! That hurts.”

  “Just a bit more,” he soothed, still pumping. It was so tight she was sure it was going to leave black bruises, like the baton bruise on her other arm. It was like a snake constricting around her, going to consume her.

  Tamara opened her eyes. “Get it off!” she demanded, finding the edge and ripping the Velcro apart to relieve the pressure.

  Eastport wrapped the cuff up and put it back in its cage on the wall, frowning at Tamara. “You need to let me examine you, Tamara. You want to feel better, don’t you?”

  “I don’t want you to do anything. I refuse treatment. I can do that, can’t I?”

  “Well…” Dr. Eastport looked at the two guards as if they could fill him in on the legalities of the matter. “You’re a minor. You’re in custody, so the facility makes the decisions with regard to your care…”

  “I’m not going to die. I just want to sleep.”

  Dr. Eastport shook his head, bemused. “All right, dear.” He shrugged at the guards. “If you think the room was too hot and that was why she fainted, we’ll just go with that. If her symptoms worsen, we’ll address it then.” He rubbed Tamara’s shoulder soothingly. “When did you last eat?”

  “I don’t know…” Tamara tried to put the recent events into a timeline. But as much as she tried to pin it all down in chronological order, her brain refused to function and she was just left with the spinning. A time vortex, like on a TV space drama. It sucked everything into it, and she couldn’t even look at it without getting disoriented.

  “She had a little at breakfast,” Buxton supplied. “Just some toast.”

  “That’s normal,” Gomez confirmed, nodding.

  How could anything be normal? Tamara’s whole life was getting sucked into a vortex.

  “Make it stop,” Tamara murmured. “I just want to get off.” She held on to the sides of the bed, hoping it would help to stop the spinning.

  “I recommend sleep,” Dr. Eastport advised the two guards. “That’s what she says she needs. You can leave her with me. I’ll file a report at the end of my shift, letting you know if I see any reason for concern.”

  Gomez seemed unperturbed, but Buxton didn’t like it. “She needs to be in restraints.”

  “She’s not violent. It will restrict her ability to rest. I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  “With what I’ve seen of her activities over the last twenty-four hours? No. Absolutely not. She must be restrained. She’s a security risk.”

  Dr. Eastport looked at Gomez, one eyebrow up, hoping for some further tidbit of information or for Gomez to support his position.

  “We are on general lockdown,” Gomez pointed out.

  “So she’s not going to get anywhere. All the doors are locked.”

  “If there’s any possibility she was involved in Waterson’s and Tabitha Smith’s deaths last night, we can’t be too cautious,” Gomez said, with a glance at his boss. He looked at Tamara, eyes searching. He wasn’t convinced that she’d had anything to do with them.

  But he wasn’t convinced that she was innocent, either.

  10

  AFTER SPENDING MOST of the day sleeping, or at least pretending to sleep and not having to face real life, Tamara was able to pull herself together enough to convince Dr. Eastport that she was just fine and had simply been suffering from lack of sleep and the heat of the room. He released her and Tamara was escorted back to her own room, the general lockdown still in effect.

  As they passed the guard station, Tamara saw Zobel. Or she thought she saw him. White, stocky, maybe his late thirties, with a shaved head that probably indicated he had been starting to go bald. The last time she had seen Zobel for sure had been in the common room, when he was lying on the floor in a pool of blood, one of the other guards administering first aid, trying to keep him from bleeding out. She hadn’t seen anything of him on her return and hadn’t known whether he had died or was out on medical leave.

  Tamara wasn’t sure she could trust her own vision and be sure that he was there, in the guard room, having a coffee before suiting up for his shift. It might just be wishful thinking. It might be a memory. Or it might be a hallucination. She couldn’t ask the guard who was escorting her. If she said she had seen Zobel and he wasn’t really there, the guard would turn around and march her right back to the infirmary.

  It had only been a glimpse, and Tamara just wasn’t sure.

  At each set of doors they went through, the young guard put his body between Tamara and the keypad to shield his hands from her sight and quickly punched his new code in. The keys all beeped in the same tone, not like a telephone where each had a different sound that it could be identified by.

  When she reached her cell and the
big door was shut, Tamara stood there for a moment looking at the keypad. Buxton had said that they were changing all of the security codes, and they’d had all day to do it, so she was sure none of the numbers she had seen before then would still work. Buxton was bound to have eyes on her. There was a camera pointed right at her, recording her every move, watching to see if she would try using the keypad again.

  She didn’t.

  She sat for few minutes on the bunk, thinking.

  She hoped that Zobel was back. That he hadn’t been killed or permanently injured by Tabby.

  Either way, Tabby had deserved what she had gotten.

  Tamara had predicted at least two days of general lockdown and she was apparently right. The time dragged on. She had been dreading being taken her out of her cell for questioning again after they looked at the videos. What were you doing in that area? What did you see? Why didn’t you report whatever was going on?

  But they didn’t. They left her in her own cell and she was allowed to sleep, eat, and sleep again.

  By the time the lockdown was lifted, everyone was ready to get out. While it was nice not to have to deal with the politics and having to be vigilant around the other inmates, it was mind-numbing to be confined to cells twenty-four hours a day. And for those who had cellmates, which was pretty much everyone except Tamara, it was that much worse. Having to deal with being locked in a tiny cell with nothing to do but listen to your cellmate grind her teeth or pick her toenails or whatever other infuriating personal habits she might have. Tamara had heard a couple of blow-ups during the lockdown. Some of the girls would have to be taken to isolation to keep them apart or sent to the infirmary if they got too physical.

  She could hear other voices when the doors were unlocked; high girl voices, excited and impatient to get out of their rooms. There would be a rush for the showers. Much more crowded than usual. Tamara would wait until things had quieted down. Maybe even skip her shower altogether and have one the next day when things were calmer.