Jar of Hearts

by Jennifer Hillier

  She looks down at her hands; they’re shaking. He wrote to her. Goddammit. The memories threaten to flood in, to break the barrier that Geo has spent years constructing around her head and her heart. She doesn’t want to think about him; it’s always been so much easier to pretend he’s not out there somewhere. Her ability to compartmentalize the different pieces of her life is the only fucking reason she’s sane.

  No. No no no. Goddammit.

  She feels something on her face and touches it, and is shocked to discover that she’s crying.

  Goddammit.

  “Bad time?” The inmate from the cell next door is standing in her open doorway, watching her with a concerned expression. The older woman is in her late fifties, a sprite of a lady with bright burgundy curls and an expressive mouth that’s always laughing, eating, or cussing. Sometimes all three at the same time. Ella Frank might be Geo’s business associate, but Cat Bonaducci is Geo’s friend. The first real girlfriend she’s had in a long time.

  The last one was Angela.

  “Kind of,” Geo says, but she waves her in. “What’s up?”

  “I want to take a new picture. For the pen pal thing I told you about. Can you do my hair?” She holds up a box of Nice’n Easy hair color, the only kind you can purchase from commissary.

  “Write-A-Prisoner? You sure it’s not really called Date-A-Prisoner?” Geo wipes her eyes. “Sure. I have a bit of time before my first appointment.”

  Cat follows Geo out of the cell. They buzz to be let out and head down to the education wing, where the prison hair salon is located. Cat also brings her small bag of cosmetics; she’ll probably ask for help with her makeup, too. Inmates are technically allowed only six makeup items each, but it’s a moronic rule that the prison never enforces. The better women look, the better they feel. The better they feel, the higher the overall morale. And when morale is high, incidents of violence are low.

  The salon is really just a small, plain room with a wash sink, chair, small desk, and mirror. Inmates have to buy their own hair color from commissary, and Geo only has access to the shears after a CO unlocks the drawer and signs them out. She opens the box of Nice’n Easy and starts mixing Cat’s color.

  “What’s going on with you?” Cat asks as Geo begins to apply the hair color to her friend’s gray roots. “Were you crying?”

  Geo doesn’t answer. She doesn’t want to talk about the letter. The past needs to stay in the past; it’s the only way to keep moving forward. “Maybe. Now shut up and let me work my magic.”

  “You never did tell me how you got so good at doing hair and makeup,” Cat says, closing her eyes as Geo works. The fumes are strong. “I thought you had a desk job on the outside.”

  “I went to beauty school for a year. In between college and my master’s degree.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  Geo smiles. “That’s the exact same thing my dad said. When I told him after graduation that I’d enrolled at the Emerald Beauty Academy, he thought I was joking. He thought it would be a waste of time.”

  Actually, the exact thing Walter Shaw had said to her was, “Beauty school is for people who can’t get into college, Georgina. You have a degree, for Christ’s sakes, and you’re attending a school that takes high school dropouts?” But she doesn’t want to say this to Cat, who never finished high school.

  “It was fun,” she says instead. “I spent five days a week learning everything there was to learn about makeup and hair. After that, I landed an internship at Shipp Pharmaceuticals, and the rest, as they say, is history. They have an MBA reimbursement program, so I took advantage of it and worked my way up.”

  Telling Cat the story makes her think of Andrew. It’s been two months, and her ex-fiancé’s name is still on her approved-visitors list. She never bothered to take it off. It means going down to the visitor’s office and telling them to remove his name, and Andrew Shipp—bless his rich, white, entitled ass—doesn’t deserve the ounce of energy that would take. Not that she wishes him ill. She just doesn’t wish him anything at all. Her dad always said that you only get one real chance at love, and if that was true, Geo had wasted hers at the age of sixteen on a boyfriend who’d turned out to be a serial killer known as the Sweetbay Strangler.

  She remembers thinking it was such as a silly name when Kaiser Brody first told her about it, the day he’d come to arrest her. They were sitting across from each other in the interrogation room at Seattle PD. Fred Argent, the head of Shipp’s in-house counsel, was seated beside her, way out of his depth as Kaiser explained what her old boyfriend Calvin James had done.

  It didn’t sound so silly anymore.

  “Wait,” Fred had said, looking every inch the corporate attorney he was trained to be—late fifties, white, and completely outraged at the thought that one of Shipp’s own was being treated like a common criminal. “I thought you were arresting Miss Shaw for the murder of someone named Angela Wong.”

  “We are, but that’s not the only crime Calvin James has been charged with,” Kaiser said. “He’s murdered three other women that we know of over the past decade.”

  Geo drew in a sharp breath. Immediately, Fred leaned over to whisper in her ear. His breath was rank with stale whiskey; it was no big secret that the old lawyer kept a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in his desk drawer. He’d probably taken a couple of shots before meeting her here. “I’ve called Daniel Attenbaum, the best criminal defense attorney in Seattle. He’ll be here shortly. Andrew said not to worry about anything. He’ll cover all the expenses out of his personal account. In the meantime, say nothing, okay?”

  Geo nodded. Kaiser was watching the two of them with amusement. Then he opened the manila file folder on the table and pulled out the photos.

  Two of them, both eight by tens, full color. Keeping them side by side, he pushed them across the table. “Angela Wong,” he said.

  Fred Argent looked at the photos and blanched, his eyes darting back and forth between the two pictures several times. Geo glanced down, drew in another breath, and then averted her gaze. It was exactly as horrific as she imagined it would be.

  “My god.” The lawyer put a hand over his mouth. “Is that…” He didn’t finish the sentence. He couldn’t. Fred spent most of his day in a cushy office, drafting contracts, reading fine print, and discussing the legal aspects of the pharmaceutical business. He looked positively traumatized.

  Then again, a photograph of a pile of human bones and tattered clothing would traumatize anyone.

  “Her purse was buried with her,” Kaiser said, speaking to Geo. “It contained her driver’s license and her high school ID card. Also her camera. There’s no doubt it’s her.”

  Geo said nothing.

  “Remember that camera?” Kaiser smiled. “Some fancy thing her dad won in a golf tournament? Small, but not digital. They didn’t really have a digital cameras for the consumer back then. It was a thirty-five millimeter. She was always buying film at the 7-Eleven. Always carrying it around, taking pictures of everything. Remember?”

  Geo remembered.

  “The film was preserved inside the camera from that night,” Kaiser said. “We got the pictures developed. Want to see? You and I are in a whole bunch of them. It’s a real blast from the past.”

  Internally, Geo shook her head rapidly. Externally, she didn’t blink.

  “Come again?” Fred Argent said. “I’m afraid I don’t understand any of this. You’re speaking to Miss Shaw like you have a previous relationship with her. Do you two know each other outside of this … situation?”

  “Catch up, dude,” Kaiser said nonchalantly, and Geo almost laughed. It was something he used to say in high school. “Miss Shaw and I go way back. We were—how do the kids put it now?—BFFs back in the day. Best friends, along with Angela Wong. Right, Geo?”

  Again, Geo said nothing.

  Kaiser reached into the folder again and pulled out a smaller envelope filled with photos. He removed them and placed them in a stack in front of
Geo. “These are from Angela’s camera. Have a look. You’ll be tickled, I’m sure. We all look so young.”

  She didn’t want to look, but she couldn’t help it. The picture on top was of the three of them, taken a few days before the night Angela died. They were standing in the entryway of Angela’s house and Kaiser had snapped a picture of their reflection in the full-length hallway mirror. Geo plucked the photo from the stack and examined it closer. Kaiser was right; they looked very young. He was skinnier then, and not quite as tall as he was now. Geo appeared shy and self-conscious standing beside him. Angela was on his other side, posing with a hand on her hip and her hair tossed to the side, hamming it up for the camera. Geo looked pretty. Angela looked beautiful.

  She started thumbing through the rest of the photos. Angela had indeed taken pictures of everything in the days before she died—school, cheer practice, the football game, Chad Fenton’s party … and then Calvin. He was in the very last photo with Geo. They were sitting side by side on his bed, in his apartment, after the party. Geo was wearing a short blue dress, and it had hiked up almost to her underwear. Her head was resting on Calvin’s shoulder, and he had a hand on her thigh. He could never be near her and not touch her. He was always stroking her, playing with her hair, squeezing her hand. She shuddered. She hadn’t thought about that in a long time.

  She hadn’t allowed herself to think about it in a long time.

  She didn’t remember this picture being taken. But then, why would she? The picture didn’t show it, but she was so drunk that night she could barely stand.

  “Who is that?” Fred Argent was leaning in toward Geo, frowning at the photo.

  “That, sir, is the Sweetbay Strangler,” Kaiser said. “Back when he used to date Georgina.”

  A sharp intake of breath. For once, not Geo’s. She glanced over at Shipp’s lawyer where beads of sweat were forming at his hairline. The man’s blood pressure was probably up twenty points, no doubt because his CEO’s fiancée was in major trouble here. And he was stuck with the task of protecting her, something he obviously wasn’t cut out to do.

  “What’s so crazy is that discovering Angela’s remains after all these years allowed us to solve three other murders, just like that.” Kaiser snapped his fingers for emphasis. “We already had his DNA in the database for three other murders, but no ID. But then we developed the pictures in Angela’s camera. Imagine my shock—my utter fucking shock—when I realized Calvin James was with Angela the night she died. As were you.”

  “But that doesn’t mean she—” Fred began, but Kaiser raised a hand.

  “Now we had an ID on a possible suspect,” the detective continued. “We tracked Calvin down, arrested him at a diner in Blaine. You know where Blaine is, right? Right by the Canadian border? Fucker was about to cross into Canada. Had a passport and everything. Had he done that, we might never have caught him. Guess what he was eating when we caught him. Guess.”

  Geo said nothing.

  “A salad,” Kaiser said. “Isn’t that funny? Because you never think about what serial killers eat, do you? I mean, other than Jeffrey Dahmer.”

  Fred Argent paled.

  “Sorry, bad joke,” Kaiser said with a smirk, not sorry at all. “But it turns out psychopaths are just like you and me in some ways. They watch their waistlines; they care about their blood pressure. Did you know that something like five percent of all CEOs can be classified as psychopaths? I read that somewhere.”

  It was 4 percent. Geo had read that book, too.

  “And you were on the fast track to success at your company, weren’t you? How many people did you step on to get there? I’ve been keeping tabs on you. Does your rich heir-to-the-throne fiancé know your secret?” Kaiser’s voice was polite, but there was no mistaking the edge that lay right beneath the surface. “Had you gone to the police the night you killed Angela, you might have saved three more lives from being taken. Calvin James was twenty-one; you were only sixteen. You could have struck a deal, and you might never have seen the inside of a jail cell. You could have spared her parents fourteen years of agony, of not knowing where their daughter was or what happened to her. You have would spared her friends the pain of all those unanswered questions. Because all this time, you knew, Georgina. You knew. You knew.”

  The last two words weren’t shouted, but they might as well have been. Geo winced as if he’d slapped her.

  “Want to know what he did to the other three women? The women he killed because you never said anything?” Kaiser was breathing fast now, his chest heaving. He pulls more photographs out of the file folder and shoves them across the table. The pictures are gory, the bodies discolored, bloated. Because death was ugly. “He raped them first, then he strangled them, and then he buried their bodies in the woods. He probably figured he got away with it once and it turned him on, so why not do it again? And again. And again. You murdered your best friend, and then you went on with your life like it never fucking happened.”

  The words stung. Geo felt herself sag into her chair. “I loved her,” she whispered again. “You know that.”

  “Georgina, stop speaking,” Fred said to her. His phone beeped, and he checked the text message. “Goddamn it, Attenbaum is stuck in traffic. He’ll be another twenty minutes at least. Not another word until he’s inside this room, you understand?”

  “Calvin says you secretly hated her,” Kaiser said.

  Geo’s insides tightened. “Calvin’s here?”

  “He was, for a while, but he’s been moved.” Her old friend leaned forward, his eyes never leaving Geo’s face. “You wouldn’t recognize him right now. He’s got long hair, a thick beard. I’m sure he’ll clean himself up for the trial. He said that back then, you and Angela had a rivalry going. And it’s funny, because as soon as he said that, I realized he was right. I was always playing the peacemaker with you guys, but I just thought all the bickering and competition was a girl thing.”

  “I never wanted anything bad to happen to her,” Geo said.

  “Jesus Christ, Georgina, please,” Fred Argent said, glaring at the closed door, as if he thought he could summon Daniel Attenbaum through sheer willpower.

  “The good news is, the DA doesn’t want you,” Kaiser said, saying the line that every cop used in the movies. “They want Calvin.”

  “How am I supposed to help?” she asked.

  Fred Argent sighed deeply and placed his head in his hands.

  “Testify,” Kaiser said. “The district attorney will agree to a plea deal in exchange for your testimony. But you need to make a decision quick, before the DA decides she doesn’t need you.”

  “Georgina, Andrew said—” Fred began, but she shook her head.

  “It doesn’t matter what Andrew said.” Geo took a deep breath. “You can go now, Fred. I’ll wait for Attenbaum. If you see Andrew, tell him I love him, and that I’m grateful for his help and support, and that I’m sorry for any embarrassment I caused. Go ahead and put together my severance package; I’ll sign off on it tonight.”

  “Severance package?” The lawyer looked completely caught off guard.

  Geo turned to him and managed a rueful smile. “I have to disassociate myself from the company, of course. All of this will be terrible publicity for Shipp. But I’d like you to treat me fairly. I’ve been a valuable asset, and I want what I’m entitled to. I think one’s year salary, plus the bonus I would have received, is reasonable.”

  “That’s … premature,” Fred said, his mouth slightly ajar. “Andrew will—”

  “The trial will be public, I’m sure. However, if I a sign a nondisclosure agreement—which I’m happy to do if the settlement is fair—we can prevent my personal situation from affecting Shipp. Talk to Andrew. I’m sure he’ll agree it’s best for the company.”

  She caught Kaiser’s look, knew what he must be thinking. It was a hell of a time to be making a business deal, but she would never have made it to the executive level of a major corporation by the age of thirty without the
ability to negotiate under pressure.

  Thankfully, it’s a transferrable skill, one that will make all the difference between surviving prison and dying in here. It’s also self-preservation. Her corporate career is over. The best she can hope for is to take the settlement and invest it, adding whatever she and Ella make to the pot. By the time she’s released, she might have enough to start over. She could always renew her cosmetology license and open a salon.

  She puts the finishing touches on Cat’s face, then hands her friend a small plastic mirror. “You’re done. Take a look.”

  Cat checks her reflection and nods her approval. “Where did you go just now? You zoned out. Did you hear anything I said in the last ten minutes?”

  “Sorry.” Geo sighs. “It’s been that kind of day.”

  “It’s Hellwood. Every day is that kind of day.” Cat stands up. “I’m off. Catch you in chow hall. Ta-ta.”

  Cat practically skips out, a small woman with a heart and spirit so big, Geo wishes they could know each other outside these prison walls. The older woman has made some giant mistakes in her life, but Cat’s a good person.

  Geo’s next “client” is not a good person. She takes a seat in the chair and hands Geo a few pages ripped from old beauty magazines they keep in the recreation room. Geo listens politely, trying not to think about how the woman and her husband used to own a daycare where they would film the children naked and upload the footage to a child pornography site. The woman is serving out her sentence in protective custody for her own safety, and is allowed two haircuts per year. Her husband was beaten to death in the men’s prison two years ago.

  The pedophile tells her she wants bangs.

  This is Geo’s life now, surrounded by all manner of wicked human beings who do nothing to make the world a better place, who take and take and take, giving absolutely nothing back. And in a lot of ways, she’s no better than they are. This is exactly what she deserves. She picks up her shears and starts snipping.