Insiders

by Olivia Goldsmith

‘Miss Johnston,’ Gwen said sternly, causing her guest to look up promptly and stop taking notes. ‘You and I both know that what you are saying only makes sense on paper. This facility was built over thirty years ago. No doubt with asbestos and then painted with lead paint. All penologists agree that there are and must be differences between prisons for men and those for women. If you read my report, you can’t possibly suggest that Jennings could operate with twice the number of inmates.’

  ‘Warden,’ Marlys said as kindly as Gwen was stern. ‘I’m here to help. I’m here to work with you to make this transition as smooth as possible. I want to work with you, Gwen – not against you. We just have to get you to think outside the box, that’s all. Okay?’

  Gwen wondered what the penalty would be if she slapped Marlys Johnston, but she nodded and tried her best to muster a cooperative-looking smile. She feared that Marlys Johnston was her last chance – small as it was – to get herself heard before more changes were made that would forever destroy everything she had worked all these hard years to build. ‘I believe that any transition must be done at a slow pace,’ Gwen told the woman. ‘A prison population can be volatile.’

  ‘I agree! That’s why we’ll make the first change small. We’ll start with visitation day.’ Gwen held her tongue. ‘To best structure the work week, the midweek visitation day will be eliminated. As it stands now the inmates have to earn merits to get that day applied to them anyway, so we’ll just have them work that day instead.’

  Gwen actually gasped. ‘But the visits are very important to inmate morale here at Jennings. And some family members work weekends, particularly in lower-level jobs. You can’t just …’

  Marlys Johnston smiled again. ‘Yes, we can, Warden. You just have to begin thinking outside the box. And I want you to make the announcement at dinnertime tonight about next Wednesday’s visitation. Let the ladies sleep on it.’

  ‘I don’t think they’re going to sleep after hearing that. And don’t you think it’s best to give more notice? Some people plan a month or more ahead for visiting.’

  ‘Warden Harding, we need to move forward as quickly as we can so that the facility starts to earn a profit by the second fiscal quarter,’ the beastly woman said. ‘That will mean cutting costs, cutting staff, and gearing up for productive work – work that industry will pay for.’

  ‘And how will that improve the lives of the inmates? I can’t believe …’

  ‘If you want to succeed with JRU, Gwen, you’re going to have to start thinking more positively.’ The woman gathered her papers, closed her fancy briefcase with those fancy painted fingers, and nodded a good-bye to Gwen, who only had the strength to nod back.

  Gwen sat at her desk and thought about how badly she needed a drink. She had to have a drink. With the JRU International stage set and geared up for ‘transitions’ she needed a drink. Gwen reached over to her drawer and pulled it open. She looked down at nip bottles she had lined up in rows. She pulled one out and twisted the cap open. She poured the liquid down her throat, replaced the cap back on the glass bottle, and inverted the bottle in the row in the drawer.

  It was all psychological. She had to have routine in her life. She couldn’t give up everything completely. No cold turkey for her at this time in her life. She had heard that people trying to quit smoking would often have a cigarette handy, hold it, pretend to flick the ashes and place it in the ashtray, even put it in their mouth and try to inhale. But the trick was to never light the cigarette. So she improvised with her gin. She bought little glass bottles, filled them with water, and kept them in her drawer. It was a false sense of comfort for her, but she needed comfort now with all the changes going on around her.

  Well, she hadn’t been fired but she might as well quit. It was going to be a nightmare – hell it was going to be an uproar, a riot – when the inmates found out about visitor’s day. Even with all the disappointment that sometimes happened with visitors not showing up or not staying for the full hour, the prisoners worked very hard to earn those days. She didn’t want to be the one to have to disappoint these women with the change. They were so sensitive to these sorts of things – not because they were women – but because they were used to a schedule. Jesus, she could remember what a disturbance there had been when the food service took off scrambled eggs and added pancakes. They expected everything to stay as it was. Change was not favored here at all.

  Gwen couldn’t help but think that she didn’t like the changes that were going to have to take place in her life because of JRU. If she left now, she’d have a reduction in her pension or perhaps lose it altogether. And where would she get another job? She chuckled at the thought of seeing herself as a door greeter at Wal-Mart on a part-time basis. Collecting hardly any pay, no insurance coverage, but boy, oh boy, she’d get an employee discount and even more of a break on Tuesdays when it was Seniors Day.

  She picked up her cup of coffee and thought of the biblical reference, ‘Let this cup pass from my lips.’ How true this was. She felt like she was being crucified.

  29

  Jennifer Spencer

  From jail, it is difficult to prepare an adequate defense – while on the other hand, a person who can make bail usually is able to search for a lawyer, round up witnesses, secure a job, and make a good case for herself in court.

  Kathryn Watterson, Women in Prison

  The only mail that came into Jennings that wasn’t ransacked and examined was the privileged communications from attorneys. When Jennifer received the thick envelope from Howard McBane, she immediately went to her bunk and tore it open. There were pages and pages. She picked up the cover letter and read it.

  Dear Miss Spencer,

  After careful analysis of your case and a reading of the trial transcripts, we believe that there are no significant grounds for an appeal. Discussions with your counsel, Thomas Branston, indicate that he is in agreement.

  We could, of course, proceed with the appeal on some minor grounds, but that is a time-consuming and costly undertaking. If, in the face of this advice, you determine to continue, we will represent you, but we first wanted to apprise you of the likely outcome. The firm will also require a sizeable retainer.

  As you can see, I have enclosed a detailed estimate, as well as the opinions rendered on your case by several of our senior partners, along with annotated trial transcripts where relevant.

  Jennifer looked at the letter with horror. She tried to take a deep breath but the air wouldn’t go into her lungs. She read it again to be sure she hadn’t made some mistake.

  Of course she’d made a mistake, but it hadn’t been in reading the damn letter. She’d made a huge mistake in choosing where to place her trust. First, she had been promised by Donald and Tom that she wouldn’t be found guilty. Then, when she was, they had guaranteed her a suspended sentence. When she’d been sentenced to prison, they had told her that most likely she would get an immediate pardon, and when that fell through Tom had told her the appeal would take only a matter of weeks. Then Tom had broken up with her, but assured her that Howard would see that the appeal went smoothly. And now she was being informed by Howard that ‘there are no significant grounds for an appeal.’ How about the fact that it was Donald Michaels, not she, who was guilty?

  She turned a page. And the next one made the first seem like good news! It literally took what little breath she had away. It was a request for a $280,000 retainer. Jennifer must have made a noise, because Suki, who had just entered the cell, asked, ‘Are you all right?’

  Jennifer couldn’t answer. She had no air in her lungs and she was sick to her stomach. She moaned a little. God, here she was, thinking she was smarter and better than all the other women in prison, and she was probably the most sophisticated dupe in the joint. She wondered for the first time if perhaps she had been set up from the very beginning to take this fall. Maybe the whole romance with Tom, the engagement, everything, had just been a way to find someone willing to be the victim. She actually felt dizzy an
d leaned back onto the flat pillow of her bunk. Suki stepped over to her and took her hand. Jen moaned again.

  ‘Are you all right, Jenny?’ Suki asked again. ‘Should I get Movita?’

  Jennifer just shook her head. She wasn’t all right, but how could Movita or anyone help? Donald Michaels had been doing questionable IPOs since before the dot-com boom. He and all the rest of Wall Street. But he’d played just a little faster, a little looser, and a lot more visibly than others. He’d always been aware that the SEC and the market self-regulatory agency were tracking him. It occurred to her that it was just possible he had hired her with the idea that a good girl like her, from a Catholic school, might be the perfect one to catch the flak if it ever flew. And she’d thought it had been her rap about Gulbenkian porcelain.

  ‘Jenny? Jenny, you’re scaring me,’ Suki said.

  ‘I’ll be all right,’ Jennifer managed to tell her. Then she concentrated on trying to breathe. The brain needed oxygen to think. ‘Sit down, Suki,’ she told the girl, though she was barely conscious of whether her cellmate was sitting or standing. She had no energy to talk to Suki now. She had to think. ‘Leave me be,’ she said.

  Well, though Howard may have given up on her, Donald had promised her that they would be responsible for her legal expenses, and she was going to find another firm that felt she had a better shot at an appeal than these puppets at Swithmore, McBane. And they would pay for it, because if they didn’t, she would call the SEC on the phone in the rec room and begin to rattle off every secret she knew. And she would hope that the call was monitored, because she would want not only the prison authorities, but the FBI and the IRS to hear about this shit.

  She sat up, jumped off the bunk, and turned to Suki.

  ‘Help me,’ Jennifer said, and they lifted the bed so she could get to the cell phone secreted in the pipe of the leg.

  ‘Watch out,’ she told Suki. ‘I have to make a really important phone call.’

  Suki just nodded, but her eyes opened wide. Jennifer punched in Tom’s cell phone. Despite his caller ID the son-of-a-bitch didn’t know this number, so she wouldn’t get voicemail. Sure enough, the bastard answered on the first ring.

  ‘Tom Branston,’ he said.

  ‘I know who you are,’ she said. ‘You better not hang up when you know who I am.’

  ‘Jennifer?’ he asked, and she could hear the surprise and dismay in his voice.

  She didn’t bother with preliminaries. ‘Did you see the letter from that creep, Howard McBane?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s privileged information Jennifer. I haven’t seen the letter, but he did communicate with me that …’

  ‘Cut the crap, Tom. The first question I have to ask is, was I railroaded from the very beginning? Or was I merely the most convenient dispensable player?’

  ‘Jennifer, I can’t really talk to you now …’

  ‘Wait a minute! Don’t you dare hang up!’ Her tone of voice was enough to ensure that he didn’t. ‘The second question I have to ask is whether you have the phone number of Charles Hainey at the SEC handy, because I’m about to call him and drop a dime on the two of you, as we convicts say.’

  ‘Jennifer, I …’

  ‘Listen to me, you liar. If you and Donald don’t immediately find, and pay, some lawyers who can get me out of here, you’re both going to be really, really sorry.’

  There was a dead pause, and for a moment she was afraid that they had been disconnected. But then his voice came through as clearly as if he were standing in the cell with her. And his voice wasn’t pleasant, but there was an undercurrent of … was it fear? she wondered.

  ‘Jennifer, don’t do anything crazy. I haven’t seen this letter from Howard, but I’ll call him right away and I’ll get ahold of Donald,’ he told her. ‘You know we’re behind you. But if you’re guilty …’

  ‘If I’m guilty!’ Jennifer screeched. Suki turned around and gestured to her and she lowered her voice. ‘Listen,’ she said with more intensity than she had ever used in her life. ‘I did what you told me to. Because you told me to. We all agreed. And if I’m the least little bit guilty, then you and Donald are very, very guilty and in trouble big-time. Maybe you’ve forgotten I know all about the Fischer offering, and that was before my time. And Sam Sutton told me all the details on the Omnigroup IPO. Not to mention the way Donald bragged about it when he had a few martinis in him.’ That ought to put the fear of God into him.

  But his voice went cold. ‘Jennifer, you’re on a cell phone. This call can be overheard, and it sounds like you’re threatening blackmail.’ He paused. ‘Just because I broke off our engagement is no reason to seek revenge.’

  ‘Revenge? Are you insane?’ she asked. ‘Don’t try to make this some woman-scorned bullshit. Trust me, Tom, this is strictly business.’

  His voice was formal. She’d heard it like that when he was about to walk out of a negotiation. ‘On behalf of Donald Michaels and Hudson, Van Schaank, I have to tell you that we won’t be party to this kind of shakedown,’ he told her.

  Jennifer actually stared at the mouthpiece of the phone. How crazy was this son-of-a-bitch? And how had she confused him with a decent man?

  ‘You can try and pretend for the record that what went down didn’t go down,’ she told him now. ‘But I need to hear an assurance from you and Donald Michaels, within the next three hours, that Alan Dershowitz or somebody even better has been retained and paid for on my behalf. And if I don’t …’

  ‘Jennifer, this is a nonproductive conversation at this point. In fact, based on your guilt it may represent a conflict of interest. But I’ll try to speak with Howard and Donald. Call me tonight around ten o’clock.’

  ‘I can’t call you at ten o’clock,’ she virtually spat at him. ‘I’m in prison, remember? I’ll call you at eight. And you better have some answers by then.’

  She hit the end button of the phone, Suki came over, and the two of them got the phone back into its hiding place.

  Jennifer could not breathe. She could not speak or move or even swallow the bile that was threatening to choke her. It burned the back of her throat.

  ‘I don’t know how much longer I can keep this secret,’ Suki said, totally out of the blue, as she rolled over in her bunk.

  Jennifer sat up. It felt good to be able to sit upright. Suki had asked to switch bunks since she kept getting up during the night to pee. And the girl never stopped talking about the baby when she was awake. ‘You have to be careful about any of this,’ Jennifer warned Suki. ‘You’ll get us all in trouble.’

  ‘How can you all get in trouble? It doesn’t involve any of you,’ Suki whined.

  Sometimes it was hard to tell if Suki was dumb or just played dumb. ‘Like hell it doesn’t,’ Jen told her. ‘We’ll all get put in the SHU.’

  ‘Me being pregnant won’t do all that,’ Suki said.

  Jennifer actually laughed out loud. She’d thought, of course, that Suki was referring to the hidden cell phone and all the unusual activity.

  ‘It’s not a laughing matter!’ Suki said with much more than the usual vehemence. ‘The whole thing was a terrible experience. It brought everything back. You know, from when I was twelve and my cousin Travis forced me to do it with him and his friends.’

  Jennifer was shocked at hearing this confession. ‘I can’t imagine Camry being capable of such an aggressive act.’

  Suki swung her head out from under the bunk. ‘It wasn’t Roger. He’s the nicest CO in here,’ Suki said with anger.

  ‘I just assumed that …’

  Suki moved her head back into her pillow and talked into the bottom of Jennifer’s bunk. ‘God! You’re crazy. It was Karl Byrd. I hate him.’

  Jennifer was stunned – and nauseated. She remembered the overtures and smirks from Byrd, and wondered how close she had come to being raped. But Suki had never seemed resentful about her pregnancy. She didn’t seem to connect the man she hated with the baby she was carrying. For some reason Jennifer remembered a tribe she
had read of in her college anthropology course. They had never connected the sexual act with pregnancy. Didn’t it bother Suki that the baby she seemed to already love was Karl Byrd’s baby as well? Jennifer realized Suki was talking and bent to listen.

  ‘I had just been reassigned to working in the laundry. Byrd worked days then.’ Suki stopped for a moment as if to build up the courage to continue. ‘We were in the dirty laundry area with Flora when a buzzer went off on one of the washers. He sent Flora to take care of it and he escorted me to the back to get more dirty laundry. There he told me to get a bag.’

  Suki stopped again. She must have been starting to cry because Jen could hear her sniffle and see the shadow cast on the floor of her arm going to her face. She was wiping away tears. ‘We wore one-piece green dresses before you came here, and when I bent over …’ She took a deep breath. ‘He came at me from behind. He cupped his hand over my mouth and pushed me into the pile of dirty clothes. I didn’t know what was happening at first. My face was pushed into the stinking laundry and his hand covered me so I could hardly breathe. He pushed himself on me. He was so heavy, and then I felt his thing – his dick.’

  Jennifer jumped off her bunk and bent down to Suki. She felt sick. ‘Why didn’t you report it? He can’t get away with that. You can’t just rape someone.’

  ‘Ha. He did. Right then, and he got off twice, Jen. Twice! The second time I fought him hard. I turned over so we were face-to-face. But he got me by the throat.’

  Jennifer felt tears run down her face. ‘Oh, Suki. I’m so sorry! The first day I came here, I knew he was no good. But why didn’t you say something to Movita or Cher?’

  ‘He told me that he’d hurt me if I told anyone. He said it would be his word against mine and that no one would believe a frightened, lying little whore inmate.’ She paused. ‘He also told me I was lucky he wasn’t a nigger. That’s what he said.’

  ‘We’ve got to do something,’ Jennifer insisted. ‘It’s not right.’