by Ricky Fry
But? Please tell me there’s a but?
“But, due to complicating factors, we’ve decided not to prosecute your case.”
Trooper Evans muttered something under his breath.
I would have leaped right off the bed if I hadn’t been handcuffed to it. Was the car totaled? No matter, I would settle for the next bus heading east out of Kansas. I turned my attention back to Trooper Evans, expecting him to saunter over with that sour look on his face and release me from the cuffs. What was taking him so long?
Collins cleared her throat. “Make no mistake, I’d certainly be happy to prosecute, and I believe I’d secure a conviction. Trooper Evans wrote quite the report. But it’s not in the best interests of Kansas taxpayers to incarcerate you for these relatively minor offenses, not with such serious charges pending against you in Oregon.”
Trooper Evans’ face curled into a tight-lipped smile.
“Oregon?”
“Yes,” said Collins. “Turns out the car you were driving is stolen.”
Matt. Of course, it was Matt. He must have reported the car stolen the moment he’d found it missing from the driveway.
Whatever small measure of freedom I’d felt during the last two days on the road was slipping through my fingers. If only they knew the truth about what had really happened the night I fled Oregon. “Stolen? That’s impossible. There must be some kind of mistake.”
Collins waved a sheet of paper with some kind of computer printout. “No mistake,” she said. “Though I’m afraid a stolen vehicle is the least of your concerns. The driver is wanted for attempted murder.”
Attempted murder? The words filled the room and settled in my brain, somewhere alongside the pain still pulsing between my temples. “What? That’s impossible. You must have the wrong information.”
“I’m afraid not,” said Collins. “Now, why don’t you start by telling us who you really are.”
THREE
Two deputies sat me down across the metal table from a man in a cheap, wrinkled business suit. The rough fabric of the orange jumpsuit I’d been issued scratched at my skin.
Trooper Evans had brought me from the hospital straight to the county jail just as soon as the doctors had signed off on my health. It was an experience I’d never forget—the chain between my ankles clinking loudly as I was shuffled through the emergency room and out to his waiting patrol car. But it was the gawks and stares, people seated in rows of plastic chairs averting their eyes while silently judging me, that would stay burned forever in my memory.
“My name is Andrew,” said the man in the cheap suit. “Andrew Smith. I’ve been sent by the court to represent you.” He offered his hand, and I shook it.
I’d requested a lawyer the moment Collins had sprung the attempted murder charge on me in the hospital. I’d watched enough television to know talking to the police and the prosecutors was never a good thing, no matter how hard they tried to convince you otherwise.
The lawyer smiled, revealing thin lines around his tired eyes. “Do you need anything? Water? Coffee? There’s a vending machine out in the hallway, and I’d be happy to buy you a soda.”
“No,” I said. “I’m fine.” I’d had lunch in the jail cafeteria not long before they escorted me into the room to meet with the lawyer. The lunch had been awful—a thin slice of cheese and some kind of processed mystery meat between two pieces of dry bread—but the company of misfit characters seated around me at the table had almost made up for the poor quality of the food.
“Very well.” He opened a worn leather shoulder bag and flipped through a thick stack of folders until he found one with my name scribbled on it in black marker. “I’ve reviewed the details of your case, and well, I won’t sugarcoat things. It’s not looking good.”
What does that mean? I’d spent the previous night in a narrow cell, holding out some kind of hope that it was all just a terrible misunderstanding. I’d even allowed myself to imagine the lawyer telling me I was free to leave. It was all so clear in my head. I’d change back into my black hoodie and matching Chuck Taylors, catch a bus to the nearest on-ramp, and hitch a ride out of town. Now, as I stared back at him from across the table, the expression on the lawyer’s face told me it wasn’t going to be so easy.
He waited for me to speak, and when it was clear I wasn’t going to say anything, he continued. “Spencer—do you mind if I call you Spencer?”
I shrugged my shoulders. The police had confirmed my identity after the fingerprints they took at the jail matched a shoplifting charge I’d picked up at sixteen. It was the one, and only other time I’d found myself in a jail cell, and that had only been a few hours in juvie before my foster parents came to bail me out.
The lawyer glanced down at his folder and then back up to me. “Well, Spencer, you’ve been charged back in Oregon with stealing your boyfriend’s Audi. He’s also saying you tried to kill him.”
I couldn’t hold my silence any longer. “Matt said that?”
The lawyer nodded.
Go figure. It was just like him to cover his tracks, especially when it had really been Matt who’d tried to kill me. “But that’s not what happened.”
The lawyer took a photo from the folder and slid it across the smooth metal table. In it, Matt was lying on a hospital bed with a row of staples holding a large gash on his forehead together. It made me sick to my stomach just to see him, and it had nothing to do with the blood.
“He’s a liar,” I said.
“Perhaps,” said the lawyer, “but that wound was enough to convince the police and DA’s office in Portland to file the charges. It certainly doesn’t help you were caught five states over in his Audi.”
“Please, I was only defending myself. You have to help me. Matt was trying—”
He raised a hand. “Even if I wanted to help, and I do, the charges are in Oregon. This is Kansas, and the State of Kansas has declined to file any charges for the accident.”
“So, what happens now?”
“Well, they’ll hold an extradition hearing and then ship you back to Portland. I’m only here to represent you during the hearing. You’re going to need another lawyer when you get back to Oregon, preferably a very, very good one.”
Ship me back to Portland? I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Portland was the last place I wanted to end up. Sure, it had been home all my life. But Matt was there, and I didn’t want to be anywhere near him. “What about the hearing? Isn’t there something you can do?”
“I can file a motion to stay the extradition. But I’m afraid that would only buy you some time. That’s assuming the judge even considers the motion, which, if I’m honest, Spencer, isn’t very likely. Kansas likes to move things along quickly in these matters. Until then, you’re just another prisoner eating food at the taxpayer’s expense.”
I buried my head in my hands, and for the first time since peeling out of the driveway in Matt’s Audi, I felt the overwhelming urge to cry. No, I told myself. Not in this place. But it was no use. Big, sloppy tears ran down my cheeks and wet the orange sleeves of my jumpsuit.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
I was still crying when the deputies came to take me away.
The hearing came and went. As expected, the judge ordered my immediate extradition to the State of Oregon. Less than two weeks after I’d arrived in Kansas, I was escorted from my cell by two more deputies to a holding area I recognized from when Trooper Evans had brought me over from the hospital.
That’s when I first saw him. He was young, close to my own age, and wore a different uniform than the deputies who worked the jail.
The deputies handed him a file, and he inspected it, glancing up at me for a moment as if he might be studying me the way a scientist studies a slide in a microscope. If I had known what was to come, I would have screamed and spit and punched one of the deputies so they’d have to hold me in Kansas on more charges. But we never really know what’s to come until it’s already come to pass.
“Spencer Madison?” He smiled as he said my name.
I nodded.
“I need you to say yes or no. Say it aloud. Are you Spencer Madison?”
“Yes.”
“Great,” he said. “I’m your ride to Portland. My name is Travis.” He motioned over his shoulder to a woman in a black uniform that matched his own. “This is Monica.”
“Um, okay.” Is he expecting me to say it’s nice to meet him?
The deputies took me into a side room and instructed me to change out of the orange jumpsuit. Then they gave me a matching set of bright pink prisoner scrubs marked in large block letters: CORRECTIONAL TRANSPORT COMPANY OF AMERICA.
When I’d changed, they brought back to the holding area, where Travis and a deputy were taking an inventory of my personal items. Black hoodie. Black Converse Chuck Taylors. I should have been happy, or at least felt some comfort, to see my things. But instead, it was only a sad reminder of my situation. I doubted I’d be wearing my own clothes again for a long time.
Travis handed the clear plastic bag to his partner and motioned me over to a concrete bench. “Kneel down on the bench with your legs out behind you.”
Reluctantly, I did as I was told. I knew what would come next—it was the same when they’d taken me to the courthouse—though it didn’t stop the butterflies in my stomach when he snapped the rigid metal shackles around my ankles.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “They’ve got to be tight. It’s in the regulations. But I’ll leave a little wiggle room for you.”
Great. Now he wants me to thank him like he’s doing me some kind of favor.
He helped me down from the bench—hot, sweaty hands gripping my shoulders, and then instructed me to raise my arms out to my sides. I stood silently as he put a chain around my waist and cuffed my hands in front.
Monica signed some paperwork, and they led me out to a white van marked with the same block letters as the pink uniform they’d issued me. I was relieved to see two more female prisoners in the back of the van and even more relieved when it was Monica, and not Travis, who reached across my lap to buckle the seatbelt.
When she was satisfied my seatbelt was secure, Monica, who hadn’t spoken a single word to me, climbed into the passenger seat up front—they were separated from us by a heavy wire cage—while Travis made a show of checking the tires before sliding into the driver’s seat and adjusting the mirrors.
“Safety first,” he said with an eager tone, as though we were one big happy family on a road trip.
Yeah. The road trip from hell.
FOUR
“What’s your name?” said a quiet, mousy voice from the seat behind me.
We’d been riding in silence for nearly an hour. Well, almost silence. Monica had tuned the radio to a country music station and was happily humming along to some guy singing about his pickup truck.
It’s almost like she knows how much I hate country music.
I twisted around to catch a glimpse of the young woman who’d broken the impasse, struggling against the seatbelt and the handcuffs chained to my waist. I wasn’t sure if I even wanted a conversation or if the guards would allow it, but it was better than passing the time thinking of Matt.
“Spencer,” I said. “My name is Spencer.”
“Cool name. I’m Ruby. You know, like the gemstone. My grandmother says they named me Ruby because of how red my skin was when I was born.”
She wore a thick pair of black glasses that made her slender, freckled face appear delicate. Almost fragile.
“I’d shake your hand, Ruby, but—”
She laughed, a sort of half giggle with a snort, and I decided right away that I liked her.
“So,” she said, “what’s your story?”
“My story?”
“Yeah, what’d you do to end up stuffed in the back of this van?”
“Nothing.”
She laughed and snorted again. “Oh, come on. We all did something. Me? I drove from Washington to a music festival in Atlanta with sixteen pounds of psilocybin mushrooms in my camper van. Would have made it too, if my dumbass boyfriend hadn’t fallen asleep and crashed the van just fifty miles from the festival.”
“Wow.” I was surprised by her confession. Ruby looked more like the kind of girl who’d sell muffins at a counter in some indie bookstore than an interstate drug smuggler.
“They’re not drugs,” she said as if somehow reading my mind. “They’re medicine. There’s powerful healing in those mushrooms. Have you ever tried?”
“Shrooms? No, but I don’t think people should go to jail for it.”
“Tell that to the feds.” Another snort. “So I’ve told you my story. What’s yours?”
I looked up just in time to see the curious grin on Travis’ face as he watched us in the rear-view mirror. Monica appeared entirely uninterested and reached for the radio dial to turn the music up a notch or two.
“It’s all just a misunderstanding. I’m sure they’ll figure it out when I get back to Oregon.” It was more than just an excuse not to explain the details. I still clung to some hope that my problems would somehow go away when I had a chance to tell my side of the story.
“Look,” she said, “I won’t tell anyone. And those guards up front aren’t cops.”
“They’re not?”
“Nope. Correctional Transport Company of America is a private company. They stuff people into vans just like this one and drive them all over the country—make a big profit by billing the states and paying the guards shit. I read an article about it once on Vice. And now here I am, just another part of the story.”
“Is that legal?”
Travis, who must have been eavesdropping on our conversation, jumped in. “Legal as sin. Hell, they’re traded on the stock exchange. The rich keep getting richer, while Monica and I make a cool twelve dollars an hour driving seventy-two-hour runs.”
Monica groaned. “Travis—”
He waved her off. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t take my job seriously. You might think I’m only here to drive you from jail to jail like I’m some kind of bad guy. Truth is, I’m here to keep you safe. When you’re in my custody, you’re my responsibility, and I’m not gonna let anything bad happen to you.”
He winked at me in the rear-view mirror, and a shiver traveled down my spine. I couldn’t say why he gave me the creeps. It seemed like he was only being nice, just another young guy working a job like anyone else. He was certainly more pleasant than Monica.
“Okay, let’s hear it,” said Ruby. “Tell us your story.”
“Go on,” said Travis, winking at me again. “It’s not like I haven’t already read the charges in your file.”
“Well—” I hesitated for a moment, unsure if it was wise to continue. “They said I tried to murder my fiancé.”
“Damn.” Ruby whistled. “I had no idea you were such a badass.”
I was still surprised to hear that kind of language coming from her thin lips. “It’s not true. I never tried to kill anyone. I hit him over the head with a model home—some stupid mockup for a bland development he was selling—and it was self-defense.”
“Sure thing, honey.” It was the older woman on the seat behind Ruby who spoke, her voice low and gravelly like someone who’d been smoking two packs a day for fifty years. “With men, it’s always self-defense. Your only mistake was not killing the bastard.”
“That’s Denise,” said Ruby. “She—”
“I can speak for myself,” said the older woman. “Killed my husband twenty-three years ago. Cut his body up into little pieces and fed it to the pigs. He had it coming too. Always getting drunk and slapping me around. You know something? I ain’t never had a single regret. Only got caught now because of that new DNA evidence. I’m surprised anyone still cared.”
I wondered if that would have been my life in twenty years if I’d stayed put and married Matt. He wasn’t a heavy drinker, and he’d never hit me. His own brand of torture was something different, somet
hing much more suffocating and controlling than a slap in the face.
“Isn’t this great?” Ruby was awfully perky for someone facing federal drug charges. “I’ve always wanted friends to share secrets with.”
Monica grumbled from the front seat. “Yeah, you guys are just like the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.”
I smiled to myself. Even though we’re in chains, Monica is the most miserable one in this van.
When I looked up, Travis was smiling too. Another wink in the rear-view mirror. Another shiver down my spine.
FIVE
Any girl will tell you peeing in a gas station bathroom is never easy. The piss on the seat. Tampon wrappers on the floor. It’s even harder when you’re in shackles.
“One hand,” said Monica as she shuffled us one after the other from the van into the filthy bathroom, chains clinking between our ankles with each restricted step. “I’ll unlock one hand, so you can wipe.”
Thanks, Monica. You’re such an angel.
I’d had to pee since about two hours into the journey, but Monica said I had to hold it until we reached one of the approved stops along our route. I wasn’t eager to be paraded around the parking lot in chains, but my need to pee overwhelmed my shame. I even smiled at an older couple fueling up their RV, mortified looks of horror and contempt on their faces.
Oh, come on. It’s not like we actually murdered someone. Okay, maybe Denise killed her husband, but that was twenty-three years ago. And according to her, he deserved it.
By now, we were four hours into our trip, and I was starting to wonder how long the journey back to Oregon would take. The limited freedom of a jail cell was beginning to look good compared to being shackled in the back of a van. At least I could stretch my arms in a jail cell.
Travis fueled the van and checked the tires again. I had to admit I appreciated his commitment to safety, even if it came off as that sort of protective male bravado most Portland girls like me do our best to ignore.
