Shoots to Kill (2 page)

“Baby, those bars ain’t gonna bend. You might as well stop pullin’ on ’em and have a seat. ’Sides, they ain’t gonna let you out until you been arraigned.”

“I know how it works,” I muttered weakly. “I went to law school.”

“You did? You a lawyer then? Well, that’s a whole ’nother situation. You hear that, girls? We got ourselves a bona fide—”

“I’m not a lawyer,” I said, cutting off the sudden excited chatter. “I didn’t make it.”

“You run outta money, or what?”

“Brains.” Like I needed to be reminded of that particular failure
now
. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather not go into it.”

“So, what are you in for?”

Her questions weren’t helping my glum mood. “No one would tell me. All I know is that I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Sugar, that’s what everyone says.”

“I don’t care what everyone says,” I snapped. “I’m innocent.”

“Well,
someone’s
got herself some attitude.”

There were snickers at her comment.

“And someone’s got
herself
too many nosy questions, ” I retorted.

Silence.

Ticking off an inmate probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do, considering I had nowhere to hide, so I loosened my grip on the bars and turned to apologize. There were five women in with me, each on her own bunk. One was a pasty-skinned, emaciated middle-aged white woman who was so blotto that her eyes kept crossing. She was lying on a second-tier bunk, one arm hanging limply off the side. On another bunk was a young Latina with long, dark hair, who looked like she was barely in high school.

On a lower bunk was a woman who desperately needed a good bath and possibly a delousing. Beyond her lay a woman displaying multihued tattoos on her arms and neck. One bunk farther was an attractive black woman sporting an ugly purple bruise on her jaw and another around one eye. She was giving me a scowl. Clearly, this was the woman I’d offended.

“Sorry,” I said to the scowler. “I’m getting some major claustrophobia here and it makes me extremely edgy.”

Her expression softened. “Yep, this place’ll surely do that to you.”

“I tried to explain my condition to the state trooper, but he didn’t care.”

“Did you think he would?”

Well, actually, I had, but I didn’t want to admit it now for fear of showing my naïveté. I’d even pulled out my ace in the hole, telling the trooper that my dad was a twenty-year veteran of the New Chapel police force, but he’d just ignored me. He’d laughed out loud when I said I hadn’t done anything wrong. The only thing he seemed to give a rip about was whether I understood my Miranda rights. I told him what he could do with those rights. It hadn’t improved my situation.

“You’d better sit down, honey,” the woman called. “Come on over here. I won’t bite.”

I peered up the hallway again, but it was still empty. Taking a deep breath, I made it across the narrow room in three strides and plunked down on the edge of her bunk, resting my head against the chilly cement wall behind me. I hoped the bunk would hold both our weights. My cell mate was a good-sized woman and I wasn’t exactly anorexic myself.

The woman stuck out a beautifully manicured hand, where each nail had its own personality. “Lavender Beals.”

“Abby Knight.” I shook her hand, then gave a start at a loud clang, hoping it meant someone had heard my calls for help. But no one appeared, so I sank back against the wall. “Will the matron come by when she’s done eating?”

“You never been here before, have you?”

“Once, when I was ten, on a field trip.”

“I was eighteen my first time, but it wasn’t for no field trip. This is my third visit, all told, and each time it’s been because of that bastard I married. I got rid of him this time, though—for good. He done slugged me for the last time.”

I eyed her warily. “You got
rid
of him?”

“I didn’t kill him, baby, just kicked his booty right out.”

“If he hit you, why are
you
in jail?”

“I took a baseball bat to his windshield, just to show him I meant business. Now I get to cool my heels here until Thursday.”

“For hitting his windshield? Why so long?”

“’Cause I don’t have the money to hire a lawyer, so the court appointed me one, and now I got to wait until the next hearing date, and that’s Thursday.”

“Can’t you get someone to post bail money for you?”

“Baby, what you been sniffing? Nobody I know’s got that kind of money.”

“How long have you been in here?”

“Six days now.”

“Six days, plus another three . . .” I could feel my indignation rising. “Do you realize that you’ll probably get less jail time than that for smashing the windshield?”

“ ’Course I realize it. What am I gonna do about it?” Lavender nudged the underside of one of the bunks above us. “This here’s Maria. She’s sixteen—shouldn’t even be in here—but she was with two boys who TP’d and egged her neighbor’s house.”

“What?” I stood up so I could see the girl. My claustrophobia was receding as fast as my outrage was growing. “You’re in the adult lockup for throwing toilet paper and eggs?”

Maria shook her head, her eyes huge in a tiny face. “I didn’t throw the eggs. I just tossed rolls of paper into the trees.”

“And you were
jailed
for that?”

“See, sugar, it’s all about having political connections, ” Lavender explained. “That fatheaded neighbor of hers wasn’t about to let some little punks get away with pranking him, so he raised a stink with a councilman he knows and got the kids waived to adult court to prove how important he is. If he gets his way, Maria will have a criminal record. Ruin her life in the process. Won’t that make him feel important?”

“How long have you been here?” I asked Maria.

“Four days.”

“And you have to wait until Thursday, too?”

She nodded and started to cry. “I’ll flunk my classes. I just want to go home.”

Boy, was my blood boiling. “Even if you had damaged his property, Maria, you should have been taken to the juvenile-detention center, not here. And then you probably wouldn’t get any jail time, only probation. What they’ve done to you is outrageous and totally unfair. ”

“You tell her, girlfriend,” a woman in the cell across the hallway called. I glanced around and saw a dozen women in two cells standing at the bars, listening avidly.

Lavender snorted. “It’s the system, baby. Money talks. Nothin’ fair about it.” She pointed to another woman. “That there is Cherry. She’s bipolar and can’t afford her meds, let alone a lawyer. She’s been here seven days.”

“Sitting in here isn’t going to help her get better,” I said, pointing out the obvious.

Lavender shrugged. “Does anyone care?”

“I care. Someone else has to care, too.”

“Hey, Abby,” a woman across the aisle shouted. “I been here five days. They got me on a public intox charge.”

Having clerked in Dave Hammond’s law office, I knew a public intoxication charge would probably merit her a weekend in jail. She’d done more than enough time already.

“I been here a week,” one of her cell mates called.

“Where’s the justice in that?” I asked. “What happened to a person’s right to a speedy trial? There has to be some way to stop this insanity.”

Lavender laughed.

I stood up and began to pace, which meant going a few feet in either direction. No way could I let this pass. I hated injustice. “We have to raise public awareness of the problem.”

Women in the other two holding cells were starting to discuss their own situations and the injustices therein, their voices growing louder and more irate.

“Okay, here’s what I’m going to do,” I said to Lavender. Instantly, the others stopped chatting. “I’m going to contact a reporter at the
New Chapel News
to talk him into doing a piece on this. Maybe if people are aware of the problem, they’ll demand a solution.”

“Yeah!” a woman across the hall responded. “We want a solution!”

“We can get our families to picket in front of the courthouse,” someone else called. “Justice for all, not just for the rich!”

Another voice repeated the phrase, and then the call moved through the entire cellblock. Within moments the halls echoed with their cries. Someone else began to shout, “Abby! Abby!” and they all took that up, but somehow it changed to, “Attica! Attica!” and then they began to run metal cups along the bars and stamp their feet, until the noise was deafening.

It was, in fact, a small riot—and I was in the middle of it.

Somewhere down the hallway a door clanged open. I heard the sound of many heavy boots thundering toward us. Because my cell mates were clamoring at the bars, there was no way I could see what was going on.

“Stand back!” the guards were shouting, striking the steel with their clubs.

As my cell mates fell back, allowing me my first glimpse of the hallway, the jail matron strode forward. But this wasn’t Matron Patty, the petite, gum-snapping ball of fire my dad had introduced me to years before. This was a thickset, no-nonsense woman who bore a striking resemblance to a pug. “What’s going on here?” she demanded.

The five women in front of me all swung around to gaze at me, waiting for me to speak up. Then someone from across the hallway pointed at me and said, “She says we’re not supposed to be held here so long, and
she
knows the law.”

The matron’s piercing gaze zeroed in on me. “Is that so?”

My cheeks immediately began to burn. “Well, you see, I attended law school and—”

“Name?”

“New Chapel University School of—”

“
Your
name!” she barked, making me jump.

“Abby Knight.” It came out in an embarrassing squeak.

She glared at me as she inserted a key into the lock and slid back the cell door. “Your lawyer’s here. You’re free to leave.”

Instantly, the mood inside that cell turned from red-hot to icy cold, and I could feel the wrathful glare of every woman there. I broke out into a sweat, afraid to make a move. “Thank you,” I whispered.

At once, like a messenger from heaven, a tall, familiar cop stepped inside the cell. “Let’s go, Abby.”

I blinked up at him in surprise, so happy to see my old buddy Sergeant Reilly that I could have kissed him. However, he didn’t seem all that pleased to see me. He was giving me a look that said,
I should have known I’d find you at the center of this.

I paused to say to Lavender, “I’m going to find a way to help.” Then, sticking close to my bodyguard, I walked through the open door, leaving my impoverished sisters behind me.

In a tiny cubicle just inside the main security door, I stripped off the ugly jumpsuit and donned my own clothes, never fully appreciating just how much I liked them until that moment. I checked my purse to make sure everything was there, then headed outside, where I gazed up at the blue sky and breathed in the crisp November air. Ah, the glorious smell of freedom.

From out of nowhere two photographers and three reporters rushed me, firing questions and snapping pictures. Before I could open my mouth, I was whisked off to Reilly’s squad car parked at the curb, one arm firmly in his grasp and one held by a slightly paunchy, balding man in a gray suit and white shirt, red tie loosened at the collar—Dave Hammond.

“My client has no comment,” Dave said to the reporters as we ducked into the backseat.

“Dave, you’re back!” I cried in relief. “And just in time, too. It was getting a little dicey in that jail cell.”

“Ask her why it was dicey,” Reilly said from the front seat.

Dave gave me a skeptical glance. “Do I really want to know?”

“It was nothing,” I said. “A little disturbance.”

Reilly snorted. “It was a riot, and guess who started it?”

“Just a tiny riot,” I countered, “but there was a very good reason for it, which I will go into later. Right now, I want someone to please tell me why I was arrested.”

“Let’s go back to my office to talk,” Dave said as photographers continued to snap photos through the windows.

“At least tell me why the trooper picked me up.”

“You have to promise to stay calm,” Dave said.

“Look at me, Dave. I’m the very picture of calm.”

“Uncurl your fists.”

“Done.”

He studied me for a moment. “I think we’ll wait.”

“Good call,” Reilly said. He circled the courthouse and stopped in front of the old brick building that housed Dave’s law office. “I’ll catch you both later. I’ve got to get back to my beat. By the way, Abby, Marco text-messaged me from Chicago a little while ago. He heard the news about your arrest and wanted further details when I got them.”

My heart soared—Marco asked about me!—then immediately sank. “I was on the
news
?”

“Just the local radio station. You haven’t made the TV airwaves yet. You’ll probably be hearing from Marco soon. In fact, I’ll bet there’s a phone message waiting for you now.”

Not likely. Not the way things stood between us. I didn’t say that to Reilly, of course, because he didn’t know about Marco and me. The only person who knew was my best friend and roommate, Nikki, in whom I confided everything. Still, I had to check.

I turned on my cell phone, anxiously waiting for the screen to light up. There were seventeen messages from my mom, three from my dad, and five from Bloomers, but just as I’d thought, there weren’t any messages from Marco.

Dave’s office, and my flower shop, were located on streets surrounding the courthouse in the heart of New Chapel, Indiana. Bloomers Flower Shop was on Franklin Street, on the east side of the courthouse, and Dave’s office was on Lincoln, above a tavern on the north side. As we stepped inside the door and climbed the lopsided stairs that led to Dave’s second-floor law office, I phoned Bloomers to let my assistants know where I was and what had happened, promising to give them the details when I got back. My only request was that if my mother or father called, they were to be told I was out on a delivery and would get back to them soon. With any luck, they wouldn’t hear the news until I’d had a chance to prepare them.