Lisa Scottoline - Daddy's Girl

"It's because of the construction. Excuse me a sec." Angus took off his fisherman's sweater, yanking it over his head until his ponytail popped free. He tossed the sweater, inside out, onto the table. "Parts of the building are open, and the cold air gets in, so the thermostat overcompensates. It's been like this all winter."

"Tanisa will guard us during class, right?" Nat asked, but just then inmates began to file in through the open door-about fifteen men in T-shirts and blue scrub pants, worn with a variety of nondescript cotton sneakers. All shapes, colors, and sizes of men were represented; inmates had mustaches, plastic glasses, neck tattoos, and a gold chain or two, but they were all about the same age range, in their thirties.

"Good morning, gentlemen," Angus said with a smile, stepping to the head of the table. "How you all been?"

"Fine," answered a thin inmate, taking the first chair. The other inmates answered "good" and "good to see ya" with obvious warmth as they walked around the table and settled into their seats.

"See y'all," Tanisa said, then left, and no other CO. came to replace her, which was when Nat got her answer.

Yikes! She and Angus were going to be unguarded, and the inmates weren't wearing handcuffs. Again, if she weren't living it, she wouldn't believe it was done this way. Angus rolled up the sleeves of his work-shirt, and Nat held her papers to her chest, sweating through two layers of clothes and one security blanket. She avoided eye contact with the inmates, who seemed to look away from her, too, their heads down and manner subdued, like a class that hasn't done the reading. Ever, in their whole life.

Angus rubbed his hands together. "Gentlemen, I thought we'd do something different today, because by now you most definitely need a break from the Personal Choices lecture."

They all chuckled, and Nat braced herself to get started.

"This is Professor Natalie Greco, and she teaches a class called the History of Justice, in which she talks about law and justice. Is that something you gentlemen have any views on?"

"Hell, yes!" a heavy inmate called out, and they all laughed.

"Good. Now, before we get started, I see two new folks in the group." Angus gestured toward the end of the table, where two inmates sat, one burly and tattooed, and the other slimmer and wearing glasses held together with Scotch tape. "I'm sorry, do I know you two?"

"Kyle Buford," answered the burly inmate. Crude blue tattoos blanketed his overdeveloped biceps.

"Pat Donnell," said the one with the broken glasses.

Angus frowned slightly. "Who admitted you gentlemen to the class? I don't remember getting your files."

"I dunno," Buford answered, and Donnell nodded. "They just told us to come and start today. I guess we were next on the list."

"I'll look into that, but welcome. Please, everybody, go around the table and tell Professor Greco your name. We'll make like summer camp, only it ain't summer and it sure as hell ain't camp."

The inmates laughed again and introduced themselves to Nat one by one, which put her more at ease. Their names, their voices, and their smiles transformed them from anonymous inmates to people, and it perked them up, too. Their aspect seemed collectively to change, eyes brightening and chins rising, and they shifted forward in their seats, as if they’d reclaimed their identities. She remembered Angus saying that he treated the inmates as individuals, and she could see its effect.

"I almost forgot. Before we start, some old business. Remember we spoke last week about the staph infection issue?" Angus paused, and heads nodded. "I wrote the warden a letter, and he says there will be no transfers because of MSRA."

"Come on, bro!" an inmate said, scowling, and the other inmates started grumbling. One called out, "You can die from that sh- thing!"

"Sorry, but that's the best I can do." Angus held up an authoritative hand in his loose workshirt, its baggy elbows thinned to a soft, washed blue. "MSRA is a common bacterial infection in prisons. Also in hospitals and schools, by the way. They're not gonna start transferring your ass outta here. This is the newest prison in the county. None of them is as clean as this one."

"That's cause they got me cleanin' it," a younger inmate called out, a gold crucifix looping his neck. Everybody laughed, even Nat.

Angus continued. "Allegheny County is where those two guys died, and you're better off here. Wash your hands as much as you can. The warden did agree that anybody with an open cut has an expedited pass to the infirmary. Just let one of the C.O.s know."

"How much we owe you, mouthpiece?" the inmate with the crucifix asked, and everybody laughed.

"Nothing, and please, don't shake my hand." Angus shoved his hands in his pockets, and they all laughed again, including the skinny inmate in the front, who raised his arm cautiously.

“Can I ask a question, Angus?"

"Sure, what?"

Isn't Damian coming today?" The inmate was so thin, the bones of his sternum showed through the V-neck of his undershirt. "I wrote up some facts for my petition. He said he wanted it."

"No, sorry. Damian's sick. Give it to me, and I'll make sure he gets it." Angus picked up the brown folder that the inmate slid across the table, opened it, and skimmed some papers, typed in old-fashioned Courier font. "Looks good, Jim. Great job. You had a public defender at trial, right?"

"He had a pubic defender!" interrupted Buford, the tattooed inmate.

Yuck. Nat stiffened.

Angus looked up with a deep frown. "That's enough of that, Kyle. We have a guest today."

"Only jokin,' man." Buford looked away, his reddish blue eyes scanning the others for approval.

"We don't joke like that here," Angus snapped. "You're new, but you know better. If you wouldn't say it in front of a CO., you don't say it here. Please apologize to our guest."

"That's okay," Nat interjected, wanting it to be over. "It's all right."

"Ready to start then?"

No way. "Sure." Nat stepped forward as Angus stood aside, setting her accordion file on the table but not feeling brave enough to get her notes. She could teach the lesson by heart, though it would be hard to stay on message with Buford's eyes boring holes into her underwire.

"Well," Nat began, "thanks for having me today. Before I start, let me ask you a question. Has anybody read The Merchant of Venice?"

The inmates' expressions went uniformly slack, which she should have expected. At the end of the table, Buford chuckled and shook his head. Angus folded his arms and glared at him.

An inmate raised his hand. "I think we read it in high school. It's from Shakespeare, right?"

"Yes." Nat smiled, then got a better idea. "Let me ask you this instead: How many of you know what a shylock is?"

"You mean a shy?" the heavy inmate asked.

"Like a dude who lends you money?" another chimed in, and every hand shot up around the table, the inmates' faces quickly reanimating. They wanted to learn, she just had to figure out a way to reach them.

Buford lifted his illustrated arm. "I'm hot for teacher," he said, then burst into laughter.

"That's it." Angus stepped forward, his expression grim. "You're outta here, and I'm making sure that-"

Suddenly a siren outside the door burst into an earsplitting alarm. Nat jumped at the sound. Angus whirled to look out the door. Eyes flew open around the table. The inmates started leaping out of their chairs, shoving them and each other aside and shouting, "Lockdown!”

“Go, go, go!”

“It's the lockdown siren. We gotta go!" Inmates bolted for the door, bottlenecking at the threshold.

The announcement system burst into sound: "We are in lockdown! Repeat, lockdown! All inmates proceed to their pods without delay! All inmates proceed directly to their pods!" The male CO. who had been standing outside the room took off down the corridor.