Lisa Scottoline - Mistaken Identity

She reached the front of the line and grabbed her floppy ham sandwich, strawberry yogurt, and canned fruit shit, and walked to the table where she always sat, farthest from the others. The tables were bolted to the floor on the common area of the unit, which was ringed by two tiers of cells, fifteen above and fifteen below; most of the bottom tier was double-celled for low-seniority inmates. Inmates spent every minute of every day with the same group of women, for decades.

Alice yanked out a steel chair with a back that said PHILADELPHIA CIVIC CENTER, for some reason. The floor was a washed-out blue-and-white linoleum and the walls were whiter than white, from slave labor. Alice had counted the tiles in the unit’s common area several hundred times. She’d come up with eighty-seven tiles each time.

She knew her cage by heart. She could close her eyes and point to where the TV was mounted, high so it couldn’t be destroyed. She could see in her sleep the handmade drawings the inmates taped up on the unit walls; DISCIPLINE, TRUST, RESPECT, read the Magic Marker captions. Stick figures held hands under hearts and flowers. Christ. Alice wanted to rip them off the wall.

Instead she sipped her coffee, feeling the stiff Band-Aid in the crook of her arm where her blood had been taken. So she’d had her bluff called. It was the only way to keep Rosato cool. The results wouldn’t be back until the trial was over. Alice would be long gone. She took a bite of sandwich and hunched over her tray, the way she always did, facing the window. She kept her back to the other tables and so didn’t see what was happening between Shetrell and Leonia.

Shetrell sat at the lunch table before her tray, her gaze on Leonia, who sat down in the only empty seat, on the other side of Taniece. Shit. Leonia was supposed to sit right next to Shetrell. What a fuckup. Taniece had taken Leonia’s seat. Bitch shouldn’ta sat in the way like that. Shoulda known better. “Who tol’ you you could sit here?” Shetrell snapped at Taniece.

Taniece looked over. “What I do?”

“Leonia always sit here. You not suppose to be sittin’ here.”

“I don’t have to ax your permission where I sit!”

“Hey!” shouted the guard, and Shetrell shut up. It was Dexter Raveway, Dexter the Pecker. He was a good-lookin’ brother but he knew it, standin’ behind the guard desk at the front of the room, scratchin’ his johnson half the time. She figured he had somethin’ goin’ with Taniece and that was why Taniece picked lunchtime to fuck with her. “Shetrell, that’s enough,” Dexter shouted. “Don’t be bossin’ everybody around, now.”

Shetrell slunk low in her chair. She couldn’t get another write-up, she’d end up in the hole.

“Hmph,” Taniece said, like a church lady, and Shetrell glared at Leonia, who nodded.

Shetrell had to think of something. Her eyes rested on her tray, then she spotted somethin’ move on the floor under the table, between everybody’s sneakers. A cockroach, a big fat brown mother, struttin’. She watched the roach hustle along the linoleum and stop at the table leg. Tryin’ to decide what to do. Whether to come up or not.

Come on, baby, Shetrell was thinking. Come to Mama. She snagged a piece of bread from her tray and let her hand drop to her side, easy so it didn’t look like nothin’ was goin’ on. Maybe the roach would get the smell. Come on, sugar. Mama gonna take care of you. Shetrell watched the roach try to make up its little roach mind. He stopped like a married man, right at the edge. Couldn’t go no further. Come on, baby.

The roach didn’t even have to think twice. It skittered up the table leg, and Shetrell dipped her shoulder, snatched it off, and closed it in her hand. She waited until Taniece turned away, then dropped the roach in the bitch’s strawberry yogurt.

“Shit! Shit!” Taniece shouted when she spotted a dark bulge moving on her plate. “There’s somethin’ in my food! A mouse! A rat! Shit!” She jumped up and shrieked like she was in a horror movie, and Shetrell woulda laughed her ass off if she hadn’t been so worried about gettin’ the shank to Leonia.

“A rat! A rat in the food! There’s a rat in my food!” Taniece yelled. Her chair fell over, then she stumbled backward and fell on top of it, while Breanna, next to her, leapt away from her tray, knocking into another girl. Shetrell watched everybody jump outta their seats. The white trash shook like they saw a steady job.

“Relax, relax, I’m on it,” Dexter the Pecker said, runnin’ over like Wesley Snipes to save the day.

Taniece was doin’ the freak. “It’s a rat, I saw it, it’s a rat! It’s in my motherfuckin’ yogurt!” she said, grabbing Dexter’s arm. “I was eatin’ that shit!”

Pussy, Shetrell thought. Get over yourself.

“Calm down, everybody, calm down,” Dexter said, but nobody was listening. “It’s just a roach, it’s not a rat.” He didn’t call any other guards, which was just fine with Shetrell. She edged back from the crowd, pretending to be afraid, and saw Leonia backing up, too, meeting her from the other direction. Now was her chance.

Shetrell bumped her way backward, slipped her hand into the elastic of her pants, and slid the shank out. Leonia stood next to Shetrell, grabbed the knife, and acted like she was falling down. Shetrell couldn’t see it, but she figured Leonia slipped the shank in her sneaker, under her pants leg. The girl was damn good. She used to snatch wallets at The Gallery.

“Did you get it?” Shetrell yelled, like she was callin’ to Dexter about the roach. Out the corner of her eye, she saw Leonia laughin’ and knew she got it, all right.

“It’s just a roach. It’s all taken care of,” Dexter said, holding Taniece’s tray high over the heads of the women, who were just starting to calm down.

“You better get me another lunch, I ain’t eatin’ that shit!” Taniece shouted. “I’m gonna sue this motherfuckin’ place!”

Alice turned in her seat to see what the commotion was all about, barely interested. A mouse in Taniece’s food. What a lovely hotel. She’d be gone in days. But it didn’t leave her much time to take care of Valencia. Alice took a final slug of coffee and crumpled her Styrofoam cup. She gathered her tray, the food unfinished, and walked through the tables to where Valencia was chattering with the other chiquitas. Valencia looked up, and Alice leaned down and whispered in her ear, “I heard something from my lawyer. Meet me after head count tonight. The guard will come to you. Don’t tell anybody or it won’t happen.”

“Than’ you so much,” Valencia said softly.

“You can thank me tonight,” Alice told her.

For Bennie the next few hours were a haze of acute pain mixed with the oddly mundane business of burying the dead. Tasks had to be performed, and she performed each one. She selected her mother’s casket, burial plot, and even last dress, of beige chiffon with tan pumps, with a minimum of tears. She found a valuable ally in the funeral director, with his moussed pompadour and professional smoothness, who scheduled her mother’s wake, funeral, and burial in a way that had a pat beginning, middle, and end. In death as in life.

Bennie kept her emotions at bay only because she was so skilled at it. She held tight to Hattie throughout, as much for her own support as for the nurse’s, and stopped only to leave a message.

“Hey,” Bennie said as the associate answered the call. “I guess you heard.”

“Yes, I’m so sorry,” Judy said. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Thanks, yes. Draft a letter to Guthrie and tell him what happened. The wake is Friday night, funeral is Saturday, and we’ll need a week postponement of the Connolly trial. If we ask for a week, he’ll probably give us three days. I’ll stop in and sign the letter tonight, then you get it hand-delivered tomorrow.”