Chapter 7 - Behind the Reinforced Glass
The visitor room at the Cook County Women's Correction Facility smelled of commercial bleach, damp wool, and floor wax.
I sat on a metal stool behind a thick sheet of scratched, heavy bulletproof glass. On my side, the small black telephone receiver rested in its cradle.
A heavy steel door clicked open on the opposite side of the glass.
A female correctional officer led Melissa into the room.
She wore a bright orange canvas jumpsuit that was three sizes too large for her, hanging off her narrow shoulders like a sack. Her hands were cuffed in front of her waist, attached to a chain wrapped around her middle. She had no makeup on; her skin was sallow, greasy, and covered in red blotches from crying.
When she sat down on the metal stool, her knees were shaking so hard they knocked against the stainless steel shelf below the window.
She grabbed the telephone receiver with both hands, pressing her face close to the wire-mesh speaker in the glass.
"James!" her voice came through the earpiece, high, tinny, and raspy. "James, oh God, thank you for coming! You have to tell them! You have to tell the prosecutor that this was all a mistake!"
I picked up my receiver slowly, holding it against my ear. I didn't say a word. I just looked at her.
"James, please!" Melissa sobbed, her fingernails—chipped and dirty now—scratching against the glass. "Julian forced me! He told me he was going to kill you in Minneapolis if I didn't give him the money! I did it to protect you, James! I did it all for our family!"
"You did it for a million dollars in the Cayman Islands, Melissa," I said, my voice flat, clear, and perfectly calm through the wire.
Melissa froze. The color drained from her face so fast she looked like a corpse sitting in an orange jumpsuit.
"You... you know about that?" she whispered.
"Chris knows everything," I said. "David Chen knows everything. The IRS knows everything. The state prosecutor knows everything."
"James..." she stammered, her eyes darting around the small, sterile room like a trapped animal's. "I... I was going to tell you... I was going to use that money so we could buy a bigger house... so Sarah could go to a better high school—"
"Stop lying, Melissa," I interrupted, every word coming out with surgical precision. "You left an eight-year-old girl sitting in a wet driveway with a broken wrist and blood on her clothes. You watched her fall down the steps, and you drove off with the man who hit her."
"I was scared!" she screamed into the phone, tears pouring down her nose. "I made a mistake! I'm her mother, James! You can't take my daughter away from me!"
"You're not her mother anymore," I said, leaning closer to the glass so she could see every line of cold, unyielding finality in my eyes. "Chris filed the emergency petition fourteen hours ago. You have zero legal rights. Zero visitation. You are a legal stranger to Sarah Miller."
"No!" Melissa shrieked, slamming her cuffed hands against the glass shelf. CLANG. The guard behind her instantly took a step forward, resting his hand on his baton. "No! You can't do that! Norma will hire the best lawyers in Chicago! We will fight you in every court in this state!"
I let out a soft, cold smile.
"Norma is sitting in Cellblock B three doors down from you, Melissa," I said softly. "Her accounts are frozen. Her house has a county lien on it. She can't afford a public defender, let alone a high-priced custody lawyer."
Melissa stared at me, her mouth open in a silent, horrified gasp.
"You are going to prison, Melissa," I continued, my voice measured and firm. "You are going to spend the next five to eight years sitting in a small room, wearing orange clothes, eating tray food, and thinking about the night you left your daughter in the rain."
"James... please..." she whimpered, her voice breaking into a desperate, hollow whine. "Have mercy... please... I'm your wife..."
"My wife died in that driveway at midnight," I said.
I hung up the heavy black receiver, resting it back in its steel cradle.
I stood up from the stool, adjusted the lapels of my dark grey suit jacket, and turned my back on her.
May you like
Behind the glass, Melissa was screaming my name, her cuffed hands pounding frantically against the reinforced pane until the guards grabbed her arms and dragged her backward through the steel door.
I walked out into the bright afternoon sunlight and didn't look back once.
