Chapter 16 - The Cellblock Hierarchy
The iron gate of Cellblock D at Logan Correctional Center slammed shut with a deafening, metallic roar that shook the concrete floor.
Margaret Miller stood on the cold stone walkway, clutching a thin, scratchy institutional blanket against her chest.
The scent of Pine-Sol, cheap industrial bleach, and unwashed wool hung heavy in the stale, recirculated air.
For forty-eight hours, she had refused to accept the coarse canvas uniform dyed a sickening shade of institutional drab.
Her diamond earrings had been logged into the evidence locker.
Her salon-dyed blonde locks were greasy, falling in limp, unbrushed strands around her pale, wrinkled face.
"Cell 14B, Miller," a female corrections officer barked, pointing a black baton toward a narrow steel doorway.
"Get inside and stand by the bunk."
Margaret shuffled forward in her plastic slip-on sandals, her joints aching from the damp draft that blew across the floorboards.
She stepped through the doorway into an eight-by-ten concrete cube.
Sitting on the lower bunk was Big Sal, a six-foot-tall convicted armed robber who had run the laundry detail in Cellblock D for nine years.
Sal looked up, chewing slowly on a wooden toothpick, her cold brown eyes scanning Margaret from head to toe with utter derision.
"Look what Cook County dropped on our doorstep," Sal chuckled, leaning her heavy elbows on her knees.
"The society lady from Lake Shore Drive."
"The one who tried to put rat poison in her daughter-in-law's morning Earl Grey."
Margaret straightened her back, attempting to muster the haughty, dismissive glare that had once intimidated half the charity boards in Chicago.
"I am a political prisoner awaiting an interlocutory appeal," Margaret declared, her voice trembling despite her best efforts.
"My appellate counsel is filing an emergency petition with the Seventh Circuit Court tomorrow morning."
"I suggest you vacate that lower mattress."
"I have severe degenerative lumbar disc disease and require a firm, flat sleeping surface."
Big Sal stood up from the bunk, towering over Margaret like a dark brick wall.
She spat the wooden toothpick onto Margaret’s plastic slipper.
"You think this is the Gold Coast country club, lady?" Sal whispered, her voice dropping into a menacing rumble.
"Your high-priced lawyers haven't paid their retainer because your son signed away every nickel in your checking account."
"Around here, you don't give orders."
"You wash the socks."
"You scrub the toilets behind the mess hall."
"And if I hear your mouth open about your society friends again, you'll be eating your cold oatmeal through a plastic straw for the next six months."
Sal shoved Margaret with a single open palm.
Margaret stumbled backward, hitting the steel edge of the upper bunk, dropping her blanket into a dirty puddle of drain water near the corner sink.
She fell to her knees on the filthy concrete, clutching her bruised elbow, gasping for breath.
The inmates gathered along the upper tier cat-walk began banging their metal tin cups against the steel bars, chanting and jeering in a wave of savage ridicule.
"Welcome to the club, Mrs.
Miller!" someone screamed from three cells down.
"How’s that lakefront breeze feeling today?"
Margaret buried her face in her trembling hands, weeping bitterly into the damp fabric of her prison clothes.
For three years, she had looked at Elena with absolute disdain, convinced that her own pedigree, her expensive clothes, and her son’s charm made her untouchable.
She had believed that an orphan girl could be poisoned in broad daylight without consequence.
Now, the reality of her forty-year sentence crashed down upon her like a mountain of lead.
There were no charity luncheons waiting for her.
May you like
There were no galas.
There was only this windowless concrete vault, the mocking laughter of killers, and the endless ticking of a clock that would never release her alive.
