"Let go of me!" said Andie.
She squeezed harder and led Andie to the door. "What are you, crazy?"
She flung open the door and led Andie outside. "Come on!" she said harshly. "You think she looks nice, huh? You want to be friends with that woman, do you? You be my guest." They stopped at the lamp post a half block away. A flyer was tacked to it at eye level. Mrs. Rankin snatched it down and shoved it at Andie.
"Here you go, you stupid brat. You want to be chummy with her, you go right ahead. Just don't ever step foot in my store again."
She turned and stormed back to her shop. Andie stood at the curb, confused. The printed flyer was a crumpled ball in her hand. She unfurled it and read it. Instantly Andie knew her work was done at the thrift shop.
'Tomorrow night there was someplace else she had to be.
Gus couldn't stop thinking about the polygraph results.
His first instinct had been to summon Shirley and confront her. As a lawyer, however, he knew that cross-examination without preparation was a recipe for disaster. He needed to gather his thoughts, review the information he had. Unfortunately, nothing in his possession offered any insight into whether Shirley had ever really killed anyone. He had a copy of her criminal record. He had all the newspapers relating to her arrest and trial. He could turn his private investigator loose to scrounge for more, but that would take time. Too much time.
He returned to the Washington Corrections Center for Women on Monday morning, a little calmer but otherwise no better disposed to interrogate Shirley than he had been on Saturday. As he sat behind the Plexiglas partition, even the calmness disappeared. She had kept him waiting nearly twenty minutes. Finally, the door opened behind him.
The guard said, "Shirley doesn't want to meet with you."
"What?"
She says she doesn't want any visitors this morning." "I drove all the way over here to see her."
"Sony."
"What else is on her schedule, lawn tennis at Wimbledon?"
"Hey, if she doesn't want to see you, I can't make her."
Gus rose, struggling to contain his anger. He took two steps closer and invaded the guard's space. The guard was little more than a kid, less than half Gus's age, much smaller in stature. "Get her."
The guard took a half step back.
"Get her right now," said Gus. "Or I have no choice but to call the warden and tell him you are interfering with confidential communications between an attorney and his client."
"Don't do that. I just got this job."
"Then don't let an inmate jerk you around. Bring me Shirley Borge."
He blinked nervously as he backed out through the door. Gus went back to his chair in front of the glass. His anger was rising. Shirley was toying with him, playing games about whether she did or didn't know where Beth was. Concealing the fact that she had indeed murdered someone. Maybe she was even lying when she denied any involvement in Beth's disappearance and had simply fooled the machine. Now she was pulling this "I don't want to see him" crap. It was time for Gus to get in her face.
The door opened and Shirley entered the room on the other side of the glass. She stepped forward and stopped, glaring at him from five feet away. Gus's anger turned to confusion. Her face was purple and puffy. The left eye was nearly swollen shut. A nasty split on her lower lip had been stitched closed.
They picked up their phones. "What happened to you?" he asked, both curious and concerned.
"I fell out of bed." She was deadpan, then added, "I got the shit beat out of me, what does it look like?"
"Who did this to you?"
"Nobody in particular. Nobody likes a rat in prison." "What are you talking about?"
"Word got out I took a polygraph."
"I'm sorry. I don't know how that happened."
She looked at him with contempt. "I know what you're doing, Mr. Wheatley. Very clever plan. You have me sit for a polygraph, then have a guard or someone leak it to the other inmates. That's a sure-fire way of putting pressure on me to cooperate. Now I have two options. Take a beating every day for being a rat. Or I can talk to you and hope the FBI will at least transfer me to another prison."
"That's not at all what happened."
She shook her head, clearly unconvinced. "You cost me big-time. I had some respect in this place. When I got busted, I could have shaved five years off my sentence if I just ratted out my partners. I wouldn't do it. I took the rap myself. That's a badge of honor inside here. Now I've lost it."
"I swear to you. We took every precaution to keep this quiet. We didn't leak a thing."
"Right," she scoffed, glaring through the glass. "Good luck finding your wife now, asshole." She slammed down the phone and turned away.
Gus wanted to call out but couldn't. He felt numb, helpless, as she crossed the room and disappeared behind the door.