Read Online Inside These Walls by Rebecca Coleman - Free Book Online
Authors: Rebecca Coleman
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trade?”
“Yes. I need information about my family and Ricky Rowan’s. Medical history in particular, but also genealogy, if you can find it. What countries our ancestors came from. I never found out about my father, and I’m sure I don’t know Ricky’s.” It’s occurred to me that Annemarie will inevitably ask this, and I don’t want to have to lie. I have enough lies to keep track of without adding unimportant ones to the mix.
There’s a long pause across the phone line. “I don’t generally exchange anything for interviews. I never want the accusation that I somehow paid for information.”
“Ms. Shepard, unless I’m misunderstanding, your job is research. I’m only asking you to share information I’m sure you’ve already gathered in the course of your work on the biography.”
She offers a small, one-note laugh. “I see. Well, I suppose I can pull that together.”
“You’ll have to mail it to me. I can’t accept paperwork in the visiting room.” I’m running out of time, so I speak quickly. “Why don’t you include some of your interview questions in the same envelope, and I’ll mail you my replies. I can be more candid that way than I could speaking aloud with other inmates around. I’m sure you understand.”
“Well, yes. All right. And if I have further questions, we can arrange a meeting.”
I agree to this arrangement and set the phone back in its cradle. I wonder if I should have asked Mona about this, but it doesn’t matter now. A life sentence is a life sentence, and all I can do is work within it.
* * *
My normal library day is every other Wednesday, which under ordinary circumstances is perfectly sufficient, but with my growing interest in all stories about Penelope Robbins I have had a hard time waiting. I am glad to see that the latest issue of People is still available, with the Robbins case as one of the three stories showcased on the cover. I lift it from the rack and leaf through its pages.
Looking over the photo spread in the center of the magazine—Penelope playing tennis at summer camp, posing in formalwear at her Prom, beaming beside her father at the Capitol building in Washington—it’s easy to remember girls like her. After my mother married Garrison Brand and we moved into his home, I attended school with girls just like her—wealthy and privileged, confident and athletic. Our Lady of Mercy catered to two groups. There were the middle-class children of members of the parish, who paid tuition at a discounted rate, and the children of the wealthy, whose parents lavished the school with donations and made sure their own offspring knew it. With my mother’s remarriage I moved from one tier to the other, but Garrison was not that kind of boor, and I was not that kind of princess. It made for a lonely four years.
Still, Penelope and I have one thing in common—that nothing in our backgrounds would have led anyone to guess we’d wind up in big, big trouble with the law. Most of the people around me—not all, but most—landed here after years of substance abuse, domestic violence, or desperation to pay the bills. Many scrabbled for a solid grip on adulthood after a childhood wrenched by neglect and failed to find a handhold. But there’s always something, I’ve found. People don’t stumble into felony charges like tripping off a curb while hailing a cab. Whether or not others can see it, whether or not the inmate will admit to it, there’s always a reason why that woman turned.
The working theory about Penelope, I read, is that she hired the hit man to kill her father after a series of family arguments about her boyfriend—the dark-skinned young football player whose face I saw on the news. Her father, conservative and not known for his progressive views on race, forbade them from seeing each other. Being nineteen, she continued to see him anyway, and her father’s censure enraged her. Bank records show that she withdrew $20,000 from her trust fund
“Yes. I need information about my family and Ricky Rowan’s. Medical history in particular, but also genealogy, if you can find it. What countries our ancestors came from. I never found out about my father, and I’m sure I don’t know Ricky’s.” It’s occurred to me that Annemarie will inevitably ask this, and I don’t want to have to lie. I have enough lies to keep track of without adding unimportant ones to the mix.
There’s a long pause across the phone line. “I don’t generally exchange anything for interviews. I never want the accusation that I somehow paid for information.”
“Ms. Shepard, unless I’m misunderstanding, your job is research. I’m only asking you to share information I’m sure you’ve already gathered in the course of your work on the biography.”
She offers a small, one-note laugh. “I see. Well, I suppose I can pull that together.”
“You’ll have to mail it to me. I can’t accept paperwork in the visiting room.” I’m running out of time, so I speak quickly. “Why don’t you include some of your interview questions in the same envelope, and I’ll mail you my replies. I can be more candid that way than I could speaking aloud with other inmates around. I’m sure you understand.”
“Well, yes. All right. And if I have further questions, we can arrange a meeting.”
I agree to this arrangement and set the phone back in its cradle. I wonder if I should have asked Mona about this, but it doesn’t matter now. A life sentence is a life sentence, and all I can do is work within it.
* * *
My normal library day is every other Wednesday, which under ordinary circumstances is perfectly sufficient, but with my growing interest in all stories about Penelope Robbins I have had a hard time waiting. I am glad to see that the latest issue of People is still available, with the Robbins case as one of the three stories showcased on the cover. I lift it from the rack and leaf through its pages.
Looking over the photo spread in the center of the magazine—Penelope playing tennis at summer camp, posing in formalwear at her Prom, beaming beside her father at the Capitol building in Washington—it’s easy to remember girls like her. After my mother married Garrison Brand and we moved into his home, I attended school with girls just like her—wealthy and privileged, confident and athletic. Our Lady of Mercy catered to two groups. There were the middle-class children of members of the parish, who paid tuition at a discounted rate, and the children of the wealthy, whose parents lavished the school with donations and made sure their own offspring knew it. With my mother’s remarriage I moved from one tier to the other, but Garrison was not that kind of boor, and I was not that kind of princess. It made for a lonely four years.
Still, Penelope and I have one thing in common—that nothing in our backgrounds would have led anyone to guess we’d wind up in big, big trouble with the law. Most of the people around me—not all, but most—landed here after years of substance abuse, domestic violence, or desperation to pay the bills. Many scrabbled for a solid grip on adulthood after a childhood wrenched by neglect and failed to find a handhold. But there’s always something, I’ve found. People don’t stumble into felony charges like tripping off a curb while hailing a cab. Whether or not others can see it, whether or not the inmate will admit to it, there’s always a reason why that woman turned.
The working theory about Penelope, I read, is that she hired the hit man to kill her father after a series of family arguments about her boyfriend—the dark-skinned young football player whose face I saw on the news. Her father, conservative and not known for his progressive views on race, forbade them from seeing each other. Being nineteen, she continued to see him anyway, and her father’s censure enraged her. Bank records show that she withdrew $20,000 from her trust fund
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