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  “Clean floor? Ah man you think I was pissed about a clean floor?” Dennis’ laughter was mildly amusing and Jared smiled for the first time. “Shoot man I don’t think that woman ever lifted a mop in her life.”

  “Oh, so then—?”

  “Muddy boots. Whoever she had in our house before I got home from work tracked his muddy boots through the house. In the kitchen, in the bathroom, all over the place. You’d think if she was going to sleep around on me she’d at least mop the floor before I got home but nooo.” He laughed again, this time with a hint of regret, “Nooo she didn’t think to do that. I got her when she was coming out of the shower. She went down pretty easy. I didn’t plan it or anything, don’t think I’m any kind of psycho.” He nodded in Jared’s direction to get his approval, “Only psychos do that right? Plan out the people they want to kill?”

  “Yeah,” Jared nodded earnestly, “absolutely.”

  “Yep. That’s what I thought too.” Dennis mindlessly stacked a few packages of Ramen Noodles by the head of his bed. “Damn I miss her cooking though. Beats this crap. Sure wish I had a meatball parm sandwich. You got a woman?” Dennis caught Jared running his hands over the top of his head for the fifth time since he entered the cell. He wondered what his story was but he knew better than to ask. The kid didn’t look like anyone who had been in prison before so he probably didn’t know the etiquettes of sitting in a six by eight foot brick cage with a stranger. Either way, Dennis figured he’d shoot the shit a few more minutes before asking anything too personal. He never knew what would set a person off and he was too lazy to fight anyone just then. “You got wax in your ears kid?” he asked again, “I asked if you got a woman or not.”

  “Hmm?” Jared’s eyes remained perpetually bloodshot from all the crying. He rubbed a pretend eyelash from his right eyelid, “Yeah uh, something like that I guess. I mean we’ve been together a while.” An echoing bellow from outside the far right of their cell interrupted Jared; someone yelling about his cellie shitting on the floor just to get the guards attention. He sighed, “I mean, I used to have a woman. Not sure about anymore.”

  “Oh she’ll wait around, sure she will,” Dennis nodded, “they usually do, unless she was right close with your best friend then maybe you have some worrying to do. That’s what happen’t me anyway.” He jabbed a thumb into his chest.

  “Your wife was sleeping with your best friend?”

  “Oh, not the wife I killed no. I’m talking about my first one, what a mess that was, ‘Don’t get married, you’re too young’ they said. Shoulda listened. But no, we wanted to get married right at eighteen, made sense at the time. Got a divorce at twenty-something. Turns out my second wife wasn’t sleeping around on me at all, big misunderstanding.”

  “You’re joking.”

  Dennis’ brow furrowed, “Now why would I joke about something like that? Hell, I’m not joking. Turns out the muddy boots was from the cable guy. Rained like a bitch that afternoon and I didn’t know she had a call out to them, she wanted to get me the fancy HD channels so I could watch NASCAR on Sundays on my big 32” she got me and see all the action in…well, HD.”

  “You killed your wife over the cable guy?”

  “Suppose I did. But I didn’t know it till I got caught.”

  “Oh, so you didn’t know how to get rid of the body?”

  “You can wipe the smirk off your face kid, I’m not a moron. I know how deep something needs to be buried so no one can dig it up. At least I knew how deep to bury my lab when he died.”

  “So, what happened? What went wrong?” Jared leaned on his hands.

  Dennis smiled. Bingo. Now he had all the right to ask what Jared did to wind up in prison, he opened that bag of worms on his own.

  Tit for tat.

  “Not my fault we live in an area full of clay rocks and shale. I couldn’t get the body deep enough I guess. Shovel can only do so much, we live in the damn mountains for Chris’sake. Anyway, I got her nice and deep so I thought. It’s about two weeks later and my neighbor is out in his yard screaming like a moron, just thought maybe the deer finally got his last tomato plant. Actually, I’d been taking them, but that’s not the story here. So I go out there to try and calm him and there’s his little shit dog running around with an arm in his mouth. Guess Mr. Jingles thought it’d be nice to try and dig up what wasn’t his business.”

  “So a dog turned you in?”

  “Suppose he did.”

  “And his name was Mr. Jingles?”

  “Yeah he had them little bells on his collar so I guess he wouldn’t get lost. And hey, it ain’t funny.”

  “I’m really not laughing at you it’s just…”

  Jared turned his face to the side and squeezed his eyes shut. He was put in a cage with a moron. “I guess it was just bad luck then. So what, the police told you the cable guy was in your house?”

  “Yeah they did a whole investigation and wanted to know who was all involved in our lives and I told em’ I did it, I confessed, you know to get less time in here, but I said I was in the right because she was sleeping around on me. I told them the date of when it happened so they looked into some things and put together the cable guy was there earlier that afternoon, must have asked to use the bathroom while he was there is all.”

  “Damn.”

  “Damn is right. Killed a perfectly good piece of ass over my hot head and got caught by a yappy terrier who couldn’t mind his own.” A haphazard smile widened across Dennis’ face. “All right and I take it back, I guess when you put it that way it is a little funny. Stupid mutt.”

  For a moment while Jared was lying on his cot he had forgotten he was even in a cell. The clang of two cellmates roughing each other up not far away brought him back to reality as two guards sprinted past the steel bars. Several minutes later a large Hispanic man in scrubs was ushered past, dragging his feet and spitting in the direction he had come from. An open wound poured blood into the crease of his nose and in an instant he was out of sight cursing under his breath.

  Monroe County’s population exploded after 9/11. Accessibility was one of the reasons his dad chose to move everyone to the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania in the aftermath; It was close enough to still commute to New York City for work but far enough away from the hustle and terrorists of the urban island. Since his mom had grown up in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania it seemed obvious to move the family to an area where they already had family and friends. Jared was half transplant, half local folk depending on which of his parents had the better argument at the time.

  Apparently most of Staten Island, Jersey and Long Island had the same idea. The realization that most of New York and it’s surroundings could become stranded if all the bridges and tunnels were to suddenly implode was a bit overwhelming to most families. Subsequently Monroe County swelled with over 5,000 new transplants a year, which was passive data to anyone but Jared. This meant that prisons were overcrowded and would ultimately be one of the many reasons his lawyer had sealed the deal on a cushier rehab sentence with only limited prison time.

  Jared’s parents decided not to press charges in addition to the District Attorney’s office filing their own vendetta, but only under one condition: he was never to contact his parents again. His girlfriend, Tina DeHaven, had pulled through with securing the secret funds Jared had stashed for a high profile lawyer to battle the initial charge of involuntary manslaughter, which carried up to a five-year sentence. Adding insult to injury was the fact that Pennsylvania heightened an involuntary manslaughter charge if the defendant was a caregiver to a person under the age of twelve, which was true in his case since Lacey had just turned three. It meant an automatic increase to a second-degree felony with up to a ten-year sentence.

  Enter Jared’s fast-talking lawyer, his squeaky clean criminal record and a history of rehab and suddenly Jared was looking at merely child neglect charges. Overcrowding lead to a sentence consisting of a few months in prison at most, coupled with a minimum one-year sentence
back in rehab.

  Again.

  “Home sweet home,” Dennis chimed in. “So what’s your story? You can’t be older than my nephew back home. Can’t see you doing much worse than stealing shit or knocking around your girlfriend maybe, that it?”

  Jared’s upper lip stiffened. Since he was just a few weeks away from being transferred out he wasn’t sure if he should even bother explaining. There were pushers and runners sitting in the cells around him that were there because of a drug deal gone wrong or an addiction that lead to stealing and, in turn, incarceration. He was sure a few inmates had given him a sideways glance, an unsure arched eyebrow as they tried to pin why they recognized his face.

  There were runners and pushers working under Jared’s discretion for that reason; he never wanted his face tied to anyone else’s downfall. It was Troy’s tried-and-true rule numero uno and Jared was thankful for it. He turned to the old man melting into the mattress across from him. Dennis didn’t appear to be a gossip queen and Jared wasn’t sure he cared if anyone found out anyway. Death wasn’t something he feared anymore. Not after what he’d lost.

  “Drugs, actually,” Jared said finally, “I was the largest supplier of prescription pills for Monroe County.”

  “The hell you were,” Dennis said.

  “Now why would I joke about something like that?” Jared asked, using Dennis’ line. He cocked his head to the side, staring out between the steel doors that separated him from the rest of the self-proclaimed innocent inmates. “You’d of never guessed right? Well, neither has anyone else. I’d like to keep it that way, you know?”

  Dennis was sitting up again, his blood red socks planted firmly against the floor. He’d been in this situation before. The new guys on the block react in one of three ways to questions about their incarceration: they make up stories of why they’re there, they don’t say anything at all or they tell the truth. The one’s who tell the truth are the most dangerous, generally, since that population of people is usually made up of the serial killers, drugs lords, and murderers. Dennis fell somewhere in the middle; he hadn’t told Jared that his wife had put up such a fight that he spent several days after he killed her cooped up in his house waiting for the swelling in his face to subside. “So why are you telling me then?” Dennis asked, “we best friends now that you’re stuck in this hole? That where all your nice gifts coming from, your guys on the outside?” He smirked but carefully weighed Jared’s response.

  “I said was.” He looked at the small radio and baskets of food and drinks that surrounded his cot. Subscriptions to four magazines littered the foot of his bed and he wiggled his toes inside the sneakers he ordered through the commissary. The truth was that he had no idea who his fairy godmother was on the outside providing for him—definitely not his parents—but he was thankful. No one ever wrote him letters to explain the money or gifts and he only called Tina once or twice a week even though he had over four hundred dollars on his account every month. Someone wanted to make sure his stay was as comfortable as possible. “I’m not part of that life anymore,” Jared continued, “that’s in the past.”

  Dennis followed his gaze to the assortment of goodies stashed around the cot. Jared’s two-foot tall locker had long ago been filled to the brim with gifts and food. “I may not be the smartest man but from the looks of things that decision may not be up to you.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “So we have two graduates here tonight,” Phil said, a warm smile radiating at Jared and Ben. “Guys? Any closing remarks or words of wisdom? You’ve both been here quite some time, I think some of the new faces here could use some direction or words of encouragement.”

  Chris called out from across the circle, “Don’t do drugs?”

  Phil narrowed his eyes. He had been a lead counselor at Renewals Rehab for over fifteen years. “Mind expanding advice, Chris, really. Ben? Jared? What are your game plans for after this?”

  Earlier Jared had put the last of his jeans in a suitcase and zipped it closed. He had one final meeting before his release and the rehab was about four hours from home so he wanted to make his exit seamless. He hoped Tina didn’t take it upon herself to ignore the GPS, as she often did, and would be there on time. He already voluntarily decided to stay an additional three months more than he was sentenced to so he was ready to move on.

  The meeting room was familiar but faces of newbies were scattered throughout. Some came from jail or prison, others straight from sentencing. Once in a while you’d get someone who had an uncle or parents who paid the bill and sentenced their kid themselves. Those were the ones who were most likely to come back.

  The charade propelled forward: Introductions, what you were there for, how long you’d been using, and an explanation of your choice of poison. Derek shared that cocaine cost him his job and his kids. Savannah cried when she explained how meth turned her from up-and-coming model to sidewalk homeless junkie. Crying. Shouting. Redirection. Calm. The beat goes on.

  Jared shifted his belt buckle uncomfortably in his seat. Fifteen pounds was not going to be easy to shed. Renewals was nestled on the east side of I-579, right in the hustle of Pittsburgh and a tenth of a mile in any direction from a street corner with a pusher or runner. The access was there, the opportunities were endless after the counselors had finished their meetings and paperwork for the day, and the itch was a deafening roar in the back of Jared’s head.

  At least for the first two weeks it was.

  Jared remembered one of his first private counseling sessions with Phil. “Talk to me Jared, you seem distracted,” Phil had said, putting his pen down and following Jared’s gaze beyond the briefcase sized window on the far wall. It was Jared’s third private meeting. “Something in particular bothering you?”

  “Besides the fact that I killed my sister? Not a damn thing.” Jared bit his bottom lip as he felt it start to tremble. “I’m peachy sitting in this room with you, trying to figure out what my life is going to look like when I get out of here.”

  “I understand,” Phil nodded, “I do. But that’s for another day, another time. You’ve only been here a few days, so instead of focusing that far out how about we focus on what will get you through these first few weeks or days even?”

  “You got twenty bucks I could borrow? I saw a guy on the corner of Lawrence Avenue that looked like he could help me focus some,” Jared said.

  Rehab was a different ballgame from prison. The access and opportunity would rarely present itself when he was situated behind bars and guarded, not impossible but certainly not worth the effort. He remembered his first meeting the night he arrived: Eleven strangers sitting around in a circle talking about the sweet release of a high and then retreating to his room to dwell on it well into the night. Rehab was basically a more socially acceptable form of torture, at least for addicts.

  “Tell me about that, your addiction, your access to… Percocet right?” Phil asked.

  Jared nodded.

  “Walk me through your process of wanting to get high, the steps you’d need to take. How’d you manage that while living with your family?”

  Jared already decided from the time he stepped into Phil’s office that telling him about his elite status back home would only complicate things. Dennis was different, he never had to see him again once he left prison and didn’t need his approval for a clean bill of health to get released from rehab. As far as Phil was concerned, he only needed to know that Jared used and abused Percocet’s, he killed his sister and he lost his family because of it. Anything else was fluff Phil didn’t need access to.

  “There’s a stop sign at the end of my road,” Jared started, “I pass it going to and from my parent’s house. I’d leave a signal on the stop sign when I needed to pick up any product and anytime someone needed me to make a drop they’d leave a signal on there too so I knew to meet them at our spot.”

  “You’d leave a signal?” Phil asked.

  “Yeah, a magnet in the top right corner. It had a specific…”
Jared trailed off not knowing how much to share, “Uh, symbol stamped on it. Whenever the magnet was on the stop sign I knew to meet at The Great Escape.”

  “The Great Escape? Is that a code name?”

  Jared flushed with annoyance when he recognized that he slipped in giving Phil the name. Maybe his mom had a point when she tried to suggest professional family counseling years ago. They had a way of wording things to entice a response he wouldn’t normally offer. “Nah, just a local bar. I’d go in and ask for Hank—that was a code name—and I’d get a drink and a to-go bag filled with my stuff.”

  “Hmm, that’s quite the set up,” Phil said.

  “It was all right,” Jared muttered.

  “So you never had any hesitations about getting caught or set up? You weren’t afraid of your parents finding out you were high and this was a customary ritual that never had hiccups?”

  “Never,” Jared responded.

  “Until Lacey died?”

  “Yeah,” Jared said, his voice unintentionally rising, “until Lacey died I guess it was a flawless fucking chain of events. Thanks for the reminder.”

  “I think you needed one.”