Chapter 9 - The Jailhouse Visit
Three days later, I received a formal notice from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. Patricia was demanding a spousal visit before her preliminary bail hearing. Marcus advised me against going, but I knew that if I didn't face her one last time on my own terms, the ghost of those twenty-two years would haunt my peripheral vision forever.
The visitation room was divided by a thick pane of scratched, bulletproof polycarbonate.
When Patricia was led in by the detention officer, she looked completely unrecognizable. The manicured suburban matriarch was gone. She wore an oversized orange jumpsuit, her hair was unwashed and tangled, and her face was sunken, devoid of the expensive foundations and powders she used to hide her age.
She picked up the heavy plastic telephone receiver with shaking, cuffed hands.
I sat down and lifted mine to my ear, remaining silent.
"Javier," she began, her voice hoarse, desperate, trembling with an ugly combination of rage and self-pity. "You have to get me out of here. You have to post the bail bond. Do you have any idea what they do to women like me in this place? It’s freezing. The guards are animals. The other inmates..."
"You pushed our daughter into an oak table, Patricia," I said, my voice completely devoid of inflection. "You watched her bleed on the floor for half an hour while you drank iced tea."
"It was an accident!" she shrieked into the receiver, pressing her face against the scratched plastic until her nose flattened. "She provoked me! She was hiding the keys! I was doing it for our family, Javier! I had debts—terrible men were threatening our lives! I was trying to protect us!"
"You took out credit cards in her name when she was nineteen," I countered coldly. "You forged my signature on a two-million-dollar accidental death policy. Were you planning to push me down the stairs next, Patricia? Was my life insurance your retirement plan?"
Her mouth clicked shut. Her eyes darted wildly, realizing that every hidden layer of her life had been peeled back under the harsh light of criminal forensics. The mask of the victim vanished, replaced by the snarling, venomous creature that had been lurking beneath for twenty-two years.
"You were never home!" she hissed, spitting against the glass. "You and your stupid machines, your grease, your long shifts! You thought buying this house and paying the bills was enough? You left me alone! I deserved more than this pathetic, boring life! You owe me, Javier! You owe me half of everything you have!"
"You're getting exactly what you earned," I said softly.
I pulled out a folded legal document from my coat pocket and pressed it flat against the glass.
It was the final marital dissolution decree, accompanied by a total civil asset forfeiture waiver negotiated between Marcus and the county prosecutor. In exchange for the state dropping two counts of attempted second-degree murder down to aggravated assault and grand fraud, Patricia had signed away every claim to the house, my pension, the savings accounts, and any future contact with Daniela.
"Your court-appointed attorney signed the concurrence twenty minutes ago," I told her. "You have no home. You have no money. You have no husband. And you have no daughter."
"Javier! No! You can't do this to me!" she screamed, hammering her cuffed fists against the glass. "Javier! Look at me!"
I set the telephone receiver back into its metal cradle. I stood up, buttoned my coat, and turned my back on her.
May you like
As the guards wrestled her away from the partition and dragged her back toward the cell block, her screams were muffled by the reinforced concrete walls until they were nothing more than an insignificant hum in the distance.
***
