Chapter 5 - Behind Glass
The visiting room at the county detention facility smelled of industrial bleach, cold steel, and stale sweat.
I sat on a hard plastic stool on one side of a reinforced pane of scratched acrylic glass, holding the heavy black plastic receiver to my ear.
A heavy metal door buzzed open on the opposite side. A correctional officer escorted Ryan into the booth.
He looked unrecognizable. The immaculate, bespoke suits he wore like armor were gone, replaced by a faded orange scrub uniform two sizes too large for his frame. His hair was greasy and uncombed, and dark, bruised hollows hung beneath his bloodshot eyes. He hadn't shaved in two days; a scraggly, uneven stubble covered his chin.
He slumped onto the metal stool, snatched the receiver off the hook, and pressed it hard against his ear.
"Emily," he breathed, his voice cracking through the static of the line. "Thank God. Thank God you came. You have to stop this. You have to tell them it was an accident. The guards here... the other inmates... they know what I'm in for. They hate guys who try to hurt women. Emily, I was jumped in the mess hall yesterday. Look at my eye!"
He tilted his head, showing a dark purplish hematoma blooming across his left temple.
I felt no satisfaction looking at the bruise. But more importantly, I felt no pity. The well of empathy I had carried for this man for four years was completely dry.
"Twelve million dollars, Ryan," I said evenly into the receiver.
Ryan froze. The frantic desperation on his face locked into absolute paralysis.
"I... I don't know what you're talking about," he stammered, his eyes darting to the guard standing near the door.
"The accidental death rider with Oceanic Mutual," I said, speaking slowly and clearly so that every syllable cut through the buzzing telephone line. "The one you signed four weeks ago. The one with the clause specifically exempting unassisted drowning."
Ryan swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing erratically. "Emily... the company was failing. I was trying to protect our future. If anything happened to you—"
"If anything happened to me, you would have used my dead body to pay off the debts you incurred playing the big corporate executive," I said. "You pushed me off that dock knowing I couldn't swim. You stood there with your hands crossed, watching me sink into that black water. You weren't waiting for me to stand up. You were waiting for the clock to run out."
"It wasn't like that!" he suddenly shouted, his fist slamming against the acrylic glass. The guard took half a step forward, his hand resting on his baton, and Ryan immediately shrank back, lowering his voice into a desperate hiss. "I panicked, okay?! When you fell in, I froze! I didn't know what to do!"
"Jessica was recording, Ryan. We have twelve minutes of continuous audio. We heard you tell me to stop embarrassing you. We heard Patricia laugh. We heard you say it was a harmless joke while I was coughing up silt."
Tears of pure self-pity began streaming down Ryan’s face. "Emily, please. I’m your husband. We stood at the altar. We made vows. For better or for worse, remember? In sickness and in health!"
"You broke those vows the second your hands touched my back," I replied. "And you broke the law. The district attorney has already filed the formal indictment. The grand jury returned a true bill this morning: one count of attempted murder in the first degree, one count of reckless endangerment, and three counts of conspiracy."
"No... no, no, no," he wept, pressing his forehead against the cold glass. "Marcus said he’d get me a plea deal. A suspended sentence!"
"Marcus dropped your case, Ryan. The firm dropped you. You have been assigned a public defender. Her name is Ms. Alvarez. She’s very competent, but she informed Arthur this morning that the evidence against you is so overwhelming that her only recommendation will be to advise you to plead guilty and accept a sentence of fifteen to twenty years."
Ryan’s eyes widened with sheer horror. "Twenty years?! I'll be fifty-two when I get out! My life will be over!"
"My life would have been over on Tuesday afternoon," I said, my voice steady, sharp, and final. "You had forty seconds of silence planned for me at the bottom of that lake. Twenty years in a six-by-eight cell seems remarkably generous by comparison."
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"Emily! Don't walk away! Emily!" he screamed, his voice distorting into a shrieking mess over the wire as I slowly hung up the plastic receiver and placed it neatly back into its metal cradle.
I stood up, smoothed down the front of my tailored coat, and walked toward the exit. Behind the glass, Ryan slammed both palms against the partition, screaming words I could no longer hear, until the guard grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged him backward through the heavy steel door.
