After Anna(91)
Except that he was innocent.
Graterford was located on a thousand-acre parcel about thirty miles from Philadelphia, and it had been built in the 1920s, one of the older prisons in the system. It was at 105 percent overcrowding, second-highest in the state, but its replacement, SCI Phoenix, was already under construction on the same parcel, behind schedule and overbudget at a cost of $400 million. Noah knew the statistics because he’d read the inmate manual in the library at SCI Camp Hill, undoubtedly the only inmate to have done so.
His only goal was to survive, though for how long he didn’t know. He hadn’t been sentenced yet, and he was just trying to survive another day, though he wasn’t sure why. He was fine not knowing why, for now. It was instinct. Every living thing fought to stay alive. People. Animals. Plants. Cells. Viruses. Allergens. He felt reduced to his primal self, following his only reflex. Survival.
He inhaled, and the exhaust fumes nauseated him, but he ignored that, too. He kept his head to the glass, which was covered by a wire lattice, and he looked out as they rumbled along the highway. Families in SUVs and minivans passed them, and he could see the kids buckled into their car seats and watching videos, the fathers straight-arming the wheel, and the mothers in the passenger seats, reading Facebook on their phones. He didn’t permit himself to think of Maggie or Caleb. Or Anna. Or even Wreck-It Ralph.
Inmates filled the bus, all hunched over in shackles, sitting nearest the window like he was, spread out to avoid contact with each other. None of them appeared to be first-timers, since nobody was crying or talking. They all knew the unwritten rules, which they made and communicated by actions. Stay in your lane. Mind your own business. Don’t discuss your case with another inmate or they’ll use the information against you or trade it to reduce their own sentence. Above all, find your kind. There was safety in numbers.
Noah knew that would be his immediate problem, since he doubted there were other pediatric allergists at Graterford. He had no group to join. He was a generic white guy, but not a white nationalist. He wasn’t black, Hispanic, or Asian, which were automatic groups. He wasn’t a gang member of any stripe, another automatic group. He wasn’t a Jesus freak or a ‘girlfriend,’ inmate slang nobody needed to spell out. He was on his own, which made him vulnerable.
Noah kept his eye out the window. His bid at Montgomery County Correctional Facility hadn’t prepared him for what lay ahead because MCCF was a minimum-security facility. That was kindergarten compared to Graterford, with its general population of murderers, drug-dealers, arsonists, rapists, burglars, robbers, addicts, schizophrenics, and psychopaths. Graterford would be ‘hard time,’ not ‘smooth time’ like MCCF. And Graterford housed the only Death Row in the state.
The bus crossed the border into Skippack Township, signified by a small green sign, and in time, they turned off of Route 73 onto an unmarked single-lane road that traveled downhill. It led to Graterford, and massive lights made a white halo as bright as a major-league baseball stadium. Noah shifted up in his seat to see the prison, and so did the others, blinking from the sudden brightness after the long, dark drive. He wondered if they were all thinking the same thing.
This is the last time I’ll see it from the outside.
Graterford was a massive conglomeration of buildings, and Noah could see only the lit office complex in front because the entire prison was encircled by a thirty-five-foot high concrete wall, barbed concertina wire, and guard towers with smoked-glass windows.
They traveled to the prison and were hustled out of the bus, shuffling along like a line of hunchbacks because of the shackles. They were ordered into an intake area, where they were unshackled, stripped, showered, and examined, then changed into a reddish-brown shirt with yellow trim and baggy pants with white prison slippers. They were photographed, cuffed up, and given a toilet kit, mattress, blanket, sheets, and towels, then split up by cellblock.
Noah was ordered to go with a burly CO, or corrections officer, in a black uniform with a name tag that read EVESHAM. They walked through dull white cinder-block corridors. The fluorescent lights flickered dully, and the floors were of worn concrete. The overheated air smelled antiseptic and dirty, both at once. The only sounds were the crackling of the walkie-talkie holstered on CO Evesham’s black utility belt and the jingling of his keys. The long hallway ended in a locked sally port, and stenciled letters above it read, CELLBLOCK C.
CO Evesham detached his key ring. ‘Stand back, Dr Alderman,’ he ordered, getting ready to unlock the door.
Noah obeyed.
CO Evesham turned to him, then said under his breath, ‘They’re expecting you.’
Noah blinked, surprised. ‘What do you mean?’
CO Evesham didn’t reply, unlocking the door.
Chapter Sixty-four
Maggie, After
Maggie sat hunched at the kitchen island, her mail spread out and her laptop open to the bank’s website. She was supposed to be paying bills, but the task seemed overwhelming. Everything seemed overwhelming since Anna’s death, and Maggie knew she was stuck in the familiar mire of depression. She felt herself going under, being sucked down, the muck clogging her nostrils and filling her mouth. She wondered if she deserved to die that way, suffocated like Anna.
Maggie’s gaze strayed to the window, and she watched raindrops batter the glass. She couldn’t bear to think that Anna was under the ground, and cold rainy days like this made her regret leaving her there. She had visited Anna’s grave often before the trial, but then reporters had started following her. Now, three days after the guilty verdict against Noah, the media was finally losing interest and only one news van sat parked at her curb. Her neighbors probably hated her, for that and everything else, and she was considering moving, but Caleb didn’t want to.