23 Hours: A Vengeful Vampire Tale(18)

Just do it, she told herself. Do it quickly, like pulling off a—

A big black dog shoved its wet nose against her window. Clara screamed a little. The dog wasn’t barking or snapping at her, but it had a suspicious look in its eye.

“Please step out of the car, ma’am,” a corrections officer in a blue stab-proof vest said. Clara nodded and opened her door. The dog lunged inside the car, sniffing at her skirt and her shoes. Clara held her hands up where they could be seen. She stepped out of the car and let the dog smell her, let it do its job.

“You here for a visitation?” the CO asked. “ID, please.”

Clara nodded and reached for her purse. The dog sat back on its haunches and stared at her, daring her to try something.

This wasn’t her first time visiting Laura. Clara knew the drill. The silver star on her lapel should have been enough, but she handed over her driver’s license and her U.S. Marshals Service ID card anyway. The CO shoved them in his pocket. “I’ll make a copy of these and they’ll be returned when you leave,” he told her. “This way.”

He grabbed up the dog’s leash and walked her toward a low, narrow gate in the wall. Inside she was led to a waiting room where a number of other visitors, mostly women, were sitting on plastic chairs watching a videotape about what they were allowed to bring inside the prison and what was expressly forbidden. COs with dogs circled the room, searching for contraband.

“Ms. Hsu? You’re with me,” another CO said. This one didn’t have a dog. “I’ll take you to the SHU visiting area now.”

Clara nodded gratefully. Behind her someone shouted, “Hey!”

It was a visitor, a middle-aged woman with dry hair wearing a tie-dyed sweatshirt.

“How come she gets to go first? I been waiting an hour,” she insisted.

“Watch the tape. We’ll come for you when it’s time,” a CO said.

“Shit,” the woman said, sitting back down. “And you can’t even smoke in here!”

Clara was taken through a series of gates, each of them designed to be opened electronically by a CO behind a bulletproof window. Finally she was brought into a little antechamber where her fingerprints were taken and a female CO brushed a long cotton swab across her shoulders and down the side of her skirt.

“Is this really necessary?” Clara asked. She hadn’t gone through this the last time.

The COs didn’t answer her. The female one pushed her swab into the waiting maw of an Ionscan machine that could detect even minute traces of explosives or narcotics. Everybody waited for forty-five seconds until the screen lit up red. “Gunpowder residue,” the female CO said.

The male CO, Clara’s guide, pulled a stun gun off his belt and held it down by his thigh. “Empty your pockets, now. Everything goes in the bucket.” He kicked a plastic bin at her so it skidded across the floor. “Watch, belt, shoes, too. Wallets, keys, cell phone. You have a camera on you?”

Clara frowned. She took her camera out of her purse and placed it carefully in the bin. Then, with exaggerated slowness, she opened her jacket and showed them her empty shoulder holster. “It’s okay,” she insisted. “I’m a federal agent. You’re picking up gunpowder residue because I normally carry a sidearm. I didn’t bring it in with me. I really don’t see why you need my belt.”

“No exceptions. In the bin, now!” the male CO demanded.

Clara did as she was told.

With one hand on her skirt to keep it from falling down, and wincing with every step—the prison floors were ice cold on her stockinged feet—she was finally allowed into a visitation room. A row of carrels ran down the middle of the room, each booth facing an identical one but separated from it by a plate of inch-thick Lexan. There was a telephone handset in the booth and one just like it on the other side.

“You will not be allowed physical contact with the prisoner,” the male CO told her. “Everything you say will be monitored, recorded, and analyzed. The recording may be used as evidence in a court of law. You may not use obscene language or any kind of code words, do you understand? And under no circumstances will you be allowed to remove your clothing during the visit. You will have one hour with the prisoner. If you do not wish to use the full hour, you may hang up your telephone handset at any time and the prisoner will be returned to her cell. Do you understand?”

“Yes, yes,” Clara said. She sat down in a hard wooden chair and stared forward, through the Lexan. This is it, she told herself. This is where you get your life back.