Good Little Wives Read Free

again, she thought, as she wheeled her Volvo past the tall chain-link fence that was topped with barbed wire corkscrewed like a big, unfriendly Slinky, maybe one of Kitty’s kids had bailed her out by now.
    She parked, she turned off the ignition, she got out of the car and locked it as if she were simply going into the market, or into the nail salon for a manicure. Unlike the other New Falls ladies, Dana did not find jail a foreign land.
    She remembered the drill:
    â€œName.”
    â€œDriver’s license.”
    â€œInmate number.”
    Crossing the parking lot, Dana zipped the Polarfleece, gladshe’d remembered to wear a jacket that did not have a hood. As she recalled, a hood was deemed a suspicious hiding place for a packet of cocaine or a loaded gun.
    Pulling open the heavy glass door, Dana wondered where on earth Kitty had gotten a gun and when she’d learned how to shoot.
    The waiting room was harsh from too many fluorescent lights. A large, uniformed young man sat behind a desk next to a wall of computer screens. There had been no computers thirty-plus years ago.
    What was familiar, however, was the air. It was stale and still, scented by bodies that had not been washed often or well enough. Dana knew if she closed her eyes, she might think she was back home, that it was Monday evening visiting hours, and she’d come to see Daddy.
    â€œMay I help you?” the uniformed young man asked.
    Dana blinked. “Yes,” she said, her voice just a whisper, as if not to disturb her long-ago ghosts. “Can you tell me if Kitty DeLano is being held here or if someone has posted her bail?”
    The young man smiled. Well, that was certainly something else that was different from the stern, bullying looks of the Indiana guards. Maybe the prison system had decided to soften its approach.
    â€œShe’s here,” he said. “Are you her attorney?”
    It should have occurred to Dana that she might not get in to see Kitty without some credentials. At home, after all, she’d been “family.”
    She considered leaving, then realized that because Kitty was still there, her children apparently hadn’t yet appeared.Not her children, not even an attorney. Perhaps Kitty was so cold and so scared that she hadn’t known what to do or whom to call. Perhaps she truly was all alone.
    Dana cleared her throat. “We haven’t decided whether or not Ms. DeLano will retain me.” Her journalism voice had returned, the voice that implied she was a professional and she was in charge. As long as the guard didn’t ask for a card that stipulated she was a member of the bar.
    He looked at his watch. “Her arraignment isn’t until one. The judge is real busy this morning.”
    â€œI know,” Dana said, as if she did. She was glad the guard did not question why an attorney would wear Polarfleece.
    Then he stood up and leaned across the desk. “May I see your driver’s license?” he asked, and Dana’s heart skipped a past-memory beat. She dug into her purse and extracted the document.
    His eyes scanned it briefly, then he pointed to a tall, white archway that looked like the metal detectors in airports. She sucked in her breath and stepped toward the arch, thankful she hadn’t put on an underwire bra when she’d dressed that morning.

Three
    It was a small, square room — not a big, open one like the one George Kimball had been escorted into so he could receive Monday night visitors.
    There was a lone table the same size as the cozy kitchen table in the split-level where Dana had grown up—not a configuration of bureaucratic, banquet-style tables shaped into a “U” with inmates parked on one side and visitors directed to the other.
    It was almost friendly—not at all like in Indiana.
    Dana waited in the room alone, looking out a window that had wire honeycombed inside the glass. She clicked her fingernails together and