Chapter 7 Emily #2
“I know,” Emily said. “But as I said on Friday, if it’s that bad, it should be obvious fairly quickly, right?
I won’t need long to talk to some inmates, witness—or experience”—she shifted a little in her seat—“the treatment from prison staff.” She thought of her father, of the year and a half he spent on the front lines and in the mountains of Italy, the hunger and physical discomfort, recording the horrendous things humans were capable of doing to one another in the name of righteousness.
He saw it through. And so could she. “The trouble is, according to the Act, it looks like the minimum sentence is three months.”
Doris removed her glasses and massaged the bridge of her nose.
“I know. I know,” Emily said quickly. “I was hoping maybe my dad could just request my release or something, but it doesn’t seem as simple as that.
But I’ve thought of almost nothing else all weekend, and I think I can handle it, Doris.
” She swallowed the little bead of doubt that pinched her throat.
Doris put her glasses back on and watched Emily for a long, drawn-out moment. “I don’t doubt you, Emily. But I do think we should call the Mercer first. Let’s see what we can learn from the outside.”
“All right. When?” Emily asked.
“Now.” Doris stood, and Emily followed her to the desk, watching as she hauled the phone book out of a drawer and slammed it down.
“It’s got to have a phone number,” she said.
The thin paper of the book crackled as she turned page after page.
“There. There it is.” She landed her index finger with a soft thud.
Emily’s insides clenched with excitement and apprehension.
“Are you going to call, or should I?” she asked.
Doris surveyed her for a moment, clearly calculating.
“I will. This call could potentially send up a red flag. If you do end up going in there, I don’t want to risk anyone recognizing your voice.
Mine’s much deeper. All right. Here we go.
” Doris glanced back and forth at the number as the rotary whirred seven times.
She waited, eyes on the desk in front of her. They flashed up to Emily.
“Yes, good morning, ma’am. I wonder if the warden might be available, please.
” Doris held Emily’s eager gaze as the woman responded.
“Well, when will she be in?…ah…yes…all right. No. Well, I wonder then if you can comment on some allegations of sub-par living conditions at your institution. I have heard…I…yes…no…” It wasn’t going well, but Doris seemed unfazed.
“Well, if the warden…excuse me? I don’t see how my name is—” She made a regretful face.
“Yes, I work for a magazine,” she said eventually.
If they asked outright, she couldn’t lie.
“Hello? Ma’am?” She shook her head and set the receiver back down.
“She hung up?” Emily asked, biting her lip.
“She hung up.”
“So what does that say?”
Doris licked her lips, and Emily saw that despite her cool demeanour, pink patches had risen in her cheeks, and there was a shine in her eyes that Emily recognized.
She’d seen it before, when Doris proposed the battered women article last fall.
“I’ve been at this a long time, and my instinct says there’s something here. ”
Emily nodded. Doris gestured for her notes, and she handed them over. Her boss re-read the legislation, eyes narrowing, and then the inmate’s note once again. She shook her head.
“We don’t have any other way to validate this, Doris,” Emily said.
Doris pressed her tongue into the side of her cheek. “No. I spent a while on the weekend sorting through options, but there aren’t many. That madam you talked to said women have tried to report the conditions to police, correct?”
“Yes. But who’s going to listen to a bunch of prostitutes and delinquents?” Emily asked boldly.
“Exactly.”
There was a beat of silence between them as Doris sat down in her oversized executive chair. Emily decided that now was her moment.
“I want to do this, Doris.” She took a seat across the desk in a chair that was usually occupied by one of the staff writers—the women with windows in their offices and their own names in the byline.
“I know you do. I would, too, to tell you the truth. In another season of my life, before marriage and children, I might have.” A ghost of a smile haunted Doris’s dark lips.
“If it’s as bad as we think it is, this is an enormous scoop: abuse of power, abuse of women—and right on the heels of our other exposé—government culpability, and probably corruption somewhere along the line.
From a journalism perspective, it’s a deep scoop.
And from a women’s issues perspective, well…
it’s critical.” She stared at Emily for several long moments, then seemed to come to a decision.
“You’ll need to be as careful as you can be.
” Emily’s heart surged. “Do not put yourself in harm’s way for the sake of this story, Emily.
Get in, get what you need, then lie low until your release. ”
With a rush, Emily nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“But you’re going to need your father’s help with this. Speak to him tonight. Let me know what he says, and we’ll go from there.” She paused. “I’m still not entirely comfortable with it, but you seem determined, it’s a great story, and you’re a bit uniquely positioned to be able to do it.”
Emily swelled with excitement and pride and a touch of nerves. “Thank you, Doris.”
A car horn blared from four floors below on University Avenue, where traffic hummed through a cloud of grey exhaust all hours of the day.
Phones rang in the offices down the hall, as they did in hundreds of other offices and homes around the city.
They were everyday sounds that carried on no matter what was happening.
A light blanket of normalcy shrouding the darkness in every corner of every neighbourhood.
Emily wondered what might be happening to the inmates at the Mercer prison right at that very moment.
No one knew.
But if Emily could pull this off, she would make sure they did.