Susan wasn't really sure what she had expected when she applied for the correctional officer position at a federal prison.
She sure didn't expect she would actually get it. She sure didn't expect that she'd find Ms. Chapman here as one of the inmates and she sure didn't expect to be the one that found Ms. Chapman sitting next to the beaten body of Ms. Doggett.
Part of her still can't bring herself to believe that Ms. Chapman would do anything like that. She knew there had to a better explanation for what she had done, there just had to be. Or maybe she was still telling that to herself to justify what she herself had done that cold night out in the yard.
Fischer spent a short summer as a life guard at the local pool by her house. They gave her a quick lesson on CPR and how to check if a victim was still breathing but by the time she was on top of one of those super tall chairs she was pretty sure she had forgotten it all. She was a nervous wreck during all of her shifts, she tried to run through the CPR steps in her head but never got past the "check if they're breathing" step.
She was so thankful that no one drowned on her shift, she was pretty sure she would had done more harm than good. And that was so obvious now because she was trying to get a pulse on Ms. Doggett but she didn't even think she was pressing down in the right spots. Part of her was thankful for the gurgling coming up from Ms. Doggett's mouth, at least that meant she was breathing.
She wasn't supposed to be out here. She wasn't on duty, she was still recovering from getting choked by Miss Claudette. It wasn't even her idea to come to the pageant tonight. Her boyfriend thought it would be a good idea to come and to see that it really isn't as scary as her latest nightmares have been making it out to be.
But now it just seems like its worse.
"We have an inmate down in the site yard." Fischer mumbled into her phone. The secretary took a second to respond. Maybe she was in the holiday daze or maybe she was confused to be hearing from an off-duty officer especially through the phone line but she could hear the crackle of a radio on the other line and she knew that help would be on its way.
It felt like an eternity when the first set of guards burst through the door.
The more experience guards raced towards her and pushed her back. She watched as they lifted Ms. Doggett's body and turned her sideways until the bubbling around her mouth stopped and the blood that pooled there dripped down her cheek. Fischer cursed herself, she should have thought to do that. A few other guards had Ms. Chapman pinned facedown in the snow. She didn't grunt or fight the guards in any way. She just laid there, staring off into some far distant land. She wasn't even sure if Ms. Chapman was in there anymore. They clipped one of those plastic ties around Ms. Chapman's wrist, Fischer saw the torn bloody skin of Ms. Chapman's knuckles, before they yanked her up into a kneeling position.
"What happened?" Someone barked.
Ms. Chapman didn't even look up at him. Her eyes still stared off.
"Tell me what the fuck happened!" The guards were shaking her violently as if physicality would actually bring her back to realty but it did nothing. Her body just shook with the guards movements but her eyes never changed.
Fischer looked down at her feet and found a cross there. She had seen some of the "healing sessions" Ms. Doggett had been hosting before she was sent up to psych and she had heard about the incident with the giant cross in the chapel, she knew this had to belong to Ms. Doggett, she had crafted a few other crosses before. It wasn't until she knelt down that she saw the sharp point on the end of it. She picked it up and inspected it closer, Ms. Doggett had turned this into a weapon.
"Give that to me."
Fischer felt the cross snapped from her hand and she looked up to find Mr. Healy looking downå at her.
"What is that?" It was Mr. Mendez who spoke, he was standing behind Ms. Chapman, he stepped closer to inspect the cross that Mr. Healy was holding.
There was a look in Mr. Healy's eyes like he felt guilty for taking it, Fischer thought that maybe they shouldn't have been touching it because it was evidence.
"It's a weapon." Mr. Healy said quickly. "It must have been Chapman's."
He looks down at Ms. Chapman who's still kneeling on the ground below them, even if she could hear what they were saying she made no attempt to acknowledge their words. Fischer could hear one of the guards finally radioing in the request for an ambulance.
"I don't think it's Chapman's." Fischer spoke barely above a whisper but Mr. Healy turned around sharply and she knew he had to of heard her.
Mr. Healy opened his mouth to speak but Mr. Mendez spoke over him. "I agree." He took the device from Mr. Healy hand and flipped it over and over. "It just looks like something Doggett would make, Chapman can barely work a hammer."
There was a frown on his face. "It's Chapman's, I know it." He looked over at Ms. Chapman on the grass. "We're going to get you put away at Max...for five more years. Put her in SHU." He barked to the guards before he began to make his way for the door.
Fischer stood next to Mr. Mendez as the rest of the guards pulled Ms. Chapman towards the entrance as well.
"What a fucking night." Mr. Mendez whispered as he followed the guards pulling Ms. Chapman in tow.
There were two guards left when the ambulance crew burst through the door. They pushed Fischer back as they made space for the backboard next to Ms. Doggett. Fischer took several steps backwards before she felt she stepped on something hard.
She looked down to find a red screwdriver underneath the back of her right boot. She bent down slowly, pulled the screwdriver up from the ground and slowly slipped it into her pocket.
She doesn't know why they insisted on watching the surveillance footage again and again but here she was sitting in her usual corner of Mr. Caputo's office with the footage playing on his tiny little computer screen. Mr. Healy paces in front of her while Mr. Mendez sits patiently next to her, he's using a straw to pick at the spaces of his teeth and she's pretty sure he's just as bored of this as she is.
Fischer looks up at the grainy black and white video. She's kind of surprised at how terrible the videos really are, you can barely tell who is who in the video the biggest distinguishing factor is size, Ms. Doggett is a little shorter than Ms. Chapman. The screen is paused on the scene where Mr. Healy insists it shows Ms. Chapman holding a weapon threateningly, but even if Chapman was holding something the view is completely blocked by Ms. Doggett's body.
On the other hand you can see something in Ms. Doggett's hand every time she makes an attempt to swipe and slash Ms. Chapman.
"It's self-defense, I don't know why we're still arguing this." Mr. Mendez pinches the bridge of his nose.
"Because she has a weapon." Mr. Healy yells so loud that Fischer feels herself jump off her seat.
"You can't fucking prove that." Mr. Mendez is on his feet and pointing at the choppy video on the screen. "I have no fucking clue why you are out to fuck over Chapman but we fucking searched the god damn field and we found nothing-"
Fischer sank lower in her seat.
"-and we already have two fucking inmates that admit to seeing Doggett with the fucking cross-stake-thing so why are you wasting my fucking time."
Mr. Healy is in Mr. Mendez's face in an instant. they don't separate until Mr. Caputo comes between them. He doesn't speak until the two men slowly return to their corners of the room.
"He's right. The only thing I can see on this video is a rather frightened young blonde woman screaming for help and then fighting for her life, the same young blond woman you sent to the hole for no reason several weeks prior and another fanatical inmate who is less then a week off of psych and she's already, allegedly, attacking another inmate with a deadly weapon." Mr. Caputo says. "I'm sorry Healy but this is closed. Chapman is innocent. She's already served her time for the excessive force but we can't punish an inmate for protecting her own life."
Mr. Healy opens his mouth to speak but it takes just a glare from Caputo before he silences and slams his way out of the office.
/* Author's Note: What do you think? */