Chapter 5
Candy Harrington's head was pulled from her cell toilet by her hair. "You owe me, Harrington," Corrections Officer Abigail Crane snarled, pushing her head back into the water. Abigail's head hurt; her pride hurt the most. Being blindsided by a restrained prisoner hurt her pride.
Officer Crane pulled Candy Harrington's head from the toilet and detangled her hair. Happy, content noises came from the crib as her nine-month-old daughter slept, unaware of the trouble her mother was in.
"S-Sorry, ma'am," spluttered Candy as she fought to catch her breath. "Please tell me how I can make this right?" she begged.
A small metal bar rattled on the floor beside the cowering woman. "Pick it up," commanded Officer Crane. "Pick it up!" She scolded the woman for moving too slowly for her liking.
Candy reached for the metal bar, but a foot stamped hard on her hand as she attempted to pick it up. "Look at me, Harrington. Don't screw this up, or I will inform that waste of space junkie father about his daughter. He would love to have Vanessa at home with him, away from this hellhole." She threatened,
"No! We have a deal, you promised," Candy begged.
Bradley Little, her former boyfriend, was unaware of his daughter. Candy had concealed her pregnancy from him. Candy Harrington had experienced abuse throughout her life, starting with her parents. She escaped their clutches, only to find herself in another difficult situation with Bradley Little. He was charming at first and made her feel special; she was in too deep before she realised.
Gripping the bar, she looked up. "What do I need to do?" Her daughter was the only good thing to happen, and she would do anything for her.
"Break that Blonde bitches left forearm." Snarled Officer Crane, "You can do it tonight in the exercise room. She will be shackled all alone, and the cameras will have a technical issue. As always, I have your back, Harrington. Do not mess this up." Abigail Crane smirked as she watched the submissive woman lower her eyes as she picked up the metal bar.
"Feed Vanessa, you have two hours, Harrington."
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Abigail closed her wife's office door, smiling and kissing her deeply. "Harrington will do the deed in the exercise room. I told her the cameras would have technical issues," Abigail smiled.
Edna shook her head. It amazed her how gullible people could be. Candy Harrington had become a liability; she should have died last night, but one damn blonde named Reagan had to wade in and stop her untimely death. Her nine-month-old girl had been sold, and money had been paid. You did not disappoint people who paid for her services.
"Alright, Abigail. We really can't afford to make another mistake. Erica is quite upset." She smiled slightly anxiously as she passed her wife a tiny vial filled with clear liquid.
Abigail looked at the vial and quickly glanced at her wife for an explanation.
"Scopolamine, five or six drops in her water, and she will be compliant and remain mobile, zombie-like," she explained. "It messes with her memory," Edna explained.
"Good," snarled Abigail as she absentmindedly touched her stitches. "I am so glad they want her to suffer. Hopefully, it will be like Christmas morning every day for years."
Edna gently kissed her wife's stitches. "Reagan is all yours after she is found guilty. Erica said her clients are very adamant she suffered for years; once she is mentally and physically broken, she will die?"
Smiling at her wife, Abigail leaned in for another kiss. "Thank you," she whispered. I can't believe I let her blindside me; that was a rookie mistake," she sighed angrily.
Inside a plastic evidence bag, Edna slid a prison shank across the table. "Prints and some DNA, please, sweetheart,"
Abigail nodded. "Whoever is behind this must have endless resources. I don't believe we requested enough funding," she speculated. However, both women were well aware of the truth.
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Martha Bishop watched the rain fall as she looked out to sea. She loved her beachfront house in the Hamptons. Her grandson had loved this mansion on Surfside Drive. It hasn't been the same for the matriarch of the Bishop family since Jake had been killed in prison.
Martha was the main force behind her retribution against Edit Marie Reagan. Preparing everything for her downfall took five long years and cost a mere $5,000,000, but it was worth every penny. The Bishops were an old-money family and one of the founding Dutch immigrant families that settled here in the 17th century.
"Grandmother," She warmly greeted,
Martha smiled at the blonde, blue-eyed woman standing before her. "Perfect, just perfect." She greeted her granddaughter
Lorraine Bishop smiled at her grandmother, curtsying and twirling in her New York Department of Corrections uniform. Her forearm had a noticeable black fibreglass cast. Lorraine was Jake Singer's younger sister. She had only known her older brother through the plexiglass during her prison visits, and she was too young to remember him being free.
"Your brother would have been incredibly proud of you, Lorraine. I will always feel indebted for what you have endured." Martha proudly told her granddaughter.
With the help of cosmetic surgery, a blonde wig, and blue contact lenses, she resembled Eddie Reagan's doppelgänger.
"Erica, how are things going?" Martha asked the fixer as she approached the group.
"Best was arrested earlier on an outstanding bench warrant, and he will offer up that he sold a Glock to Reagan. He will ask for a deal, and ADA Patterson will jump in with both feet. He will inform her that he watched Reagan strip the weapon down and remove the barrel and firing pin. He followed Reagan and watched her dispose of the Glock. He retrieved the Glock body from the dumpster to sell it again. The police will find a ripped fingertip from a latex glove, complete with her fingerprint." Erica explained
Martha smiled, pleased with how things were working. "What about the money trail?"
Erica smiled. Her clients always told her they didn't want details; they just wanted results, but they always asked for more information, which was human nature. " His sister won a tri-state lottery, and the prizes included a house, car, and $100,000. Should the NYPD do their due diligence, they will find the lottery has been up and running for five years. Nattalie Best has entered it every year with no red flags for the police to find. Best will take the deal and serve his time because he is reliable, and no money trail leads to him. He is just a man trying to reduce his sentence. We need to go, Lorraine. Make sure you have your identification displayed. You can change it once we get there. Ready for your last hurrah as Edit?" Erica Asked
"I need to get this cast off. It's incredibly annoying; I seriously have an itch," Lorraine Bishop laughed while waving goodbye.
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Eddie, with her hands restrained behind her back, circled the indoor exercise room designed for inmates needing protection. Alone in the room, she felt reasonably safe. However, she was wary of the few guards she had met in the protection wing. It confused her why she was handcuffed instead of shackled; it didn't make sense. She was locked inside a room with only a skylight some nine feet above, impossible to reach.
Intending to make the most of the hour out of her cell, she pondered everything that had happened; a lot had happened in three days.
Eddie stepped past the door when it was suddenly flung open.
'Thwack, Thwack, Crack,'
She was attacked suddenly; it took only eight seconds and two heavy blows to her left forearm. The ferocity of the attack floored Eddie; her left forearm hung at an unusual angle.
"Harrington, put your hands on your head! Now!" ordered the guards as they rushed in. "Get her cuffs off and call the paramedics," ordered Officer Abigail Crane.
Candy Harrington was subdued after being pepper sprayed, cuffed, and dragged away to solitary confinement.
"Hold on, the paramedics are here."
The paramedics examined her left arm and gave her some Entonox gas for her pain as they splinted her broken forearm.
"It's a simple break, Reagan. We will x-ray it; you should only need it cast." The male paramedic explained.
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Edna Ritch watched everything from her office, pleased with the outcome; she had nearly redeemed herself. "Happy?" she asked the two women watching.
Lorraine Bishop smiled, pleased to see Eddie Reagan writhing in pain. "Yep, a few more blows might have been better," she sighed as she zipped up her orange jumpsuit.
Erica's face remained impassive. "That's the end of Act One. I will leave my plaudits until we have completed Act Two. It should be about two hours for them to finish casting her arm. Her water bottle has already been dosed, and she won't remember anything because her memory lapses are attributed to her pain medication." Erica almost snarled at the two women, astonished at how flippant they both were.
"Sorry," Edna managed to say. She felt terrified of this woman.
"I want Harrington transferred to the hospital, cuffed to her bed, within ninety minutes. This is the critical part: timing is everything. Once you've attended to Harrington, do not dawdle," Erica instructed, ensuring Lorraine remained focused on the plan. Revenge could undermine her carefully constructed strategy and ruin everything.
Lorraine Bishop nodded appropriately, feeling chastised. She had been focused on Reagan's pain and had lost sight of the bigger picture. Her thirst for revenge against the woman who testified against her brother had clouded her judgment; she had followed her brother's entire case, watching the recorded footage when she was old enough to do so.
"Good. Keep your eye on the prize, ladies," warned Erica, regretting that she hadn't requested a more significant sum. These individuals were amateurs, and she understood why this unit was so corrupt.
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"You will stay here overnight, Reagan. Don't be a nuisance, or I will have you cuffed to your bed," the nurse told Eddie.
Her left arm was encased in a black fibreglass cast for the next 6 to 8 weeks. It was a clean break of her left radius and ulna. Eddie felt somewhat fuzzy, attributing this to the painkillers she had taken. Struggling to stay awake, she felt unsafe in this prison. Losing the battle, Eddie's eyes drifted shut, and she fell asleep.
"How long has she been asleep?" Officer Crane enquired.
"For about two hours, she was out of it. She didn't even wake when Harrington was brought in with abdominal pains," answered the nurse.
Abigail Crane smiled as she approached Eddie Reagan's sleeping figure. Feigning concern, she lowered her voice and whispered a command: "Wait for me to leave, then go to the bathroom. You need to pee."
The scopolamine mixed with her water was fully effective. She complied as instructed, kept her eyes closed, and feigned sleep. As instructed, she listened for the doors to shut.
"I need to pee, ma'am." She asked the nurse
"Go on, I will follow you, Reagan,"
"Wha…" the accompanying nurse stuttered, cut short when an arm encased in black crashed into the nurse's temple, knocking her out cold.
"Reagan, hit her with your cast now!" ordered Lorraine Bishop.
Enjoying the power she had over the horrible woman was amazing. Watching her strike the nurse again with her casted left arm, unable to stop herself, Eddie crashed her casted forearm into the unconscious nurse's skull.
"Take a seat and cross your legs. Stay silent," Bishop commanded as she exited. Eddie complied and sat down with her legs crossed like an obedient child.
With her back to the camera, Lorraine Bishop removed the shank from her pocket and strolled across to Candy Harrington's bed.
"Reagan, leave me alone, you pig. I don't feel very well," Candy told the approaching woman, as she had been instructed, unaware that she had only moments left to live.
A look of shock appeared on Candy's face as she noticed the shank. "No! Please don't hurt me. I have a daughter," she begged, trying to fend off the weapon with her free hand.
Bishop plunged the shank into Candy's chest twice, then stabbed the side of her neck. The entire attack took only two minutes; a minute later, Candy Harrington took her final breath.
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"What about Vanessa? You have made her an orphan. Are you happy, Officer Reagan? Have you protected her? You took an oath, you evil witch! Look at what you did to me. Candy Harrington coughed, blood spilling from the gash in her neck, and red bubbles poured out from the two holes in her chest.
Eddie dropped the plastic handle from her blood-covered hand as she backed away from the hospital bed.
"What have I done?" Her hand covered her mouth, the realisation hitting her. Blood dripped from two lacerations she had on two of her fingers.
"No! No! I killed her, I killed her," Eddie repeated to herself. Images repeatedly in her mind. Remembering the sound of gasping as the air escaped from her chest, the sucking noise sent a shiver down her spine.
'It's only a dream, Eddie, just a dream,' she reassured herself as she opened her eyes, which stung and felt gritty. 'What's happening?' she wondered; her right arm was restrained. Her mind felt hazy from the pain medication.
Although her vision was slightly blurry, she could make two figures beside her bed. One figure wore a correctional officer's uniform, while the other wore a suit.
"Why are my eyes blurry?" She asked aloud
"You were pepper-sprayed and tasered, Reagan. You resisted us last night. Do you remember what you did?" Eddie recognised the voice of Chief Officer Edna Ritch.
Two fingers on her right hand stung. She looked at her cuffed right wrist, which covered two fingers with white bandages. 'Was it a dream?' she asked herself.
"Do you remember what you did, Reagan?" asked Inspector Nyall O'Day.
"Or could it have been someone who looked like you, wearing a black fibreglass cast on their arm?" Detective Jim Broadbent inquired, his voice emanating from behind her.
"Can you uncuff me, please?" Eddie asked.
"No, you killed an inmate and attacked a nurse. You are dangerous, Reagan," Jim Broadbent replied maliciously. "Let me guess, it wasn't you?" He smirked, waiting for her denial.
Eddie closed her eyes as the tears stung while they fell. She sniffed and faced Detective Broadbent, saying, "No, I did it." She replied, "I stabbed her three times: twice in the chest and once in the neck, over her jugular." She answered, surprising the two NYPD detectives.
Edna Ritch maintained a neutral expression, satisfied that everything proceeded as planned. She hoped to lift herself from Erica's bad books, though she was sceptical that the scopolamine could prove so effective. 'Dosing the prison population would make her job child's play,' she mused.
Jim Broadbent looked momentarily surprised upon hearing her confession. Neither detective expected her to confess; they both anticipated the same song and dance as before regarding Simon Beresford.
Inspector Nyall O'Day looked at his partner, wondering if they should try pushing Reagan again about Beresford. As she was emotionally unstable, they might get her to admit to his murder.
Jim Broadbent shook his head and mouthed, 'Lawyer,' knowing what his partner was thinking. Nyall nodded in agreement. He smiled as he noticed his partner drop his shoulders, realising he was being greedy.
"Will you walk us through what you did?" Jim Broadbent asked Eddie
"Do you want your attorney?" Nyall O'Day asked.
Eddie shook her head and replied, "No." Her voice was filled with desperation.
The seasoned detectives both noticed Eddie Reagan's change in demeanour. "Coffee, Eddie?" Jim asked as he unlocked her right wrist and handed her his cup of coffee.
She sipped her coffee and looked across as her vision cleared. "Set up your video camera, and I shall give you my confession," she told the two detectives. 'What about Vanessa? You have made her an orphan?' echoed in her mind, making her feel physically sick; she retched.
To be continued