Free Mystery Writers of America Presents the Prosecution Rests by Linda Fairstein

months. One of those lunged forward to upend the table on
     top of Jeff, maybe hurt him. Jeff didn’t flinch; the table was bolted to the floor too, just like the chair.
    He took a break and grabbed a cup of coffee in the staff lounge. The room smelled like stale popcorn.
    “Had a call about you this morning, Jeff,” the warden said, leaning into the room. He was slowing down, getting ready to retire.
    “Yeah? What about?”
    “Hard to make out. I think she was hoping you were ass-deep in a snowdrift somewhere and hadn’t showed up yet.”
    “That’s about what happened.” He dumped powdered cream into his cup. It floated.
    “Well, she’s hot to bring you some papers. I don’t know what. She wouldn’t tell me her name, but she knew yours. Mr. Willett,
     she called you. Know anything about her?”
    “News to me.”
    He walked around the old rotunda, listening to voices echo and thinking that if the prison were built today there would be
     an uproar against wasted space. For five minutes, he stood in front of a window that faced the road. There weren’t any vehicles
     moving out there, but at least the snow was letting up.
    When he returned to the conference room, the guard asked, “You want Danny Hartman next?”
    “Hold off,” Jeff told him. “I want to look at his file again.”
    “Okay. Salzer, then.”
    He granted paroles to Salzer and eleven others, rejected four, and was taking one case back to Lansing for discussion. Then
     only Danny Hartman remained. He took off his glasses and pinched his nose. “Give me ten minutes,” he told the guard.
    He opened the file as if it might give him a new clue. Danny wasn’t anything special. The 7-Eleven was his first major offense.
     The problems began after he landed in Marquette. Disobeying orders, fighting, being out of place, contraband alcohol—the typical
     laundry list of a malcontent. The guard ushered Danny Hartman into the room. He was twenty-eight years old, slight. Sullen
     and hunched. He sat with knees pressed together and looked over Jeff’s left shoulder. Nobody’s home, Jeff thought.
    “Danny.”
    He gave a single curt nod.
    “Tell me what got you in here,” Jeff said.
    Danny shrugged. “The Seven-Eleven, I guess.”
    “You’ve had some trouble here.”
    “Some.”
    “Do you have plans when you get out? A job? School?”
    The kid shook his head, still looking over Jeff’s shoulder.
    “Anybody out there have a job for you?”
    “Not that I’ve heard.”
    “You have family waiting for you?”
    “Nobody.”
    Jeff moved papers as if he were reading Danny’s file. “What about your mother?”
    Danny stared back, hard. “My mother doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
    “But she’ll help you?”
    He shrugged. “It’s not her problem.”
    “I’m beginning to think you like this place,” Jeff said, leaning back.
    “It sucks.”
    “Then it’s up to you to have a plan for resuming your life after prison,” Jeff said, and waited. He closed the file. Sometimes
     that scared them and got them talking.
    Finally, Danny mumbled, “It was supposed to be set up.”
    “Who by? What was it?”
    “It didn’t work, that’s all.”
    Jeff waited again, but Danny’s lips pinched tight. The kid was done. That’s all she wrote.
    “Anything else you’d like to say?” Jeff asked.
    “Nothing.”
    “Then the board is extending your term for another twelve months,” Jeff said as he wrote out the terms. “You’ll have another
     hearing then. This gives you a year to clean up your act. Obey the rules, straighten up. Put together a job, a place to live,
     school, whatever. A solid plan.” Jeff thumped his finger on the table. “Help me out here. Are you hearing me?”
    Danny nodded, and there was nothing else Jeff could do but let him go. He nodded to the guard, who motioned for Danny to stand
     and then escorted him out. Danny didn’t look back.
    “Late day,” Sam commented when Jeff signaled for him to open the iron