Free Crimwife by Tanya Levin Page B

called, and she dawdled her way into a crime scene like an old-time pro.
    Kari wore skirts and would slip her hand underneath when the officers were otherwise distracted, retrieve the package and push it into Mark’s hand. He would either drop it down his overalls, or swallow it if security was high. Down his overalls he would manoeuvre it inside his shorts, his underwear and up his anus. He would wriggle around on the seat for a while, and then he would say, “OK.” Kari found all of this hideous, but was surprised by how accustomed to jail she had become. She also couldn’t help feeling wanted by Mark more than ever. The smile on his face was never bigger than when she had picked up for him. His praise was lavish.
    “You’re an expert, babe, a champion. You are the bomb. I love you so much.”
    This made things harder. Kari didn’t want to risk so much for a man in jail she’d known well for mere months, but she loved making him happy. And the parcels made him so, so happy. Kari started bringing in drugs when Mark wasn’t expecting it, or buying him extra.
    On Kari’s fourth visit with drugs, she saw the dog squad outside the jail, and her heart started pounding. But as she stood in line with the other visitors, the dog ran straight past her, twice. The visitors were thanked for their time, and the dog and the squad left. Kari felt excited that she’d beaten them at their game.
    When Mark was moved to a country jail, things got even easier. He didn’t pressure her for more drugs or harder drugs, just pot as often as she could. He also expected her to pay: his contact had been locked up, so Kari now had to do the shopping herself.
    Country jails have much less technology than city jails. Kari found it so cruisy that some days she was unnerved by how laid-back things were. There were no iris scans or 360-degree cameras. Just fill in a form, get the food you bring in checked, and go have yourself a barbecue. Kari honed her muling skills.
    “There’s a lot of money to be made in here, babe,” Mark told her. “A gram of heroin is a thousand dollars. There’s fifty takers right now. I can get a hundred bucks a pill for Es. Cash. Now.”
    Kari would smile. “Well, you’d better get a bigger idiot than me to visit you,” she’d say.
    One Saturday, Kari arrived at the jail later than usual. Drug carriers don’t generally have early morning starts, so Kari liked to get there at 8.30 am when visits opened, to lower the chance of running into the dog squad. As she expected, there they were. No problem, thought Kari, although her packing skills had been a little lax the night before. Resentful and tired, she hadn’t perfumed it the way she usually did.
    “Good morning, ladies and gentleman,” the dog squad leader said, starting the familiar introduction to the search. Once they were given the option of handing over the contraband material immediately, and had declined it, the dog ran back and forth in front of the visitors. He stopped and sniffed at Kari, and then kept going. On his way back, he stopped and sniffed again. Then he moved on happily to his guardians.
    The line dispersed, but as Kari started walking, two prison officers approached and asked her to stay put.
    “The dog has given an indication that you have drugs on your person,” one officer told her. “Is there anything that you would like to tell us before we proceed?”
    In a split-second, Kari ran through the responses she had planned – the party she’d been to the night before where people were smoking, the dodgy dry cleaners where she’d picked up this jacket, the “How dare you accuse a citizen like me of a thing like this?” approach. None of them now seemed to make any sense.
    “I don’t know why.” She answered the officers.
    They brought the dog back over.
    “What can you tell us, boy?” they asked him, as the dog excitedly jumped at Kari’s crotch three or four times. They looked at each other. Kari stared at them, trying to