Free The Cradle Robbers by Ayelet Waldman

don’t charge nothing. Clarisse, you got to pay her, or get someone on the outside to pay her. Sandra, she don’t even ask the girls for cigarettes or shampoo or nothing.”
    “Have you two been roommates for a long time?”
    “Since before Noah was born. That’s her baby. Noah Anthony. We from the same neighborhood in L.A., Eagle Rock, but of course we never knew each other on the outside. Sandra, she had a white bunkie before me, but that lady she got all hooked up with the Aryan Women, and Sandra, she hates them. She fought that girl until they put her in the SHU and then they sent her over to me. That was messed up; Sandra, she could have been killed. The Aryan Women, they’re part of the Aryan Brotherhood, and those guys run the prison, you know? But Sandra, she didn’t care. She said they could kill her, but she wasn’t going to spend the next five years living with no Nazi lady.”
    When I was done talking to Fidelia, and had sent her back up, they let me see Sandra. In normal company, she would not have seemed so gargantuan, but in the land of the Lilliputians, compared to Fideliaand me, she loomed like a basketball center. Despite the pits of acne scars on her cheeks, Sandra was beautiful, blonde, and regal, with a long nose and aquamarine eyes, like some kind of Nordic princess. She held her feet splayed, her back straight, and her small bosom thrust out, in that stately posture of a woman whose childhood included years of ballet lessons. She was carrying the usual pile of legal papers and envelopes.
    After we introduced ourselves, I asked her about what Fidelia had said.
    “I never said anything about not wanting to be bunkies with that woman.”
    “You
did
want to spend five years living with a Nazi?” I said.
    “Of course not. I just didn’t take any such stand. I was nowhere near that brave. I simply asked to be transferred, repeating my request until the warden got so irritated with me that she had me put in the SHU for two weeks. By the time I was released, my former roommate was in segregation, having stabbed someone in the throat with a knife made out of toilet paper.” Sandra sat down.
    “Toilet paper?” I said.
    “Sure.”
    “I’ve heard of making knives out of toothbrushes, hard candies, spoons. Never toilet paper.”
    “It’s like papier-mâché,” Sandra said. “Ms. Applebaum, I understand from Fidelia that you have agreed to investigate the disappearance of my baby. I am very grateful to you. You cannot imagine how horrible it is to be stuck in here with no way to find him, no way even to know if he is safe.”
    “Chiki told me about how it happened that Noah was . . . was taken. But could you tell me yourself? Just so I’m sure I have the full story?”
    She folded her hands on the table in her front of her. She had a stillness about her that was remarkable, especially considering the fact that I could tell she had been a junkie, and a hardcore one at that. I did not know if she was currently using, but I could see that Sandra had used for long enough to blow out the veins on the inside of her elbows and even those on her wrists. There were marks on her forearms, on the side of her neck, in the well of her throat. Her pale skin was a roadmap of heroin ruin.
    “In the months before Noah was born I tried to find someone to take him. My parents both passedaway—my mother when I was young, in grade school, my father almost five years ago now. My father has no family, but I have an aunt and two cousins on my mother’s side. I haven’t seen them since I was a teenager, but I know if I had some time, I could find them.”
    “What’s your aunt’s name?” I asked.
    “Bettina Trudeau. And my cousins are Jonathan and Mary. I don’t know if Mary got married and changed her name.
    “It’s an unusual enough name, Bettina Trudeau. I should be able to find it with a simple skip trace.”
    Sandra smiled sadly. “I hope you’ll need to.” Then she continued with her story.