Justice Deferred
By: Alex. P
For Disclaimers see Chapter 1
Chapter 9
As she was leaving the guardroom Paula picked up a paper bag that contained
Brusard's civilian clothes and a pair of spit shined engineer boots.
The week before release a prisoner is allowed to check out the clothing they
were wearing when they entered the system. As a rule prisoners tend to lose a
lot of weight while inside and their old clothes are way too big to wear, when
the discrepancy was too great they were allowed to go through a warehouse of
clothes that is donated by Goodwill, Salvation Army, and various other
charities.
They are allowed to find one pair of pants and a shirt, that are put aside and
stored until the day of their release when the prisoner is given the civilian
clothes to leave the facility.
As usual Cam was different, instead of losing weight she had put on twenty
pounds of well-sculpted muscle it looked really good on her, but it made the
clothes she had worn into prison rip out at the seams. The only part of her old
clothing that still fit were her high quality engineer boots. Cam had smiled
when she saw her reliable old boots complete with the chains over the instep
and around the back of the heel. She had spent hours sorting through the piles
of clothes until she came up with a pair of faded boot cut jeans and a blue
denim shirt that fit.
Usually the clothing was left stored until the prisoner was released but the
night before Paula had taken Cam clothes to her house and washed them even
adding a black T-shirt she had picked up for the prisoner she had come to know
and respect over the years, another young woman that Cam and her friends had
saved from some of the less desirable elements had wanted to do something for
her tall black haired savior as a getting out present and Paula had allowed the
friendly young woman to shine Cam's beloved old boots. Even the guards were
impressed by the spit-shine the young woman had put on Cam's old boots.
As the guard Captain made her way across the cell block heading for Cam's third
tier cell she thought back to how much things had changed since the black
haired beauty with the incredible cerulean eyes had entered the tiny enclosed
world of CCC and how much things had improved, and Paula knew but couldn't
prove that Camilla Brusard was
responsible for most of them.
After her first couple of months Cam had faced some of the toughest women in
the prison many of them ended up so badly damaged that they had to be
transferred to permanent nursing facilities. It wasn't long before a small
group of prisoners had gravitated toward the quiet strength of the tall woman.
When the first attempt on Cam's life had failed, it came to Paula's attention
that a powerful young Mexican woman that had been sentenced to twenty-five to
life for second degree murder, she had been an R.N. on the outside, but had
refused to work in the infirmary, but after Cam ended up being hospitalized
Maria had suddenly changed her mind and
requested to be assigned to the night shift in the infirmary.
Since it wasn't easy to get a qualified nurse to work in a prison hospital at
night, so the doctor in charge jumped at the chance to have the former R.N,
added to the staff, he even had her re-certified as an R.N.
Maria used her position to watch over Cam, and any other of her friends that
were too seriously injured to watch out for themselves. She was also able to
help several young women that were being hurt by the system and other inmates.
That was when Paula started watching whoever was spending time with Cam.
Paula was interested to find that as she watched the little group, that none of
them seemed to be close friends, but they seemed to tolerate each other well.
Most of their time was spent at the free weight area in a corner of the yard.
They were all constantly lifting or working out but very rarely acting
together.
They always found someone from outside the group if they wanted to spar, and
Paula had seen all of them in the makeshift ring at one time or another. All of
them that is except Cam, she never spared with any of them or anyone else, but
she was constantly off to one side going through her forms of martial arts that
she had already been an acknowledged as a master of. It was clear to anyone
that paid attention the stoic biker out classed them all.
Her obvious favorite was Tai Chi which she spent hours practicing the slow
fluid precise movements of the discipline. Paula noticed that when the cell
block had their scheduled shower times one or two of the group were usually
close by, this caused her to check the statistics and found that there had been
a dramatic drop in assaults since the women of Cam's little group started what
Paula referred to as "shower patrol".
Knowing the way the administration worked Paula never informed anyone of her
discovery, deciding to follow the advice of an oriental friend of hers who
always told her if it ain't broke don't fix it.
Another thing that interested Paula was the way these women handled their love
lives. It had been another revelation to Paula that all of the original group
were active lesbians before they had been sent to prison, and many pursued relationships
inside the walls, except Cam, who for her first year had been celibate claiming
that she was remaining loyal to an outside lover. Then she had been called to a
conference with her lawyers and afterwards, she had been warned to keep close
watch on the prisoner.
This made Paula recall the rumors she had heard about the shake up in Benton
County that had been attributed to Cam's family, and their retaliation on those
responsible for the womans incarceration. It seems that someone had not done
their homework about the three bikers that Cam called family and had
underestimated the amount of pull they had with some highly placed individuals
within the government, and while none of them would ever even think of using
these connections for themselves, apparently they would when it came to their
beloved little girl, they were hard men and were capable of totally ruthless
and merciless retribution when it came to Cam.
Suddenly the IRS, DEA, FBI, and several other federal "alphabet"
agencies landed on Benton County with both feet. By the time the Feds were
finished in Benton County the judge had been thrown out of office for
malfeasance and along with several of his fellow judges were under
investigation on charges of bribery and criminal negligence. Two
county commissioners, the county prosecutor, the Sheriff, four ADAs and six
deputies all ended up behind bars. The public defender that had been in charge
of Cam's defense was disbarred for incompetence.
To say the least it would be a long time before Benton County would recover
from the vendetta.
That was nothing compared to what the three men did to Kreelcorp and it's owner
D.C.Kreel. Following a trail that Kreel thought was covered Cutter was able to
gather conclusive evidence connecting Kreelcorp and its associates with the
false charges that had put him in Federal prison while his surrogate daughter
was being persecuted, something he
would never forgive. Once he secured the evidence, Cutter instituted several
lawsuits against Kreelcorp, all its officers and employees and ordering all its
assets frozen, after which he demanded an independent audit which uncovered
several major irregularities and ended up under investigation by the SEC.
Before they were finished Kreelcorp no longer existed, all its assets, real and
other wise had been taken over by CCMC Inc. Then they went after the elusive
D.C.Kreel, after exhaustive investigation Kreel was soon wanted on charges
ranging robbery and stock fraud to first degree murder. The only problem was
nobody knew who D.C.Kreel was or even what the now fugitive executive looked
like.
The few people that had ever seen D.C.Kreel in person mysteriously disappeared
when the investigation began and DC was sure all bases were covered and it was
safe but once again DC underestimated the wealth power and determination of
Cam's family.
Kreel mistakenly thought that because they were bikers they wouldn't be of any
consequence and there was nothing they could do to a person of D.C.Kreel's
stature.
Imagine the surprised look on D.C.Kreel's face when the three bikers
accompanied by agents from both the NSA and the FBI burst into the penthouse
apartment in Atlanta and arrested the one time successful business owner and
wanted criminal.
The hardest part of the vendetta came after the arrest of D.C.Kreel.
The lawyers were sent to have an emergency conference with Cam at CCC to let
her know the woman she loved and went to prison to protect, was in fact, the
same person that paid to put her there and the person that paid for the
attempts on her life and had ordered the attacks on her family.
When Cam found out that the first person she had ever loved enough to offer to
commit her life to, the one she knew as Deb Stringer was actually D.C.Kreel and
she had lied, distracted and manipulated the young woman to almost contributing
to the destruction of her family, her reaction wasn't exactly what everyone
anticipated. When the lawyers explained that they were there to warn her that
the arrest of D.C.Kreel would soon be making the news so that she wasn't
blind-sided by such bad news. What they got was no reaction what so ever.
Cam rose from her chair and shaking each mans' hand she thanked them for going
to all the trouble to come to Chillicothe to inform her of Debra's arrest and
identity. She also sent word to her family that she was fine and that she was
happy they were able to stop the woman before she got a chance to do further
damage to her family. The tall
mysterious woman then left the room and walked back to her cell without saying
a word to anyone. Then with the full permission of the warden and others within
the Corrections Department Cam turned off her lights and retired to her cell.
They tried to send her food but Cam refused it, all she did was sit on her bunk
and listen to her collection of old blues songs. Finally after over a week just
when the warden was about to have someone go into her cell, very late at night
Cam sent out a request to take a shower and to get some clean clothes, it was
of course granted, the next morning she reported to roll call just as if
nothing had happened.
She went about her normal routine and most thought she was just fine, but Paula
could see the difference. She was harder more cynical and suspicious and when
Cam smiled it was a cruel insincere smile that never reached her ice blue eyes.
There had been four attempts on the dark biker's life, the last of which turned
into a riot that left a guard and eight prisoners dead and many others hurt Cam
among them with a bullet wound in her shoulder. Through all that Cam's sense of
humor had survived but after she got the news of her lover's betrayal that last
part of her disappeared as if it was crushed under the terrible weight of her
broken heart. She had been in prison for only a year and she was already as
cold, hard, humorless and emotionless a soul as any lifer inside the walls.
Life behind the walls pretty much went on as always, it was like the tides or
the phases of the moon, those eternal cycles stop for no one, the struggle of
living from day to day was eternal and constant.
Older prisoners who had served their time were released or paroled and new younger
prisoners took their place. Cam and her friends kept on trying to help the
weaker prisoners whenever and wherever they could.
The occasional confrontations only served to enhance and further their
reputation. Cam's detached methods of dealing with everyone, friend and foe
alike was in many ways the reason why everyone feared her even more.
Paula had watched the tall cold-eyed woman closely knowing that when the dam
holding back all those repressed emotions broke, all hell was going to break
loose. Paula was one of the few people that knew the whole story of Cam's being
betrayed and could see that the tall black haired woman's withdrawal was a
defense mechanism to keep everyone
away so no one would be able to hurt her like that again.
The older woman knew what she was doing because she had tried it herself one
time and she knew from her own experience that it wouldn't work. Another change
in Cam's behavior was that she was taking lovers now.
Before Deb's betrayal the tall exceptionally beautiful inmate politely turned
down every proposition that came her way, saying that she wasn't going to be
unfaithful, but it was unusual to see the cerulean eyed beauty with someone
either going to or leaving one of the many hidden places that the prisoners used
for their trysts, never with the same woman twice.
Once Cam had been with a woman, she would ignore her completely, the only women
that were safe from the tall beauty's advances was the small group of women
that hung around with her and their lovers. Paula remembered the wishful sighs
and occasional brokenhearted tears that followed the hauntingly aloof woman
everywhere she went.
On that day nothing happened that would have given anyone a clue to just how
special a day it would be. It started out just like every other day; the
morning bell rang at 5:30 am just like every morning.
Cam was up and had knocked out her one hundred sit-ups and the same number of
pushups just like every other day.
She accompanied her cellblock to breakfast and had a pastry and several cups of
prison coffee (that Cam claimed could be eaten with a fork). Then Cam returned
to her cell to wait to be escorted along with several others to classes offered
by the prison. Classes lasted until lunch then Cam went to the yard and began
her work out as did the rest of the women in the small group, they either
worked out with the weights or honed their fighting skills by sparing.
Cam as usual was off to one side working on her Tai Chi routine just like every
other day. Then something happened that would eventually be as important to the
small prison community as the closing of Alcatraz.
It was a change that would touch the lives of every one on D-block some for the
better...and some forever.