I made a grave mistake though. When I woke up and found Harley murdered, I immediately tried to scrub down the apartment before leaving to get rid of any trace of my presence. The police caught me doing it, and it looked…bad. From that moment, I was their only suspect.
It didn't help that I had no damn clue what happened. That sounded unbelievable to them. Saying it now, I understand why.
And then, to my complete shock, they accused me of killing Ken Bryant too.
I thought it was a joke at first. I didn't even know he was dead, and I certainly didn't kill him.
But the bullet in his head matched my gun.
They found footage of me entering and leaving his house, even though I tried to tell them I was just watering the plants like he asked me to, although those text messages had mysteriously vanished from my phone.
Then they said I stole money from him, and that was the last nail in the coffin.
They tried to offer me a deal for pleading guilty, and my lawyer encouraged me to take it.
Second-degree murder charges for both Harley and Ken.
It meant that I could be eligible for parole in thirty years.
But what the hell good was that? I'm forty-seven years old.
I decided to roll the dice with a trial, knowing that I was innocent.
I lost my gamble. I'm serving two consecutive life sentences, and I will die in prison. I'm just lucky they don't have the death penalty in Massachusetts.
Geho shifts in the bunk above mine, and the springs let out a loud groan. As if the snoring wasn't bad enough, every movement in the bed echoes through the cell. I feel like I'm losing my mind, and I've only been here for a week. The idea of spending the rest of my life here…
I don't deserve any of this. My wife filed for divorce a few months after my arrest, which means she's not going to be visiting me anytime soon.
This was not my first affair, and she was not even the tiniest bit understanding.
She wasn't that amazing as a wife, which is why I was with Harley in the first place, but after a year without being close to a woman, I would give anything for a conjugal visit.
My kids hate me too for what I did to the family. I'm alone.
It would be different if I were guilty, like the other men here. Geho actually brags about the guy he stabbed in the neck. But I'm not a bad guy. Yes, I cheated on my wife. A lot of guys have done that. It's not a capital offense.
Admittedly, I did some things in college that were less than admirable.
Sometimes at parties, I'd talk to a girl and offer to get her a drink.
I had these ground-up sedatives, and I used to mix them into drinks—jungle juice, rum and Coke, it didn't matter.
Between that and the alcohol, they would be pretty out of it.
Then I'd take them to my room, and they didn't protest too much.
It wasn't even a big deal though. Most of them barely remembered it. Or if they did, I bet they enjoyed it.
I finally start to drift off, but then I suddenly jolt awake.
And when I do, I can't believe my eyes. Geho and my other two cellmates are standing over me.
Each of them has a sock gripped in one hand, with something weighing down the other end.
A bar of soap? My stomach churns. The skeleton face etched on Geho's bald skull is barely visible in the dim light of the cell.
"What's going on?" I choke out.
"Keep your mouth shut," Geho hisses at me, "and maybe you'll get through this alive."
Even though he gave me a warning, I sputter, "But what did I do?"
Geho responds with a swift punch to my mouth. Instantly, I taste blood. And then a moment later, I feel one of my teeth floating around my mouth.
"This is for Misty Cardon," he tells me. "Her brother is in Block D, and I owe him a favor."
Misty Cardon…
That's a name I haven't heard in over twenty years and hoped to never hear again.
Misty was a girl from Wellesley who I had a great time with until she blew the whole thing out of proportion.
I couldn't believe it when she called me up the next day, ranting about rape.
It wasn't rape, but when I tried to explain it to her, she didn't want to hear it.
She finally agreed to meet with me, and let's just say I took care of that situation.
So technically, even though I pled innocent in my trial, I couldn't say I never killed anyone.
But nobody found out about Misty. The police asked me a few questions, but it never went any further.
I was very, very careful. That's why it didn't make any sense that I'd be so sloppy in killing Ken and Harley, but I couldn't exactly say that in my defense.
I hold up my hands to shield my face. "Please…don't…"
My pleas are met with a sock slamming into my right side. And then a second blow, this one even harder. I feel my ribs cracking, but the pummeling shows no sign of stopping. Where are the guards? Why aren't they stopping this?
One of the socks hits me in the jaw, and the pain is blinding. That's not a bar of soap. It's something much worse. A rock? A combination lock? I can't even imagine. Every time one of them slams into me, it's like a burst of unspeakable agony.
"Please…" I appeal to them one final time as I cling to the brink of consciousness. "Please stop."
Through the blood dripping into my swelling eyes, I can barely make out Geho's face, grinning down at me.
"Don't worry," he says. "This will be over in a minute."
DEBBIE
I feel good after Cooper and I make dinner plans for tonight. He's trying so hard to be a good husband. Everything we went through was hard, but it's made our marriage so much stronger.
Our therapist keeps telling us that we need to be honest. And I am trying to be honest. But there are some things that I can never tell him.
I can never tell him that I killed his boss, for instance. I can't tell him that his former best friend, who will be spending the rest of his life in a maximum-security prison, is innocent. At least he's innocent of killing Ken and Harley.
Cooper doesn't know that Jesse is the one who raped me.
Given how furious he was when I told him what happened, I think he'd agree Jesse got what he deserved, but I didn't want to make him party to what I had done.
There was a tense period when I wasn't sure how the trial would go, and I was worried Jesse might remember there was a woman in Harley's apartment just before he passed out.
I wanted to make sure Cooper could credibly plead ignorance.
If someone was going to jail, it should be me and me alone.
I drive to Titan Fitness to get in a workout before I start my morning.
I've got a meeting with a company that is looking into having me develop a new dating app for them.
It's going to be a challenge. I love a challenge, especially with the financial resources they will be putting at my disposal.
It feels like my brain is finally getting the stimulation it deserves.
When I get to the gym, Cindy is at the front desk. She flashes me a broad smile. "Hi, Debbie."
"Hi, Cindy."
She winks at me. "I put a towel on the elliptical machine by the window so nobody else would use it."
I grin at her. "You're the best, Cindy."
As she looks at me, her smile falters slightly. "It's the least I can do."
Cindy Bryant believes with all her heart that she owes me everything.
Nearly two years ago, she wrote me a letter at Dear Debbie describing the financial abuse by her husband.
When I begged her to leave him and told her to contact me, she did exactly that.
But it turned out we were more connected than we thought.
I did everything I could to help her. I found her a place to live.
I helped her find this job at Titan Fitness.
She was doing so well, but her husband, Ken, was making the divorce miserable for her.
He was using every trick in the book to deprive her of any financial resources, and he was trying to turn their children against her.
He even eventually got me fired, never realizing "Dear Debbie" was the wife of his employee.
I couldn't let him get away with it. I had to help Cindy. And that's why I decided to put a bullet in his head and blame it all on Jesse Hutchinson.
I made sure to do it at a time when she had an alibi.
And she helped me too. On the night before Harley was shot, she overheard Harley and Jesse's plans to meet and filled me in.
Then on the evening in question, while he was in the gym shower, she spiked his water bottle with the opium I gave her.
What can I say? I was inspired by what Jesse did to me all those years ago.
"How is Cooper?" she asks me.
"Great," I tell her. "The business is going well. And he's been really sweet lately. We're going out for a date tonight."
"Fun." Cindy grins at me. "You and Cooper should double with me and Ajay sometime."
Cindy has been dating a really nice guy recently. They're taking it slow, but I met him once, and I can tell he's going to treat her right. Even so, a double date might be tempting fate. There's too much we don't want our men to know. "Maybe sometime," I say evasively.
"I'm glad Cooper is treating you well," Cindy says, "because if he's not…"
We exchange a meaningful look. "Same," I say.
Cooper has been really good to me. But I'm not too worried. Cindy and I will look out for each other.
Nobody will take advantage of me ever again.
THE END