On the Ropes: A Duffy Dombrowski Mystery by Tom Schreck

happened. The group happened to be made up of women between the ages of seventeen and forty. The seventeen-year-old was Sherrie, a Latina who could have passed easily for fourteen. The thirty-two-year-old was Marcie, a white woman with summer teeth—you know, some were here, some were there—who had been in and out of county jail since she was Sherrie’s age. There was Katherine, Rebecca, and Rosie, three black women in their twenties, who were big and loud and intimidating. The remaining three women were the creepiest. They were Lori, Stephanie, and Melissa, and they were tough white women who looked to be in their late thirties. They all wore black T-shirts to go with their Dickies.
    The three in black stayed to themselves and spoke to each other in the kind of way that was designed to exclude the others. They exuded evil, not that the rest of the crew would have been mistaken for charm school graduates.
    “We have Duffy Dombrowski from Jewish Unified Services with us today,” Jane said. “Many of you will be referred there after you get out.” That was the extent of my introduction. The group looked underwhelmed.
    “All right—who wants to get started today?” Jane said.
    Sherrie had that deer-in-the-headlights look to her. Clearly, this was her first time in and she was scared to death. Jane picked up on it.
    “Sherrie,” Jane said. “You look like you better talk. What’s going on?”
    “I … I … oh God!” Sherrie burst into tears and dropped her face into her hands.
    The three in black giggled and threw each other mocking looks. Jane’s concentration was with Sherrie.
    “Start talkin’ girl. That’s what this is for.”
    “I can’t take this.” Sherrie sniffled back the tears. “Michael made me steal for him. If I didn’t, he beat me—I can’t stand this—I don’t know what to do.”
    “Waaa …” Lori mocked Sherrie to her two friends. “Poor baby.”
    Jane’s attention left Sherrie and her eyes were like daggers at the three of them.
    “Lori—you got something to say?” Jane’s stare would melt steel. “You got your life together so well you think you can mess with someone else? Let me see … the last I remembered your three kids, by three different men, if I might add, have all been taken away. This is your fourth trip inside and you’re still on crack. I guess when you’ve got your life so together you can make fun of others.”
    Lori tried to flash a look that said “Whatever,” but she didn’t pull it off. The other two losers looked down into their laps.
    Jane went back to Sherrie.
    “What did you try to do to help yourself?” Jane said. “Was getting high helping? Did it make you more or less powerful?”
    “I needed it.” Sherrie bowed her head. “I was so messed up because of him. I needed to get high.”
    “Bulllllllshit,” Jane said. Having seen her work before, I knew it was coming. “You got high because you were an addict, period,” Jane said.
    Sherrie’s head hung down in shame. Jane was tough, but this is what Sherrie needed. She was about to be released, and Jane’s goal was to keep it real for her. I also knew Jane well enough to know that she would make sure to address the abusive boyfriend issue before she left. It was important, right now, for her to blow away any denial about the addiction Sherrie still harbored. Despite the horrendous circumstances that some people face, getting high remains a choice. Sometimes a likely choice, but in Jane’s mind it never stopped being a choice. In her world, she was right. Jane believed that no matter what your circumstances were, you had to get the addiction under control before you could do anything else.
    Jane moved on to Stephanie, another one of the in-black trio. She was a slightly younger version of Lori. She was thin and pale with long, dirty blonde hair and a disproportionately large chest, the kind that just had to be fake. She tried to look disinterested when Jane called on