“He’s like a minute ahead of you.” She checked a
thick-banded, masculine-looking watch on her freck-
led forearm. “Make that two minutes, now.” She
looked up and winked at Audra. “If you hurry, you
might be able to catch him,” she finished, and Audra
was pretty sure she didn’t just mean in the hallway.
“Sit down, Marks. Sit down,” Deputy Warden Wood-
burn said as Audra appeared in the open doorway
of his office.
Art Bradshaw had already settled his massive col-
lection of muscles into one of the Warden’s two side
chairs, but he jumped to his feet as soon as Wood-
burn’s words indicated her presence. He didn’t
speak—or even turn in her direction—just stood at
attention as gallant as any movie prince for the few
DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING
33
seconds it took for Audra to navigate the room and
ease herself nervously into the proffered chair be-
side him. Audra took a quick second to admire his
profile, the breadth of his football-player-wide
shoulders and the smooth skin of his shaved skull,
wishing in spite of herself that he’d turn so she
could see his eyes. Her heart was doing a vaudeville
soft shoe in her chest: If the man had spoken to
her, she might have had another kind of accident—
and she didn’t have any more uniform pants to
change into right now.
She squared her shoulders, imagining herself en-
cased in one of those big-shouldered suits of the
1940s, concentrated her attention on the deputy war-
den and sat, making a futile attempt to cross her
legs, diva-style, before giving up and folding them
against each other, ankle to ankle. “Sir,” she said,
crisply. “You wanted to see me?”
Deputy Warden Stephen Woodburn looked like
he’d been at work for hours. His desk was cluttered
with papers, and a huge mug, running over with
coffee, sat fresh and steaming on a manila folder,
making a dark stain. On a credenza behind him
were pictures of a brown-haired woman and three
towheaded kids dressed in their Sunday best, an-
gled for maximum visitor admiration.
“Don’t look so nervous, Marks,” Woodburn said,
grabbing the stained folder beneath his coffee cup.
Audra read her name on a white label across its
tab. “I don’t think you have any real reason to be.
But . . .” he paused to skim through the folder’s con-
tents, giving Audra a moment to skim her eyes over
his short, graying hair, very precisely trimmed in a
34
Karyn Langhorne
conservative cut, and the rimless glasses perched on
a straight nose. The man’s eyes left the folder and
found hers again. “We do have a slight problem that
impacts you, and to a lesser degree, Officer Brad-
shaw. That’s why I’ve asked you both to drop by be-
fore assuming your duties this morning.”
He paused the pause Audra knew came before
any climactic bombshell in every movie worth its
salt. Audra had just counted one, two, three in her
mind when Warden Woodburn said:
“So yesterday, there was an incident in the day
room. Or rather, a couple of incidents,” he corrected,
pale lips curving into something like a smile. “One
involving a couple of inmates in a scuffle . . . and
the other involving . . .” he coughed a little, as
though suddenly uncomfortable. “Shall we call
it . . . uh . . . a wardrobe malfunction?”
Wardrobe malfunction. Am I ever going to live this
down? Audra wondered as, once again, a prickly
embarrassment warmed her cheeks and neck. She
could almost hear her mother in her mind ( What
must he think of you? ) as Woodburn averted his face
from hers as if to spare her shame. She cut her eyes
toward Bradshaw, but got nothing but a stoic profile,
so there was nothing to do for it but sit up a little
straighter and make the most of it, the only way she
knew how. She settled her fist on her hip and leaned
forward.
“Both were contained according to procedure,
sir,” she wisecracked, wiggling a bit and keeping
the Mae West purr in her voice.
Woodburn chuckled a little and Audra whipped
DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING
35
her head toward Art Bradshaw to gauge his reaction.
Nothing but his profile. Still.
“You’re funny, Marks,” the deputy warden told
the folder. “Humor’s a helpful quality in our profes-
sion, within limits, of course. But unfortunately . . .”
his eyes snapped to her face again. “One of the in-
mates involved . . . a Mr. Haines . . . has filed a brutal-
ity complaint. Apparently he was injured yesterday.
Broken ribs, it appears . . .”
Both humor and Hollywood died the moment the
word brutality hit the air.
“A brutality complaint? Against me?”
“A brutality complaint. Against you,” Woodburn
repeated. “Haines alleges you violated his civil
rights and caused him personal injury when you
lifted him bodily off the floor then threw him
against a table—”
“Threw him against a table!” Audra shook her
head, astonished. “I was breaking up a fight—a fight
he probably started!” She peered toward Wood-
burn’s folder. “Does it say that in there? Because
there were about two dozen witnesses.” She nodded
in Bradshaw’s direction. “Officer Bradshaw can tell
you—”
Woodburn lifted his hand, stopping the rest of the
explanation tumbling form Audra’s lips. “He al-
ready has, Officer Marks. In fact, he says your con-
duct was exemplary, both in dealing with the
inmates involved in the altercation, and in handling
the . . . uh . . . wardrobe malfunction. But I’m not the
one who has to be convinced,” he continued briskly.
“I’m sure Mr. Haines’s charges will be dismissed in
36
Karyn Langhorne
short order. But Haines is within his rights to file it,
and, as you know, it will have to be investigated by
the Internal Review Board—”
Charges? Internal Review? Me? Audra swallowed
back an A to Z catalog of emotions: from anger to the
zealous desire to wring Princeton Haine’s sneaky,
scrawny neck. Only that would be police brutality, now,
wouldn’t it? wisecracked a voice
