Venita is a retired nurse; she lives in a beautiful little town. She has never been married and has no children, so her friends are everything to her. When her best friend, Claudia, is blackmailed, Venita jumps to the rescue.
It’s not every day that one receives a blackmail letter. So with a quivering heart and trembling fingers, Venita watched as her friend opened the malicious letter. The sender was Big Mike, her ex-husband. He was threatening her with incriminating information he had about her, and he was demanding the sum of $50m or else he would sing to the cops.
Before leaving him, Claudia
had been involved in some shady business, and no matter how hard the police tried, they could never pin anything on her. She worked with an organized cartel so she could always cover her tracks adequately.
When her sister snatched her husband from her years earlier and her family didn’t support her as she expect; Venitata had moved to another town, that’s where she met Claudia, who had just left her husband. Venita had been through a lot, so it was a relief to find someone to understand her pain.
Claudia opened up to her friend about her money laundering and drugs business. She grew up in the streets, which was the only life she understood. Venita appreciated her friend’s openness, and they both went about their businesses without getting into each other’s facfacestil the blackmail became an issue. Venita knew that she had to come up with a plan before things got out of hand.
They both agreed that Claudia was going to play along with her ex-husband. She was going to give him the impression that she was broke but that if things went smoothly, the zeroes in his bank account would surely increase in a matter of months. Big Mike was overwhelmed with greed, and he believed her.
Venita asked her friend to invite Big Mike to the house and pretend to love him still. She acted like she had missed him and gave him stipends from time to time, and she kept on assuring him of the windfall that was coming. He was gullible, he believed everything she told him, and he made it easy for them to carry out their plans. Big Mike became very comfortable with the women, he relaxed his guard, he was excited that Claudia still loved him; it wasn’t long, and he became a regular caller at their house. He stopped talking about the blackmail money because he was looking forward to a possible reconciliation with Claudia, which was far better than what he was asking her for. The three “friends” had dinner at the house a few months later, he place and Venita injected poison into Big Mike’s apples. It was a slow killer and would take about six hours to kick in. The ladies walked him to his car after dinner and kissed him goodnight. That was the last they saw or heard of him until a few weeks later when Venita began to receive blackmail letters saying, “I know what you did to Big Mike.” This was crazy. Another blackmail? From who?
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Venita was afraid. The only person who knew what happened to Big Mike was the friend she was trying to protect. Could Claudia turn around to frame her up? She was worried because there were no suspicions about how Claudia carried on. All Venita had were mere assumptions and fears.
Her suspicion was confirmed a few weeks later when the cops came calling with a warrant for her arrest.
She was shown a video where she was injecting a substance into an apple; the officer zoomed in the camera to show the name of the importance on the bottle. It turned out to be the same thing that came in from the forensic and toxicology guys as the cause of Big Mike’s death.
She couldn’t believe that Claudia had worn a body cam the night she poisoned the apples, and everything was caught on camera.
The trial was short. The jury didn’t have to deliberate for a long time. She was found guilty. With tremendous effort, Venita put a stoic expression on her face as she strolled across the prison hall, crossing cubicle after cubicle till she got to D4-101; this would be her home for the next 25 years.
She received a letter a few weeks later; it was from Claudia. She was sorry about how things turned out; either that or the cartel would take her out. They made her wear the body cam. They would have taken care of Big Mike without Venita’s help. She wasn’t supposed to meddle in something that was not her business. She crossed the line when she did that. Venita was surprised. If Claudia knew all along that the cartel would handle the situation, why did she let her go on with the plan?.
Venita didn’t sleep well that night; she kept thinking about what to do with the information in her hand. The next day, she asked to see her lawyer, and she presented him with the new piece of evidence. It was proof that her friend wasn’t innocent. She was a betrayer and a snitch.
At another hearing, Venita was given a lesser sentence this time around; Claudia was also sent to prison as an accomplice to manslaughter. She lives in fear every day because she knows that the cartel might come after her right there in prison.
Venita is a bitter and angry woman. She tried to help a friend, and she landed in prison. She will live with this regret for the rest of her life.
Venita is heartbroken, but she knows that she created this particular heartbreak with Claudia by expecting too much. She has been disappointed by the people she loved. One question she asks herself all the time is what she could have done to deserve this kind of life. After being disappointed too many times, she has started to lose hope in everything because nothing hurts more than being disappointed by the people you never thought would hurt you.
Venita feels so lonely. It’s not even about the loneliness of the prison walls, but she feels so alone in this world. She was incarcerated with no family and no friends. She’s counting the days as they turn into months and years. She doesn’t look forward to leaving the prison, after all, the; outside world holds nothing for her.
Her fellow inmates have become her; they, they are real people. They have nothing to take from you, and they have no reason to disappoint you. She has found freedom in prison.
