THENEWYORKER,FEBRUARY10, 2020 31
of Xanax. She asked if Jamie wanted
some. Jamie said, “No I’m good.”
April 27, 2015, was a blustery Monday.
Courtney asked Jamie for Xanax again.
When an hour and a half elapsed, with
no response, she requested “150 worth”
of heroin “and a rig,” meaning a needle
and a syringe.
Jamie had already planned to use, be
fore her night shift. By 5 p.m., she was
at her dealer’s house, smoking. As the
dealer measured out Courtney’s share,
Jamie checked in, by text. Courtney told
her, “I just tried to get more money from
those check loan places and they wouldn’t
do it lol.”
“Lmao,” Jamie replied. “I just got
you $175 worth plus two rigs so you owe
me $180.”
They agreed to meet outside a Wal
mart on HilliardRome Road, a corri
dor dense with fastfood restaurants and
bigbox chains. At around 5:20 p.m., Jamie
parked next to Courtney’s Dodge Neon,
got out, and spent the next two minutes
talking with her. When she noticed
Courtney slurring her words, she asked
her, “Did you just take Xanax?” Com
bining heroin and Xanax produced the
coveted Cadillac high, but every addict
knew that the combination was danger
ous. Courtney assured Jamie that she
hadn’t taken Xanax since the previous
night—Jamie believed her when she said,
“I’m just sick.”
Jamie thought about how “livid” she’d
be if another user, inches away, with
held the substance that would immedi
ately make her well. She handed over
the dope. The next text from Court
ney’s phone arrived shortly after eleven
o’clock. It said, “Courtney has passed
away from an overdose.”
A
t first, Jamie thought that someone
was playing a horrible prank, and
didn’t respond. The next day, she returned
to the Hilltop, and mentioned the text
to her dealer. He warned her, “If the po
lice come to talk to you, you’d better not
mention me.” Jamie assured him that she
wouldn’t. She later told me, “You always
hear those stories about people telling
who their dealer was, and then their fam
ily ends up dead.”
Jamie spent the summer expecting
the police to question her about drugs.
But what really anguished her was the
thought that Courtney might still be
alive were it not for their meeting. No
longer concerned with her own life, Jamie
spent more and more time high on heroin.
On August 12th, she had just begun
her Wednesdaynight shift when a ca
sino security guard pulled her off the
floor. Two plainclothes detectives from
the Special Investigations Unit of the
Franklin County Sheriff ’s Office were
waiting to question her. Jamie responded
to their small talk amiably, and signed a
document acknowledging that she un
derstood her legal rights.
Their initial questions were simple:
Where do you live? Are you married?
How old are your children?
Then: How did you know Courtney?
Through a mutual friend, Jamie said.
The older of the two officers, a sergeant,
asked, “Did you ever move any other
kind of drugs for him, other than Sub
oxone?” Jamie said no.
“Listen, we’re not here to arrest you
for drug trafficking,” the sergeant told
her. When was the last time she’d seen
Courtney?
“I got a text message saying she wasdead,” Jamie said, adding that she’d seen
her that day.
“Do you remember what you guys
did?”
“She was trying to find drugs.”
What kind of drugs? “Anything to
make her well.” Did Jamie “help her out”?
Jamie said that she couldn’t remember.
The sergeant told her he needed the
truth: “We want to know where the dope
came from that you gave to her.”
Jamie couldn’t imagine giving up her
dealer’s name. Panicked, she said, “I want
a lawyer then.”
The sergeant informed her that she
was the subject of a homicide investiga
tion. The charge would be involuntary
manslaughter. Under state law, her offense
would, like rape and aggravated robbery,
be a felony of the first degree.W
hen Jamie’s parents learned of
the investigation, they came to
several devastating realizations at once:
their daughter had a heroin addiction;
her stable job and her improved ap
pearance had been part of a sustained