Behind us, Deputy Caleb Miller followed like a ghost. He was clutching my dark leather handbag to his chest with both hands, looking less like an arresting officer and more like a terrified child holding a live hand grenade. His eyes darted around the sally port, watching the heavy metal rolling gate slide shut with a final, echoing thud that sealed us off from the outside world.
"Get the intake door, Caleb," Voss barked without looking back, dragging me by the handcuffs toward a reinforced gray metal door.
Miller scrambled past us, nearly tripping over his own duty boots, and swiped an electronic keycard against the reader. The magnetic lock disengaged with a dull, heavy click.
Voss propelled me through the doorway into the booking area of the Pell County Sheriff’s Department.
The air inside was thick and stale, carrying the sour, depressing stench common to underfunded, neglected county lockups: burnt convenience store coffee, damp linoleum, industrial pine-scented disinfectant, and decades of dried sweat. The room was long and narrow, divided by a waist-high laminate counter that had peeled at the corners to reveal yellowed particle board beneath. Along one wall sat a row of battered olive-drab filing cabinets, their drawers stuffed haphazardly with bursting manila folders. An American flag hung from a wooden pole in the corner, dusty and drooping, beside a hand-carved wooden plaque bearing the Pell County Sheriff's seal.
Behind a scratched, bullet-resistant glass partition sat a middle-aged woman with dyed copper hair and thick horn-rimmed reading glasses perched on the tip of her nose. Her nametag read ARLENE. She didn't even look up from her word-puzzle magazine as the door slammed shut.
Over in the corner, an older deputy with tobacco stains on the front of his beige uniform shirt sat tilted back in an ancient swivel chair, his boots propped up on an open desk drawer, picking his teeth with a plastic straw.
"What you got there, Dalton?" the older deputy drawled, his voice thick with southern Georgia mud. "Another speeder from the interstate?"
"Worse," Voss said loudly, ensuring every person within thirty feet heard every syllable. "Disorderly conduct, obstruction, and battery on an officer. Found her causing a scene down at the Magnolia Diner, trying to pick pockets and starting fights with the patrons. Had to take her to the ground myself."
The older deputy let out a dry, wheezing chuckle and shook his head, returning his attention to the television mounted on the wall, which was playing a muted infomercial for fishing tackle.
Voss shoved me toward a heavy steel chair bolted directly into the concrete floor in front of the intake counter.
"Sit," he snarled.
I sat down, keeping my posture rigid, my spine straight, and my head level. The cold metal of the chair seeped through the thin denim of my jacket, but I welcomed the chill; it served as an anchor, keeping my focus razor-sharp while the throbbing fire in my sprained wrist pulsed with every beat of my heart. I pulled my hands forward as far as the chain would permit, resting them against my thighs. Blood had pooled in the creases around my knuckles, dark and drying.
"Miller," Voss ordered, unhooking his heavy leather duty belt and hanging it over the corner of the booking counter with a loud thud of holstered steel. "Inventory her purse. Take her watch, her jewelry, and every scrap of paper. Run her prints through the local terminal, slap her with felony resisting, and draft the intake sheet. Put her in holding cell number two until I say otherwise."
"Yes, sir," Miller whispered, his voice trembling so slightly it was almost lost beneath the hum of the fluorescent lights.
"I'll be in my office drafting the charging affidavit," Voss added, turning his back on me with dismissive contempt. "I need to call Judge Henderson at home and make sure he sets bail high enough that she rots in that cell through the weekend. Nobody comes into my town and causes trouble without paying the toll."
Voss swaggered across the linoleum, opened the frosted glass door to his corner office, stepped inside, and kicked the door shut with the heel of his boot. Through the glass, I watched him drop his heavy frame into a plush burgundy leather executive chair, plant his muddy boots directly onto the polished mahogany desk, and pick up his desk phone.
The bullpen fell into a heavy, uncomfortable silence, broken only by the scratching of Arlene’s pencil behind the glass partition and the distant drone of the television.
Deputy Caleb Miller stood on the other side of the booking counter, staring down at my handbag as if it were radioactive. He was alone with me now. His hands shook as he unzipped his own duty vest, loosening the velcro straps across his ribs as if he were suddenly struggling to draw breath.
Bzz-bzz. Bzz-bzz.
The phone inside the handbag vibrated again. The heavy canvas of the bag amplified the mechanical hum against the hollow wooden counter.
Bzz-bzz. Bzz-bzz.
Miller jumped, his hand jerking away from the purse as if the zipper had bitten him. He swallowed hard, his large Adam's apple bobbing up and down, and looked down at me. For the first time since he had stepped into the Magnolia Diner, he looked directly into my eyes.
There was no malice in Caleb Miller's face. There was no cruel arrogance, no swagger, no petty hunger for domination. There was only pure, unadulterated terror. He looked like an ordinary small-town kid who had taken a low-paying county job to help his mother pay the electric bill, only to find himself trapped in a nightmare overseen by a monster he was powerless to disobey.
"Deputy," I said softly.
Miller flinched at the sound of my voice. "Ma'am, you need to remain quiet during the booking process."
"Deputy Miller," I repeated, my tone carrying the calm, steady authority of someone who had commanded federal courtrooms for over two thousand days. "Open the bag."
He hesitated, his fingers hovering over the polished metal zipper pull. "I... I have to inventory your property. It's standard procedure."