Powers of Arrest - страница 21
The jail was sterile and sprawling, sitting beside the railroad tracks. It was one of the few things in the little city that appeared new and successful. He led her through the reception area, which was empty save for one young woman sitting watchfully on a bench.
“You ought to see this place on the weekends,” Brooks said as he signed them in. “Packed with families to see inmates. Thing that breaks my heart is the kids. You have kids, Cheryl Beth?”
“No.”
“I’ve got two, girl and a boy. They make life worthwhile.”
She ignored him and showed her driver’s license to a deputy. He searched her purse. Brooks handed his gun over and it was locked in a steel cabinet. Then she heard a loud buzz, and Brooks led her through a glass door, which led to more and heavier doors, more guards, and a gathering sense of isolation.
They moved through white corridors with neatly spaced banks of fluorescent lights overhead and shiny white floors with wide dark stripes on the outer edges that encouraged you to walk in the middle. She wondered again what she was doing here. The long walk led them to a room, which a deputy unlocked. It had a metal table with metal chairs. Noah wasn’t there.
“You’re sure you want to do this?” he asked, beckoning her to sit.
“No.”
“Then why do it?”
“You want me to, don’t you? I’m a pleaser.”
“A sarcastic one.”
“And this involves my students.”
Now it was his turn to say nothing, merely open his portfolio and turn to a fresh sheet of lined yellow paper. She looked at him, wondering what angle he was playing. He looked like a man of hidden agendas, but one was pretty obvious: He thought Noah was guilty, and she was sure he’d be on her during the long drive back to Oxford. Why hadn’t she brought her own car?
The room echoed with a loud metallic sound and two deputies led Noah Smith in, pulled out a chair across from them, and sat him down. One deputy left, closing the door. Noah was in loose-fitting prison stripes, shackles on his arms and legs, a chain around his middle and an ashen expression on his face.
Brooks introduced himself, spelled his last name. He read Noah his rights.
Noah ignored him.
“Thank you for coming, Cheryl Beth.” He reached a manacled hand across the table toward her and a female deputy instantly intervened. “Prisoner! Hands in your lap.”
Noah cringed and dropped his hands. He looked shrunken in the inmate garb. She searched his face: Noah Smith from Corbin. Somebody’s son, brother, cousin? Nothing. He didn’t look like anyone she had known there. And it was a place she had tried very hard to forget.
“I don’t need to tell you that you’re in a lot of trouble, Mr. Smith,” Brooks said. “You can make things easier on yourself if you tell me what happened out there.”
“I didn’t…”
“Noah,” Cheryl Beth said. “You’d better not say anything until you talk to a lawyer.” She didn’t look Brooks’ way, felt his cosmic annoyance flooding her.
“I didn’t do anything.” His voice shook.
“Tell me about the two girls, Holly and Lauren?” Brooks asked it in a confidant’s voice. “I can help you, Noah, if you’ll help me. Lawyers are going to get in the way of that. Now’s the time to work with me, before things get more complicated. Tell me about the girls.”
Noah swallowed hard enough that his Adam’s apple, his laryngeal prominence her interior voice said, bobbed up and down. He said, “We were drinking in town and went back on campus to party some more.”
“Noah!” Cheryl Beth stared at him. “Wait for your lawyer before you say anything.”
He shook his head. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”
Brooks said, “You all were together?”
“Sure. We were together at the bar.” He gave the name of the place, a popular hangout for students.
Cheryl Beth wanted to slap him silly. He was a fool to be talking or to trust Hank Brooks.
Brooks asked, “Why?”
He looked bewildered.
“My point is, did you all have plans? Did one of them go there with you on a date? Did you pick them both up? What?”
Noah said they had met up at the bar. “We were drinking and having fun. First Holly and me, and then we saw Lauren and she joined us.”