The computer wasn’t even turned on.
He sat down on the narrow metal bed with no mattress, pillow, or blanket. They’d even taken the string out of his one tennis shoe. He clasped his hands between his knees, not praying so much as begging his brain to start working. There was a dead woman. Nora. Someone had killed her. She deserved justice. Some kind of acknowledgment that her life had mattered more than the last few seconds at the end.
Flashes of memories kept coming back to him.
The bartender had poured a little more generously when Nora had shown up. The room she’d taken him to was freshly cleaned, no toiletries or suitcase to indicate a guest was staying there.
What were these called?
Clues?
It was a scam, but then the scam had gone horribly wrong.
Nora had stayed the night. He wanted to think that was because he was damn good in bed, and not because she’d drunk too much and he’d not drunk enough. She was obviously a grab-and-dash kind of woman. Get the wallet, get the keys, go to the alley, and meet up with whoever was going to take the car for chopping.
But she’d stolen the wrong car.
Then there was the old blue pickup. The two shapes in the cab. The black guy in the Cleveland Indians baseball cap.
His head pounded out each memory like a chisel on a stone tablet.
He’d provided the Helen chief of police with Hoss’s home phone number because he’d been close to the lawman his entire life. Hoss was the reason he became a cop. The guy had been a surrogate father, keeping him out of trouble, providing a nudge or a kick in the ass when needed. And Hoss would be a hell of a lot nicer about this current misunderstanding than his lieutenant back in Alabama, who would probably fax over a termination of employment letter the minute he hung up the phone.
But if the Helen chief had talked to Hoss, if he understood that Jeffrey was not, in fact, a murdering, coke-dealing, drug-running Yankee asshole from Cleveland, but an honest, God-fearing, law-abiding southern boy, the Helen chief wasn’t letting on.
He stood and started pacing again.
Sock, shoe. Sock, shoe.
Tick tick tick.
If the Helen chief of police wasn’t making phone calls, was he trying to build a case? By law, he only had forty-eight hours to hold a suspect before he had to charge him or let him go. The weekend was basically here. The courts would be closed for two days, maybe more if the storm turned bad. He should’ve been allowed a phone call, but in the last ten hours no one had been around to ask for that privilege. Today was almost a year that the cops who were accused of beating Rodney King had been acquitted of all crimes. If the Helen chief of police moved him to the county lockup, his life would be worth less than a pound of dog shit.
“Well, hello there, handsome.”
A tall, willowy black woman in a tailored police uniform entered the holding area. She held a tray with grits, a biscuit, some eggs, bacon, and, because there was still a God in heaven, a large cup of coffee.
“You must be the underwear murderer.”
He tried to smile the smile that usually won over women. “I never killed a pair of underwear in my life.”
She chuckled as she placed the tray on the ledge by his cell. Her eyes traced the outline of his boxers. “You an Auburn fan?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He crossed his arms over his chest. He knew a football fan when he saw one. “Played for two years.”
“Is that right?” She started going through the keys on her belt. “What position?”
“Halfback,” he said. “Like O.J., but without the athleticism or promising future.”
She chuckled again, which he took as a good sign. “I can see you running through an airport with a briefcase.”
She had found the key.
He watched the cell door swing open. The smell of sweet freedom put some warmth back into his body, even though she stood there with the tray in her hands, blocking the exit.
“You look like the kind of guy who would end up on the cover of SEC Monthly.”
“Actually, I was on the cover of SEC Monthly.”
“Roll Tide, asshole.”
She dropped the tray on the floor.
The coffee exploded, much like his ego.
The cell door clanged shut.
He resisted the urge to fall to his knees and slurp the coffee off the dirty concrete. Instead, he sat back down on the metal bed. The cold didn’t seep so much as drill into his bones. Whatever was happening to the weather outside wasn’t good. He could practically feel the temperature dropping by the second.
The woman sat down at the desk.
She opened a drawer, took out a nameplate, and slapped it onto the desktop.
Sergeant A. Fuller.
She reached around and turned on the computer, then the giant monitor. A loud whir temporarily overwhelmed the ticking of the clock as the computer booted up. He rubbed his hands together. He was freezing, but he was also sweating. He thought of all the things he could say to Sergeant A. Fuller. I’m a cop, too, bitch. Has your chief called the sheriff I told him to call? Why am I in a holding cell? With what crime am I being charged? I demand to speak to a lawyer.
Go fucking War Eagles.
He reached down and grabbed the biscuit off the tray. Hard as a brick. Cold as his left foot. He shoved some frozen eggs and congealing bacon inside.
The phone rang.
A. Fuller picked up the receiver.
“Yes.” Then another, “Yes.” Her gaze slid toward him as she gave a throaty, “Uh-huh.”
She stood up from her desk and picked up the phone base, stretching the cord across the room to the cell.
She held out the receiver a few inches from the bars.
Jeffrey pressed his palms to his knees and pushed himself up. He shoe-socked his way over to the front of the cell and reached out for the receiver. She pulled it just slightly out of his grasp before letting him take it.
He cleared his throat before saying, “This is Jeffrey Tolliver.”
Hoss said, “Hey, Slick.”
He could’ve wept. “Hello, sir.”
“You had enough time to contemplate your many transgressions?”
He gripped the phone as he listened to Hoss chuckle. Obviously, the Helen chief of police had called the Sylacauga sheriff and they’d worked out a ten-hour penalty in the box.
“You told them to keep me locked up?”
“Aw, now, don’t let your pride get in the way. I figger I did you a favor considering you was caught wet, hungover, and standing over a dead woman with a brick of coke and some illegal guns.”
“That woman had a name.”
“You remembering their names now?” Hoss paused, and he could practically see the old man frowning down the line. “Tell me, Slick. Ain’t you gettin’ a little old for this kind of behavior?”