“Maybe more with the charge of intent to distribute.”
All the air in my lungs seemed to have been sucked away, leaving behind an empty void. This isn’t happening, I thought. Twenty thousand dollars? My stomach curled into a fist. “I’m a high school English teacher,” I managed to say. Was, I realized, but tamped down the thought and kept going. “I don’t have that kind of money.”
Briggs raised his eyebrows slightly. “Aren’t you going to protest your innocence?”
“You know I didn’t sell any fucking drugs,” I said, my voice rising. To my left, the bearded prisoner leaned back out of his booth to look at me.
Briggs looked at me for a good ten seconds, long enough for me to shift in my chair, but I didn’t break eye contact with him. “No,” he said slowly. “I don’t think you did.”
For some reason, this made me feel slightly better.
The comfort didn’t last long. “So, do you smoke?” Briggs asked. “Or pop oxy?” He didn’t think I was selling drugs to Blackburne students, just that I might be getting high in my apartment.
“I—no,” I said. “No. I mean, I have before—I’ve smoked pot—but not now. And not at Blackburne.” I took a breath and made a quick decision. “Somebody put that in my desk to set me up.” And I told him about finding the pot in Terence Jarrar’s lava lamp, about holding on to it instead of turning it in immediately, and about my half-assed plan to let whoever was selling at Blackburne know that I knew. Briggs’s eyebrows rose fractionally higher.
“That was stupid,” he said.
“Obviously.”
He tilted his head to the side, like a bird considering whether to stay or fly off. “You haven’t asked me why I’m here,” he said.
“My apologies. Why are you here?”
“I wanted to ask you if you’d learned anything about the series of events we discussed last fall.”
My heart gave an odd squeeze. “You want to know if I’ve learned anything about the Davenports,” I said.
Briggs glanced at the couple at the far end, who had quit looking at us and were back to droning quietly at each other. The fat deputy in the corner was pointedly looking away from us. Briggs leaned forward. “Have you? Found out anything?”
“Can you get me out of here?” I asked. “I’ll tell you what I’ve found out.”
Briggs twisted his mouth—it could have been the beginnings of a smile—and then put his hands together briefly so that he appeared ready to fall on his knees and pray. “First things first,” he said. “You need to get a lawyer. Then you need to call somebody about making bail. Family, friends, a bail bondsman, whatever. Then you’ll need to go to your arraignment.”
As he continued outlining the steps I needed to take, something lifted in my chest. The shame and humiliation of having been arrested, of finding myself removed from society and placed in a jail cell, were astounding. A sodden darkness had fallen on me, momentarily extinguishing any thoughts about how I had ended up in here, or what I would do once I got out. But Briggs was a lantern in a coal mine. His gruff, businesslike manner, plus the fact that he understood the criminal justice system far better than I did and apparently knew all the deputies in the jail, rekindled something in me. It was less like hope and more like anger.
“Someone planted that stuff in my classroom,” I said aloud, cutting across whatever Briggs was saying. “Someone at Blackburne.”
Briggs watched me patiently. I found myself wanting to pace back and forth, but instead I sat in the chair in front of the window and drummed my fingers on the countertop.
“It’s got to be whoever’s behind selling drugs at Blackburne,” I continued. I had two ideas about this, too. Either some of Paul Simmons’s friends were in on the drugs and were pissed that he’d been sent to Utah, or Ren Middleton was involved in more than wanting to avoid a lawsuit and had decided that waiting until the end of the school year to get rid of me was no longer an option.
Briggs nodded slowly. “Makes sense,” he said. “Getting you arrested gets you out of the way. Although my guess is whoever did this won’t stick around.”
I frowned. “Why not?” I asked. “I mean, he’s winning, right? I’m in here.”
Briggs snorted. “You won’t be in here for long,” he said, shaking his head. “They arrested you because of what they found in a desk in the classroom where you teach. They didn’t find it under your pillow or in your underwear. It’s a weak bust.”
“But it’s my classroom.”
“You the only one who teaches in there?”
I had to think for a minute. Matt McGuire taught a Spanish class in there—classroom space was tight in Huber Hall due to ongoing renovations. “No, there’s another teacher who has a class in there. But I’m not gonna say that he—”
“You’re not going to say anything—your lawyer is. Have you got one yet?”
“Kinda hoped you might have a suggestion.”
He actually grinned at this, and again I saw the sudden warmth of his smile, banishing at least for the moment whatever dark clouds had still been hanging over my head. “I’ve got a cousin who’s a lawyer. He’s not cheap, but he won’t cheat you. Now, this classroom where you teach. You said someone else teaches in there, too. There a lock on the desk?”
“No.”
“Classroom door locked?”
“No.”
Briggs held out his hands, palms up, as if presenting me with an answer. “Like I said, it’s a weak bust. I’m almost surprised they arrested you.”
“They found traces of pot in my apartment.”
Briggs waved a hand. “From last fall. You turned those buds in to Middleton, right? So we get him to testify.” He must have seen the look on my face, because he sat forward, serious again. “Look, whoever got you stuck in here, he’ll have had time to think about it by tomorrow. It’s a questionable bust. That classroom is open to anyone who wants to stash something in that desk. You didn’t murder anyone or run a cartel, so you’ll make bail. And if it goes to trial, it’s likely a judge would see that you didn’t do anything.” I opened my mouth after that last comment, feeling especially troubled by the likely part, but Briggs ignored me and plowed straight on. “If our perp is smart, he’ll figure all this out, which means he’ll probably do one of two things. He’ll try to ride off into the night in case anyone takes a second look at whoever might be selling dope to the Blackburne boys. Or he’ll try to get rid of any evidence linking him to selling dope.”
“So what do we do?”
“We get you the hell out of here.” Briggs smiled grimly. “And then you’ll tell me what you’ve learned about Davenport.” He stood up and, after a moment, so did I.
“Why do you care about Davenport?” I asked quickly—the deputy behind me had stirred and was coming forward to escort me back to the cell.