One Deadly Sin (33 page)

“Can you get in touch with him?” the nurse asked.

Red shrugged, looked helpless. “I don’t know.”

“I’ll find him,” Holt said. He walked away to make the necessary phone calls.

A few minutes after he left, Sam Fish approached from another direction. As usual, her uniform was pressed and crisp, and she carried herself like a drill sergeant. A man accompanied her, small, neat, wearing a suit and an official air.

“Holt’s making a phone call,” Red said.

“We’re not here for the chief,” the man said. “I’m Agent Lodge, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation,” he said, looking directly at Edie. “Ms. Swann?”

“Yes?” She looked between the two of them, saw Sam’s gaze swivel away. Uh oh.

“Would you come with us?”

Edie didn’t move. “Is it about the accident? Because I can tell you everything about it, I just want to make sure Lucy is—”

“It’s not about the accident,” Agent Lodge said. He nodded to Sam, who took out her cuffs and started to place them around Edie’s wrists. She pulled them away.

“What are you doing?”

“Edie Swann, you are under arrest on suspicion of murder,” Sam intoned, and not without a little smirk of satisfaction either.

Red rose.

“What?” Edie said. “You gotta be kidding.”

Sam plunged in with the cuffs, and Edie struggled to keep them off her hands. “Don’t touch me! You’re not going to—” All the terror and rage from the accident exploded. She kicked and yelled, forcing Lodge to come in. Between the two of them they wrestled Edie down to the floor, where Lodge sat on her like she was a cow in a roping contest, wrenched her arms behind her back, and cuffed her.

The commotion brought nurses, hospital staff, and Holt to the waiting room. “Lodge, what the hell are you doing?”

Lodge pulled Edie to her feet. “What you should have done weeks ago.”

“Someone just tried to kill her. Doesn’t that prove she hasn’t done anything?”

“Only proves feeling in Redbud’s running high enough for someone to take the law into their own hands.” He pushed Edie forward. “Let’s go.”

She whirled, head-butted him, and took off.

“Edie!” Holt went after her. But not before Lodge and Sam.

Red stuck his foot out, tripping Lodge and slowing his pursuit, but Sam tackled her a few feet away. She went down with a grunt that cut right through Holt.

He wrenched the deputy off, and Sam immediately started for her prisoner again. Holt stepped between them.

“Stand down, Deputy.” Holt’s command was hard and immutable, but she gazed uneasily between him and Lodge. “You work for me,” Holt barked, “and I’m telling you to stand down.”

Sam’s face was red as a burn. Holt kept his gaze on her, commanding her attention. She should be embarrassed. Loyalty was everything, and she knew it. He should fire her ass for calling the TBI behind his back. But he needed an ally, and right now Sam was the only candidate. And he figured she owed him. Big time. So, he asked her silently, who’s it gonna be—him or me? Lodge shook his head, but Sam thought about it and backed off.

Relieved, Holt turned to Edie. Supported her weight as she stood. He brushed the hair away from her face. “Dammit, Edie, you opened one of your cuts.” He dabbed at it, and she winced. “No more, okay? I’ll take care of this. I promise.” He turned to Lodge. “What about bond?” Usually the warrant included bond.

“Judicial commissioner wanted to leave it up to the judge,” Lodge said.

Holt cursed silently. That meant jail. “It’ll only be a few days,” he told Edie. “Just until the arraignment. I’ll do what I can to speed things up. Go with them, okay? Everything’s going to be all right.”

“Yeah, sure it is.”

Holt stepped back, and Sam reached for Edie. She jerked away, but walked out between Lodge and Sam. Holt followed close behind. At the door, Edie stopped, and turned to him.

“Tell Lucy I’m thinking about her.”

Then they were out the door and into the rain.

41

L
odge took Edie to the county jail. It wasn’t Brushy Hollow, but it wasn’t the room behind Holt’s office either. They threw her into a holding cell—a concrete room behind a massive steel door. The astringent smell of disinfectant couldn’t cover the stench of ripe bodies and vomit. A concrete bench extruded from the wall, both painted the same dingy green. The room was lit with such sharp intensity that every corner glowed nuclear. A window in the steel door ensured that privacy was a thing of the past. You can’t run and you can’t hide.

Three other prisoners were already there. One was snoring on the floor, the other two ranged on the benches, spread out like wolves protecting their territory. Cold, bored eyes stared her down as she entered. Prostitutes, check kiters, drunks? How many murderers? In their eyes, she could be the worst of the lot. They watched Edie blatantly, waiting to see what she would do. But she was too drained and dispirited to fight over a seat. She settled into a corner and huddled against the wall.

Ten minutes later, an officer called one of the women out to be booked. It took a couple of hours to get to Edie. By that time, two more women had been added to the room, and Edie had taken a seat on the bench. The stench no longer bothered her, which was bothersome in itself. Whoever was sleeping on the floor continued to snore, despite the kicks she received as incentive to stop.

Eventually they called Edie out. The door buzzed, a high-pitched mosquito whine, then clicked to unlock. An officer stood in the doorway and escorted her to the booking room. She stood before a row of computers on a raised desk. It was so high off the ground, she had to tilt her head back to answer the questions put to her by the officers. Had she ever had hepatitis, HIV, heart disease? What was her birthday, spell her name. Has she ever been incarcerated in Corley County before?

She was photographed and fingerprinted. Unlike TV cops, these did the printing on a computer run by a technician who had to roll each finger just right over a photo plate. Evidently not an easy task, because they had to repeat the process eight out of ten times.

“First day?” Edie said.

But the jokes didn’t come easily. This was real. Not some backwoods lockup but a serious jail for serious offenders.

They gave her a chance to use the phone, but she refused. Who could she call?

Back in the holding cell area, a female officer armored with latex gloves checked Edie’s mouth and under her tongue to make sure she didn’t have anything hidden there. Then she put Edie in a room with a shower and a grimy toilet and instructed her to clean off with the antilice soap provided. Before they gave her clothes, the officer had her raise her arms and turn slowly to show she had nothing on but skin. She was given a laundry bag that contained soap, toothpaste and brush, a comb, and a washrag. A rough towel, a sheet, and a scratchy blanket were added to the pile. The officer gave her further instructions, and Edie heard them from a distance. Four hours a week of recreation, an hour a week of visitation, but only after she’d been there three days.

Her hands were cuffed and she shuffled through a series of heavy green doors, all alike and all opened with the insect buzz and an electronic click that came from some central location. She trudged down the hallway, and into another concrete room, this one four times bigger than the tank. Twenty women were milling about. A television blared from one wall. Music from a radio was blasting from another speaker. Above all that din was the sound of talking.

Once again, the metal door shut behind her. Echoey, metallic, final. She glanced above. A central surveillance hub overlooked them with four guards watching everything. She avoided their eyes and found a seat at one of the steel tables built into the floor. They were low to the ground, like in kindergarten, and the seats—round stool tops—were attached.

The noise beat against her like a hard wave. In defense, she tried to conjure up the engulfing strains of Brahms, but her head couldn’t keep the music going. She stared out at the mob, seeing little. Her father had died rather than face this. For the first time, she understood.

42

H
olt tried using his badge to see Edie before she was booked, but no one was interested in bending the rules for him, especially with Agent Lodge there. The jail was run by the county sheriff’s office, and news of his relationship to the prisoner had preceded him. His fellow officers managed to express their disapproval without actually voicing it, making him hang around the visitors’ area like everyone else and then putting him off the way they put everyone off. No visitors in the first seventy-two hours. Which left him imagining every stupid thing she could have done to get herself in more trouble. Refusing to sign the fingerprint form, refusing to give up her clothes for the county’s. Wising off, pushing back. Was she in solitary already?

He hunted down the court clerk and tried to get Edie’s arraignment set for the next day, but the judge was on vacation until the beginning of next week, which pushed everything back. Edie wasn’t getting out of jail any time soon.

Cursing, he bolted to his car. The rain had stopped; he needed to examine the accident scene, start searching for the black pickup Edie had said attacked them. His cell rang on the way. It was Miranda’s day camp. He was half an hour late for her pickup. Damn. How could he have forgotten?

Rapidly, he apologized to the camp director, told her he had an emergency, and would have someone pick up Miranda as soon as possible.

He called his mother on the fly, maneuvering the car out of the parking lot. No answer, either at home or on her cell. He tried his dad, but he couldn’t pick up Miranda either.

“Busted a fan belt,” his father said. “Stuck in Berding waiting for your mother to come get me.”

Berding was about twenty miles south, on the road to Nashville. Same road Lucy and Edie had been on. A little farther and he would have seen the accident. “What are you doing there?”

James groaned. “Had this crazy notion of buying your mother that new washing machine she’s been hectoring me about. Looks like I’ll be buying a new fan belt instead.”

“Okay. But tell Ma to turn on her cell. What’s the point of having it if she never turns it on?”

Instead of going to the accident scene, Holt raced to the day camp at the county YMCA. On the way, he called Sam.