The Sandstone Affair (An Erotic Romance Novel) (22 page)

“Well, that perked you up,” the officer says
with a smile and turns back around.

“I have a very important appointment this
afternoon,” I try to explain. “If I can get my phone call from holding pretty
quickly, I can make bail in time to get there.”

It dawns on me I’m starting to sound like
some ex-con from the movies speaking in jail vernacular and displaying my
inherent knowledge of the system. If I don’t stop getting arrested, soon I’m
going to be known as “Jailhouse Julia.”  The thought makes me giggle a
bit, until the informative officer brings all my joy to a stop.

“You won’t be getting bail, Ma’am. You’ll go
from holding straight to your arraignment in court.”

“What? How long will that take?”

“Depends on the judge’s schedule. If it’s a
light day, maybe six or seven hours. If it’s heavy you’ll probably be held over
for night court. But don’t worry. Those dockets go fast. If you get bail, you
could be out by about three or four tomorrow morning.”

“Unless Katie’s on leave. She’s the only
bursar who stays late,” his partner corrects him.

“Yeah, but even if she gets bail the bondsman
can sign a writ, maybe. I guess it depends on the judge,” he answers back,
pretending I’m not in the back seat looking like a crushed tin can.

“What do you mean,
if
I get bail? This
isn’t the way it worked last time at all!”

“Well you see,” the officer shifts in his
seat and turns back around, his eyes aglow. You can tell he really loves the
system, how it works and explaining it to budding lawbreakers like me. “The
last time, you were given bail because the court put out a protective order. So
you were released on your own recognizance.”

“But this time,” the driver continues, stealing
his partner’s thunder, clearly not for the first time. “You violated a court
order. So that’s a crime and it shows your intent to repeat the original crime
and it means your recognizance clearly isn’t good enough. Thus, now you have to
stand before a judge and defend yourself on both charges and show there’s
someone else who will sign for you.”

“But that’s the thing. I didn’t break the
order!” I stomp my feet as if that is going to magically open up their minds.
“Blake asked me to come to his office. I didn’t just walk in by myself.”

“The thing you’re gonna like, ma’am,” the
passenger points at me as if he is picking me for a ball game. “Is that the
judge might be willing to listen to your story. Since you seem to want to tell
it.”

“Until you get in front of the judge,
though,” the driver continues, obviously used to getting the last word. “You
should shut up about it. Because, no one in booking gives a rat’s ass.”

Gruffly but with an odd amount of care, the
officers walk me into booking, guiding me through a maze of desks until they
find one that is open. Standing me in front of the wooden chair, the officer
who drove looks me straight in the eye.

“Promise me you’ll behave and I’ll cut you
loose,” he says, motioning to the zip tie cutting into my wrists.

“I promise,” I reply earnestly. It is a baby
step, but my first step to getting out of here and to the courthouse on time. He
turns me around. I hear the click of a pocket knife and feel the sweet release
of my hands coming undone. Bringing them forward, I rub my wrists looking at
the swollen lines already turning red around each of them.

I sit down in the chair and look at the
clock. It’s eleven forty-five. I’ve got an hour and fifteen minutes to make
this work. Frantically I look around for the person who is supposed to be
booking me. A heavyset sweating woman with a severely short haircut and hands
the size of my head gives a deep sigh and sits down, peering at the paperwork
the cop left. Taking her dear sweet time, she scans the orders as if she is
memorizing my history.

“I’m sorry,” I start to get her attention.
She frowns and looks at me from the side of the paper. “I really need to get
this part done. Can we get started?”

She snort-laughs and gestures to me while she
speaks to a male officer at the next desk. “She wants to get started.”

“Please, I don’t want to be rude. I’m just
looking at the clock and I have to be somewhere this afternoon and I feel like
if we work together we can get through this part fast so I might make my
appointment.”

Her face didn’t have to tell me. The
generously loud laughter of the man at the next desk didn’t have to tell me.
The murmuring of the word “bitch” from the guy chained to the chair behind me
didn’t have to tell me. I knew. I knew the minute it came out of my mouth it
was the wrong thing to say. But it hung there in the air, and there was no way
to take it back.

“Are we messing up your tea party, sweetie?”
the booking officer crooned and held a “tea-cup pinky” in the air. “Or do you
have some other laws you need to violate before noon.”

“I’m sorry,” I blurted. “That was rude and
short sighted, and I really shouldn’t have said—”

“Honey,” the cop put her hand up to let me
know she didn’t want to hear an apology, no matter how long. “The only time I
look at that clock is seven o’clock, because that’s when my shift is over. So
just sit there and hang tight and I’ll get you done when you get done.”

“Yes, Officer,” I mumble. Can I possibly
screw up my day even more?

“Hey Ruth,” an officer from the doorway
calls. There is some kind of tussle in the hallway and a string of profanity
erupts into the otherwise quiet and efficient processing room. Frankly, I’ve
never heard that many F words in thirty seconds before.

Four tough, rowdy young men are led into the
room chained together by hands and feet. The one on the front kicks the bench
in front of him sending it spinning and pulling the legs out from under the
others, causing them all to lean to the side.

“Sit your asses down and stop that shit,” an
officer calls. The smell of rotten food covered in moldy pasta and over
fermented grape juice fills this air. The officer approaches my booking agent.

“Can you book these assholes and get them
into interrogation before they smell up the whole building?” he asks her. I sit
up and listen to the conversation, realizing if she decided to book the four of
them before me, I’m never getting out of here.

“What the hell?”

“It’s the Arturi brothers from Delancey
Street. They were roughing up an elderly street vendor when the staff of La
Russo caught them in an alley and treated them to a dumpster beating before the
beat cops could get there. Precinct asked to bring them here to get them out of
home turf and give them a good long sit before some Capo comes to release
them.”

“You bet, but they ain't gonna need no Capo.
Their salvation just walked through the door.”

“Oh?” the officer turns to look but shrugs.
I’m dying to turn around but I don’t dare.

“Clank and Clack, the bail guys, both just
walked through the door,” Ruth explains. “But, they can settle down and wait.”

“Fucking piece of stupid shit!” One of the
chained men calls and kicks the desk in front of him sending papers all over the
floor.

“Right!” says Ruth. “No time like the
present.”

She grabs a pen and begins walking toward
them.

“Wait,” I call out. “What about me? I was
here first. I should be booked first.”

Ruth runs her fingers through her butch-man
hair and sighs again. She places a meaty hand on the desk in front of me and
commands my utmost attention.

“Look, Princess Periwinkle,” she says,
curling her lips with every word. “If I let that mess sit in here any longer
they are going to break up our room and maybe send someone to a hospital. So,
yea, I’m taking them first and no, babycakes, it’s not fair. But it’s smart,
and that’s what we do here–what’s smart.” She turns her back to me, and then
whirls around to tell me one more thing. “Besides, you smell a hell of a lot better
than them, so you I can keep around a while.”

I look up at the clock and feel my blood
boil. How dare she speak to me like that? She can’t delay me just because
someone is smellier than I am or represents more trouble than I do! I have
rights. I probably pay more taxes than the four Arturi brother combined. I look
up and see the watch commander staring my direction. I make a plan.

I am going to stand up, walk over and tell
him that I am an investigative reporter and the Editor-in-Chief of Lynx magazine.
It’s true for another thirty minutes or so. I’m going to make him very aware
that I am making notes about the inherent unfair booking practices of this
station and the delaying tactic that is causing me to lose valuable time. By
the time I’m done he will have someone rushing to process me and I won’t have
to smell like putrid fruit to do it.

I put my hand on top of the desk and start to
rise out of the chair when Mark’s voice rings in my head. Sitting up, I can
hear his words with amazing clarity. I almost look to see if he’s in the room
but I know that he’s at court waiting on me. Still, he is strong and clear
inside my thoughts.

“All you do is push and bully. You don’t use
your brain or power to collaborate or negotiate. You just throw your weight around,
stomp and threaten. It works for you now, but it won’t always work for you and
I’d hate to see the day your strategy lets you down,” he told me early in our
journey. He’s right. That’s exactly what I was preparing to do, bully them into
speeding me through the system.

But that’s not who I am any more.

I sit back in my chair and stop looking at
the clock. If I lose Lynx, I lose it. I can’t swim upstream forever. I can work
for another magazine, and someday maybe start something else. I accept the reality
that throwing a fit isn’t going to help so I might as well act like I have some
dignity while I’m here. Like a lady. Like Mark’s lady.

“Hey Ben,” Ruth calls as she points to the
bench and glares the cuffed brothers into their seats. “Can you book that lady
right there? She’s a repeat so you just have to confirm and send her down to
wait for arraignment.”

Ben nods and takes the seat at her desk,
looks at my arrest sheet and starts typing in numbers. I laugh to myself. Even
when he isn’t here, Mark is still right. The officer confirms my name and
numbers, prints out a stack of notes for me to sign, lines me up for another
booking photo (and Valerie thought her photos were bad?) and leaves me on a
bench to be taken to the connected series of cells in the hall below. I see
Robert Clank walking over to where Ruth has the subdued gang members, but
before I can wave or get his attention, I hear my name.

“Sharp, Julia Sharp.”

“Here,” I say as if I’m still in sixth grade
and the teacher is taking attendance.

“Hey, Rich Bitch,” the guard calls. I
instantly recognize her as the woman from last time and it’s pretty clear she
remembers me too. “Back again, eh? You becoming a career criminal or what?”

“It wasn’t my fault,” I uselessly try to tell
her as she grabs my upper arm and walks me to my cell. “He told me to see him.
He asked me to come. I didn’t purposely violate the protection order. Hell, if
anyone needed protection it was me!”

“Uh-huh. All a big mistake. He really loves
you. You’re back together. You just forgot to tell the judge,” she responds in
a sing-song voice. “Heard it all before. Only usually with restraining orders,
it’s the guys who jump the wire.”

“He conned me,” I say with a sigh filled with
equal parts honesty, acceptance, and profound regret.

“Hey! My phone call. Hey! I gotta go. Hey!
That man is going to hurt somebody! Hey! Hey! Hey!” The familiar chorus begins
before I can even see the bars of the holding cells. They see me as soon as I
turn the corner.

“Blonde baby,” one of the men whistles. “Come
sit near me sugar and give me your honey.”

“You’d better check yourself, Ray,” the guard
says. “I’d leave this one alone before she kills you too.”

I try not to look shocked by her comment but
I see it already has the intended effect. The men pull back against the wall of
their cell and the women in mine give me a wide berth to walk. I try to make
eye contact with her and show her I’m oddly grateful but she turns before I am
even fully in the cell.

The chorus of voices start again as soon as
the door closes and I make my way to an empty spot on a back bench beside the
wall.

“He conned me,” I say again to no one.