THIS IS A JOKE,” Casey said.
The first cop turned her gently around and clapped on a pair of handcuffs before Casey could even think to struggle.
“Not a funny one, Ms. Jordan,” the second cop said, leading the way with an expressionless face.
Outside, they escorted her to a patrol car she hadn’t noticed because it was nosed into a space around the corner. She scanned the lot for a sign of Jake.
“Can I use my phone?” she asked.
“No,” the first cop said, opening the door and tucking her in. “Later.”
“You’re making me ride with my hands behind my back like this?” Casey said. “I can’t wait to depose you people when I file my civil suit.”
The second cop took the wheel and turned to the first. “Sounds like a movie script.”
“What do you think?” Hank said. “Brad Pitt as me?”
“You know I’m Nick Cage.”
“Yeah, the hairline.”
The second cop backed out and flipped the car’s lights on before he looked at Casey in the mirror and said, “Congrats, you get the works.”
He then turned the siren on and sped down through the intersection, taking her the block and a half they had to go to get to the station. As they pulled in, another uniformed officer moved some cones and they came to a stop at the back end of the gauntlet. Casey saw now that the reporters were held back by sections of steel crowd-control fence. The station’s white double doors opened and Chief Zarnazzi strode out into the crowd of cameras toward the patrol car, his neck looking thin and chickenlike beneath the beak of his nose and a broad blue dress hat whose bill gleamed in the sunlight. The shoulders of his crisp blue uniform were draped in gold braids and a cluster of medals dangled from either side of his breastbone. Black ankle socks shone beneath the hems of pants cut too short for his bony legs.
As the chief approached, the cameras swung with him until he stopped outside the car door, opening it and gesturing to Casey with his index finger. She slid out, bewildered, her brain overloaded thinking of pithy things to say or do and gummed up so badly her mouth formed a series of silent curse words. When the chief took her by the elbow and began to walk her through the gauntlet with his eyes sparkling behind their wire glasses and his sunken chin as proud as the father of the bride, the questions rained down on Casey in a torrent of screams.
“Why did you do it?”
“How could you turn a serial killer loose?”
“Who helped you?”
“What if he kills again?”
“Did you do it for the money?”
“Are you working with a movie studio?”
“Do you expect to do jail time?”
“Will you represent yourself?”
“Did you intentionally discredit the Freedom Project?”
“Is it true you got Nelson Rivers’s semen sample personally?”
Casey’s mouth snapped open at that one and her head whipped around in the direction of its source, a tall, tan-faced man with a brilliant set of perfect teeth and thick helmet of hair sprayed into place. She flashed him a look of disgust and kept going. When they got to the top of the station steps, the chief turned and gave them all a thumbs-up with a wide yellow-toothed grin before leading Casey inside.
“How about that?” he said to her. “You wanted media, you got media.”
“Take these stupid things off, you son of a bitch,” Casey said. “And hand me my phone.”
“After we’re done processing you with prints and mug shots, you’ll get all the calls you like,” the chief said, removing his hat and smoothing the thin strands of hair over the top of his bald head.
The two arresting cops appeared and led Casey into the back. Secretaries at their desks and cops leaning on walls all stopped to stare. Casey grit her teeth and went through the indignity of having ink smeared across all her fingers and holding up a thin metal frame full of numbers as her photo was snapped.
As the cop named Hank led her to the holding cage, he wiped his nose on the sleeve of his shirt and said, “I guess your reporter boyfriend’s out there making all kinds of noise. Won’t be surprised if he makes his way into lockup himself from what they’re saying.”
Casey said nothing as he handed her into the metal cage where a ragged woman with frizzy orange hair lay snoring on the bench, with an arm over her eyes and the rest of her face caked with dried blood.
“What the hell is that?” Casey asked.
“Domestic,” Hank said, “got into it with her old man then cauterized his nuts with a clothes iron after he passed out on the bed.”
“Looks like he deserved it,” Casey said, studying the purple blots across her cheeks and arms.
“They all say that,” the cops said, and slammed shut the cage.