Alane Ferguson - The Circle of Blood

A blankness filled Cameryn, as if her mind couldn’t absorb her mother’s words. Nothing could penetrate.

“Are you listening?” The claw on Cameryn’s arm clamped so hard she almost cried out in pain. “I want you to leave now, Deputy,” Hannah raged. “I want you to leave my room.”

“As much as I want to,” Justin said, his voice low, “I can’t.”

Hannah stood rigid for a moment, and then, almost imperceptively, began to rock back and forth. “I’m going to go to jail. You’re going to take me to jail.” The rocking increased in intensity: forward and back, backward and forward. “I didn’t do it,” Hannah cried. “I didn’t. Cameryn, you’re the only one. You’ve got to believe me! ”

Justin stepped forward. He shoved his notebook in his back pocket, and then carefully, gently, peeled away Hannah’s fingers from Cameryn’s arm, as though they were petals from a closed flower. He looked as though he felt sick. His own fingers trembled as he took a step backward.

“I’m sorry, Cammie,” Hannah whispered. “I’m sorry about everything.”

“Hannah, I want you to listen to me carefully,” Justin said. “Can you hear me? Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Dropping her hands to her sides, Hannah sobbed a single word: “Yes.”

“I need to make sure you know what I’m saying.”

“I do. I do, I do, I do.”

“Then, Hannah…” He paused. His next words were delivered quietly but clearly. “You have the right to remain silent…”

THE SILVERTON COUNTY jail was situated inside one of the town’s most beautiful buildings. The county courthouse, a square-faced, steep-roofed affair, had a large circular clock mounted in the middle of a three-tiered steeple. The stone was gray, Protestant-looking. Cement pillars and roof protected the front door from the elements. An ecclesiastical window had been carved from the stone, giving the mayor a bird’s-eye view of the town. But this morning, Cameryn didn’t notice any of that. It was who the building contained that mattered to her. Hannah had been cuffed and taken away to the one-room jail, and even though Cameryn pleaded to stay with her mother, Justin refused.

“Cammie, you’re not allowed to come with me,” he’d said as Hannah stood rigidly to one side. Justin’s face had flushed with agitation. “God knows I hate to do this, but I have to take her in.”

Cameryn grabbed his sleeve, wrenching it in her hand. “You can’t! ”

“I have no choice. She had the decedent’s property. She’s got a motive and she’s been off her meds.”

“Justin, no!”

“There’s an eyewitness who’s placed Hannah with the vic just moments before she was shot. And now I know she was with Esther after she died.”

“But there was an explanation. She told you why-”

Justin shook his head. “She’s also a flight risk. If I don’t take her in I could lose my job. Let me do this and then we’ll sort it all out.”

To that, Cameryn had cried, “Of course you have a choice.” But Justin didn’t seem to hear.

Now, as she walked down the polished wooden hallway, the heels of her boots reverberating in the empty hall, she rehearsed her strategy. Although she was angry with Justin, it was important not to let emotion show. Like it or not, she needed him. She took a breath and shook herself, trying to focus, trying to be strong. With her knuckle she rapped on the glass pane stenciled with a golden star and the words SHERIFF’S OFFICE in black letters.

Justin opened the door, not all the way, just a few inches. He looked rumpled, tired. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself.”

“Our office doesn’t officially open for twenty minutes.”

“Len opened the courthouse early and I followed him inside,” she said. “I told him I was meeting you. Were you here all night?”

“I had to be,” he answered. “It’s against the law to leave a prisoner unattended. I semi-slept in the chair.”

“Can I come in?”

Justin sighed. “You can’t see her, Cammie. She’s in a holding cell. No visitors.”

“That’s okay.” Cameryn wedged her foot between the door and the door frame. “I want to talk to you.”

He studied her a moment. The stubble on his chin had grown, his hair was tousled, and his lids were hooded from lack of sleep. Reluctant, he opened the door and allowed her inside. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

“I’m taking a day off.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he croaked. “You’re cutting school?”

“Yeah. I am.”

“You never cut school.”

"Right.” Cameryn felt a pang of guilt. In all her years of education, she’d never once skipped school. But there was a first time for everything. Her mother needed her.

“You’re already in trouble with the sheriff, Cammie. Guess you’re going all the way. Have a seat.” The room was so crowded with filing cabinets and plants and Sheriff Jacobs’s big wooden desk, there was room only for two folding chairs for visitors. To the left, beside a painted radiator, was Justin’s chair, half the size of Jacobs’s. Everything for Justin seemed miniaturized-stacks of papers towered on a surface barely wide enough for his computer. He grabbed one of the folding chairs and placed it across from his desk, pointing for Cameryn to sit.

His own chair squeaked as he leaned forward. “So what’s up?”

“You seem tense,” she began.

“Well, you called me just about every name in the book last night. Maybe my ‘tenseness’”-he made quotation marks with his fingers-“has something to do with that.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sorry. I was just upset.”

“Obviously.” Justin picked up a pen and hit the black plastic cap onto a clear spot on his desk, flipped it, then hit the pen again. “How did your pop and your grandma handle the news?”

“They said I should wait and see where your investigation leads before I panic. My dad’s really mad at me for withholding evidence. Really mad. But he said he understood why I did it. My mammaw went to church and said a rosary. She thinks I’m going to have a long stay in Purgatory if I don’t get my act together.”

Justin put down his pen and knit his fingers together. He leaned forward and spoke softly. “We’re holding her for seventy-two hours and she’s back on her meds, which is a very good thing. The district attorney will review the facts of the case. He’ll make the decision on whether to file charges or not.”

“Yeah, I know how it works.”

“I had to take her in, Cammie. I wish you’d understand.”

“I do,” she lied. Today she’d worn her hair in a ponytail and had on a blue Fort Lewis sweatshirt, along with her heavy winter parka. Unzipping her coat, she slipped it off and asked, choosing the words carefully, “But there are other leads, aren’t there? Like my theory about polygamy?”

He pulled back again. The wheels screeched against the tile. “What about it?”

“Are you going to research it or not?”

“There is nothing to research. The Childs family is from Arizona. Their hometown sheriff says they’re not polygamists and the entire family was there the day Esther was killed. The sheriff personally saw them.”

“But-but-” Cameryn stammered, “the ring…”

“Our vic could have picked it up anywhere.”

She leaned forward, her eyes narrowing. “We saw polygamists.”

“There are polygamists all over,” Justin said, his voice rising.

“Well, what about the name Gilbert, the name I found written in the backpack? I looked it up on the Internet, and there’s a Gilbert two doors down from the Loaf ‘N Jug, where that phone tip came from. Don’t you think that’s strange? That’s a lead.”