Т Паркер - Where Serpents Lie

“Nice to see some friendly faces.”

I thought of running for it, but I know a dumb idea when I get one. Most of the time.

They fell in around me and we headed away from the crowd of people awaiting the passengers. Ishmael leaned in close, like he was telling me a secret.

“You’re under arrest, Terry. Unlawful sexual intercourse, lewd act on a child, oral cop. I can waive the cuffs for now but not the Miranda. Let’s head over to that corner there, get it taken care of without causing some big hairy scene, okay? Unless you want me to call Donna Mason for the story.”

Ishmael’s powerful, controlling grip on my arm was the single greatest insult I have ever known.

If you’re a regular guy, they march you to the Intake-Release Center, which sits next to the jail. Then they take away everything you’ve got, search you, take off your cuffs, make you sign some forms, try to figure how much of a hazard you are to others and yourself, fingerprint you, photograph you, spray your body for lice — making you bend over naked to get a solid dose between your cheeks — let you rinse in a cold shower, then give you an orange jumpsuit with Orange County Jail stenciled on the back. Then they let you make your calls. Then you go to your tank and the fun really starts.

If you’re a cop accused of sex with children, it’s all the same, but they put you in a small cell alone instead of a general population tank because general population inmates are known to murder men like you. It’s called protective custody, and it’s reserved, generally, for child molesters, those accused of heinous crimes, cops and celebrities. I felt like I was the first three, with a good shot at becoming the fourth.

I made my two phone calls from the Intake-Release Center, from a phone bank built into the dreary wall. It was a little room with a smoke-stained acoustic ceiling and a table with a bunch of phone books strewn across it. Other accused were making calls, some whispering, some whimpering, some shouting, some just standing silent with the receivers to their ears, as if being pumped with some numbing drug through the cord. I hunkered up close to the wall and called Donna. I was surprised and crestfallen that she answered. I didn’t even try to ease into the subject — it can’t be done — and just blurted out that I’d been arrested, and why. I said I was innocent. I said I was being framed. I said there were photographs that had been altered or tampered with and that the FBI would establish this to be true. My heart sank even lower as I said this, realizing that the FBI had likely done just the opposite, and my arrest had been the result.

All I heard for the longest time was the in and out of Donna’s breath, followed by the silence during which I could see her clearly: slender face and sad brown southern eyes, her dark hair curling forward over her pale skin, the swatches of blush on her cheeks, her red and knowing lips. I told her I was innocent. I told her I wanted her to learn about this from me, first. I told her I was innocent again. I told her I wasn’t sure what I’d do — try to make bail and lie low until my defense experts could disqualify the evidence. I told her, matter-of-factly, that I loved her, and, again, that I was innocent.

Finally she spoke. “You want me to cover this for CNB, or let someone else?”

“It’s yours if you want it.”

“That would be, ah... extremely perilous.”

“I’m a good story. Think of it as another exclusive. Stick with me. You’ll get all the firsts.”

“Terry,” she whispered. “ Terry. I can’t stick with you very far. You may be innocent, but we’ll crucify you first and cut you down later. It’s the way we do it. ”

I took a deep breath and felt the walls moving closer around me, felt the acoustic ceiling — stained by years of whispered alibis and desperate lies — lowering onto my head like a lid onto a coffin.

“I love you, Donna.”

I hung up and called the law office of Loren Runnels, an old friend of mine, a deputy DA turned to private practice. Luckily, he was listed in one of the phone books.

When I explained to Loren what had happened, I got one of those surprises you should see coming but never do. I discovered that in spite of being the star of my personal, purgatorial pageant, I would have to wait.

“I’m due in court in twenty minutes,” he said. “I’ll see you after lunch. Anybody wants to know anything, you tell them to talk to me. Hang in there, Terry.”

They put me in a protective cell, in a small block reserved for people so bad even other prisoners hate them. Module J, to be specific. I kept my head up and my eyes level as I looked into the other cells on the way by. The eyes that followed me were curious, resigned, amused, blank. My cell smelled faintly of urine and disinfectant, but the lice spray on my skin followed me in and cut down on the stink. It mixed with the smell of my own nervous sweat. When I heard the door slam shut behind me and echo down the long hallway, a part of my soul withered, broke off and blew away. Those echoes are the harmonics of hell.

At 1:25 P.M. I was led into a booth in the Attorney-Bonds Visiting Room and told to sit.

The deputy who led me in was four inches taller than me and probably outweighed me by forty pounds. You look at these young guys — I was one of them once — and you wonder at the predictable relish they take in their power, in the tiny cruelties that help them set the “us” apart from the “them.” You wonder at the absolute authority when one man can order another to sit, like he’d order a dog, and the man in fact sits, just like a dog would.

I shook my head, smiled and sat. Of course, he just couldn’t let it go. The same way I wouldn’t have let it go twenty years ago when I worked this loud, stinking, overcrowded jail my first two years as a Sheriff deputy.

“Is there some problem you’ve got with that?”

“None at all, Deputy.”

“You look like that Chet guy we had in here last week.”

“I arrested him, and we don’t look alike at all.”

“The kids you both screw look alike?”

“Yeah. We like them young, dumb and blond. Like you.”

“How would you like your ass kicked?”

“Whatever fries your eggs, kid.”

The booths offer a reasonable amount of privacy. There’s a glassed guard station behind where the prisoners sit, and the deputy can see everything in the room, but can’t hear much. There’s a table in front of you, separated from another table by a low partition. I watched Loren Runnels come through a door on the other side of the room. He lugged his briefcase toward me and sat. He studied me through silver wire-rimmed glasses that matched perfectly his thinning silver hair. The bald patch on the top of his head was a deeper tan than I had had in years. He had thin lips and bright white teeth he rarely showed.

“You all right?”

“I’m absolutely not fucking all right, Loren. They’ve got pictures but—”

He sat back and looked around in an exaggerated manner, shaking his head.

I looked away from him and felt the anger in my guts and the sadness and humiliation in my heart. How many times had I heard some guy say just about the same thing to me? And how many times had I assumed he was human sludge, a loser, a liar, a creep? I swallowed my pride a thousand times in that one brief moment. Then swallowed it a thousand more.

And I let my attorney lead.

“I’ve seen the complaint,” he said. “The arraignment is set for eleven tomorrow morning. It looks like Zant will be in court tomorrow. He’ll probably ask two hundred bail, as a flight risk. I’ll ask you be O-R’d as a deputy with an impeccable record. The judge can do anything in between, but unless we draw Honorable Ogden, I’d guess it’ll be more like fifty grand. Can you raise fifteen plus collateral for bond?”