Whitstone got out, removed her weapon, and locked it in the trunk of the squad car. She opened the car door for Sula and helped her out. Her hands were cuffed and she was glad for the assistance. In the next room, three desks with computers and chairs were the only items in the small, windowless space. Whitstone sat down at one station and motioned for Sula to sit as well. For a few minutes the cop said nothing as she filled out paperwork and entered information into the computer.
She abruptly asked, “Do you feel ill or do have any medical conditions, such as diabetes, that we should know about?”
Sula wondered if she should mention the occasional post traumatic stress, but said, “No.”
“Do you feel like you might want to commit suicide?”
“No.”
“Are you going to become sick from withdrawals during the next twenty-four hours?”
“No.” She was glad to know they asked such questions. Many of the people arrested on a daily basis were homeless, addicted, and/or mentally ill.
Whitstone picked up the phone and called for a female deputy. Moments later, a slender middle-aged woman with a buzz cut and a pretty face entered the small room. Whitstone handed the deputy a plastic bag containing Sula’s purse, then uncuffed Sula and turned to face her. “Good luck,” she said softly, then moved toward the exterior door.
As the jail deputy escorted Sula out of the room, she felt like a piece of property that had just been transferred to a new and unknown owner. The steel door slammed behind her. Sula shuddered. She was a prisoner.
They moved down a short hall into a similar-sized room and sat on opposite sides of a desk. The deputy asked her the same set of questions Whitstone had: “Are you going to try to commit suicide? Are you sick? Will you experience withdrawals?”
Then the woman, whose name tag said Deputy Crouse, asked her to remove her shoes, her belt, and her sweater. Those were added to the plastic bag. Then Crouse read a list of the items, starting with her purse, followed by all of its contents, including the seven dollars and fifty-six cents in her wallet. Sula signed the document, in essence agreeing with the inventory of her possessions.
Deputy Crouse pulled a blanket from a shelf and handed it to her. They went back into the hall, down another twenty feet, then entered yet another windowless room. This area was larger, about forty-by-forty, and housed a dozen unhappy women, most in their twenties and thirties, plus a few older street hags. Scattered around the perimeter of the room on wooden benches, some sitting, others reclining, the women formed a colorful and tragic collection of human lives gone inexplicably wrong. As they looked up at Sula in her black skirt and pink silk blouse, it was clear they had no empathy. She did not belong here.
“There’s a pay phone over there,” Crouse said pointing as if she were showing a home for sale. “You can make collect calls only. There’s a toilet and sink behind that short wall. You might as well get comfortable. You’ll be here until you’re arraigned at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. If you were a guy, you’d probably be released before midnight because of overcrowding. But unless a whole sorority house gets arrested this evening for drunk and disorderly, you’re in for an overnighter.”
Sula wanted to ask, Where do I sleep? But it was clear this room was her reality for a while. She looked at her watch: 3:10 p.m. Seventeen hours and twenty minutes to go.
She looked around the room and spotted a place along the wall near the phone. Hugging her blanket like a timid child, she walked across the cold concrete and sat on the bench.
“Welcome to the fishbowl,” said a skinny young woman. She had the abused hair and skin of a meth addict.
“Thanks.”
Sula closed her eyes as if that would make it all go away. She meditated for about ten minutes, then heard her named called out. She looked up to see the deputy waving her over to the door. A flash of hope surged through her. Maybe she was being released. As she got near, Crouse said, “Time for prints and pictures.” Sula’s hope plummeted.
She followed the deputy into yet another room, where another deputy took her fingerprints, entering her forever into the system of suspects. It wasn’t until she stood next to the wall for a mug shot that she felt like a criminal. In that moment, she couldn’t get enough air into her lungs.
Sula thought about her father, who’d been arrested so many times. He had treated the arrests like notches in his belt. To him, people who never landed in jail were “slaves to the system.” Mindless sheep with no passion. As a child, she had resented his incarcerations and the stigma attached to them. Now, his rebellion gave her a sense of strength.
It was worth it, she told herself. She had the disk with Warner’s discovery. The FDA would see it and stop Nexapra’s clinical trials. Lives would be saved. She could only hope hers would not be lost in the process.
Chapter 16
Rudker watched from his third-floor office as the cop escorted Sula across the parking lot to the blue Impala. He was disappointed she was not cuffed. An image of Sula naked and cuffed to a bedpost slid into his thoughts. She was not really his type, with her long silky black hair and cinnamon skin, but her face was striking. She had a decent body too, long and lean but not enough cleavage. Still, she aroused him. Or was it just her humiliation that made him hard?
He would have liked to pursue the fantasy but he had some search-and-destroy missions to carry out. He strode into his outer office and spoke to his secretary. “I’ll be out for the afternoon. If anyone calls, tell them I’ll get back to them on Monday.”
“You have an appointment at four with Allen Sebring from Anderson and Shire Consulting.”
“Cancel it.”
“You’ve already canceled him once.”
“He’ll get over it.”
Rudker kept moving. He was not prepared to deal with the accountant yet. Before he reached the elevator, Marcy Jacobson came running up behind him.
“We need to discuss a few things about closing out Diane Warner’s employment.”
“Like what?” Rudker slowed and turned to face her. Marcy looked pained and the expression irritated him.
“What happens to the money in her pension fund? Who gets her office? Believe it or not, people have already asked.”
“All of that can wait until we discuss it Monday. Meanwhile, I don’t want anyone in her office.”
Rudker boarded the elevator and quickly closed the doors. Why did people bother him with all this trivial stuff? Couldn’t they make decisions on their own? In a moment, Rudker chuckled. They didn’t make decisions because they were afraid to. Because he was famous for saying, Why wasn’t I consulted? He knew he was difficult to work for at times, but he paid people well and his job wasn’t any easier.
He crossed the courtyard and entered the R amp;D building. He briefly considered rounding up Steve Peterson to help him with the task of sorting though Warner’s files. Steve would be better able to recognize what was relevant to Warner’s DNA research. He rejected the idea. He didn’t want to stimulate interest in Warner’s work by seeming determined to cast it aside. Scientists were inherently curious, stubborn to a fault, and contrary by nature. Rudker had almost gone that route himself. He’d earned his B.S. in biology but had gone on to earn a master’s in business because laboratories bored him. The degrees had suited him well in the pharma industry.
Rudker stuck his key in the lock only to discover that the door was unlocked. It only confirmed his belief that Sula had been in the office. He’d told the cops he’d seen her coming out, but he hadn’t. She’d been standing near the entrance. He pushed in and locked the door behind him.