DYLAN
There’s not a parking space open at the jail, so I double park behind the correctional facility’s transport van and run inside. The guard who’s supposed to be manning the front has stepped out for a moment, so I stand at the window, pacing in the tiny area next to the steel door into the jail.
He doesn’t come back out. After a moment, I bend down to the round hole in the glass positioned nowhere near the height of any adult human. “Hello!” I say loudly. “Anybody here?”
Nothing, so I look up at the camera aimed down at me and hold out my hands as if to say, “Could someone actually do their job here?”
I bend down and yell again.
Finally, the guard returns, looking irritated. “Help you?”
“Yeah, I’m here from Shreveport to take custody of Casey Cox. Detective Leibowitz is waiting for me.”
He slides a clipboard to me in a drawer under the window. “Sign in there.”
I hurriedly scribble out my info.
The loud metal door slides open and I hurry through the sally port where they get new arrestees out of the transport van. At the next locked door, I look up at the camera again, then back to the front desk just beyond the windows. I hear a loud click as the lock disengages.
I go in and sign some more forms, then they direct me to the booking room. The guard there seems to be logging a new booking’s personal items.
“Excuse me,” I say. “I need to see Detective Leibowitz. I’m here to take custody of Casey Cox.”
“They’re in a meeting right now,” she says. “You can sit down and I’ll tell them you’re here.”
I can’t accept that. “The meeting, it’s about her, isn’t it? She’s about to be extradited but I need to get back there. Please, go tell them I’m here.”
She seems to move slower just because I asked her to hurry. It’s a power thing. She takes her time finishing what she’s doing, then shuffles slower than natural around the hall and down to the corner. How long since I landed? Fifteen or twenty minutes? I check my watch.
Keegan couldn’t have gotten here much faster than me, but I did see his car in the parking lot so I know he’s still here. I pace in the holding area, my head splitting.
Finally, she comes back. “They’ll be right with you.”
“They’ll be right with me?” I repeat. “What is this, a bank? I came to transport an inmate, and I need to see them now!”
She doesn’t like my tone. “I told you, they’ll come when they can. They’re busy.”
“I’m busy too. Let me just go back. It’s really important that I—”
“Have a seat!” she yells as if I’m one of her prisoners.
I huff out a sigh and glance toward the bright orange plastic seats against the wall. I step toward them, then change my mind. She can just get over it. I lunge toward the doorway she came through. She jumps out of her seat and comes after me, moving remarkably faster now. “What are you doing?” she yells.
I don’t look back at her or slow my step, but I’m not sure where I should go. “I’m going to get my prisoner.”
“You get back in there!” she shrieks.
I don’t listen to her. I just keep walking, looking for any room that has people in it, hoping they’ll hear our voices and come out into the hall. Finally, I see a plainclothes man at the end of the hallway near an exit door. I hurry toward him. “Detective? I’m Dylan Roberts. I spoke to you over the phone.” I honestly don’t know if I spoke to him or someone else, but it does make him stop.
He looks a little sheepish and slides his hands into his pockets, but he steps toward me.
“He shot past me and came back here without permission!” the guard yells, her voice reverberating down the hall.
“It’s okay,” the detective says, holding out a hand to stem her assault on me. “I’ll take it from here.”
“I need to take custody of my prisoner,” I bite out. “Is she still here?”
“I’m sorry. They just left.”
I fight the urge to slam my hand against the wall. “You let Keegan take her? Are you insane?”
“I had to,” he says. “Our captain talked to your chief, and that was the plan.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” I say. “This is going to backfire on you. If anything goes wrong with this extradition, you’re going to be blamed.”
“For handing her over to the cop who was sent to get her?”
I want to scream that she’s telling the truth, that Keegan wants her dead, that she’ll never make it to Shreveport. But I don’t have time to tell him how I know that.
I push past him to the exit door he’s standing beside. “Did he go out this door?”
“They’re already gone. They just drove off.”
I pause for a minute, trying to control my raging need to break something.
“She asked for a local lawyer before he took her, but he opted to take her on to Shreveport.”
I’m sick at the thought of Casey in the car with Keegan. “She asked for a lawyer and you didn’t let her have one?”
He bristles. “It was his call. He said he would call the lawyer when they got there.”
I try to shift my thoughts. “She named a lawyer?”
“She said his name is Billy Barbero. I’ve never heard of him.”
I make a mental note of his name. I’ll get in touch with him as soon as I can, and maybe he can do something to stop the extradition. Maybe he can get in touch with Gates, and the chief can call Keegan and change the plan.
“So why won’t you let me out the exit door?”
“That’s only for transporting inmates. You’ll have to go out the way you came in.”
I’m wasting time here, so I head back the way I came, past the guard who’s seething over my audacity. “Thanks for your help,” I quip as I pass her.
I get to the metal doors. They take as long to open as they did on the way in, and finally I’m back in the parking garage at my car. I look to see if Keegan’s SUV is still there. Of course, it’s gone.
I can’t believe this. When in history have the wheels of justice moved this fast? I get in my car and try to figure out what Keegan will do. Will he head back toward Shreveport in the rental car? Go back to the airport and put her in his plane? Then I realize that he won’t do either because he doesn’t intend to transport her to Shreveport.
She’ll miraculously “vanish,” and he will skate.
I’m a failure, but I try anyway, pulling out of the parking lot and heading right and trying to catch up to any car that looks like his rental. But this is useless. I have failed Casey and it might cost her her life.
When I don’t find Keegan’s Tahoe, I decide on another course. I pull over and Google “Billy Barbero Memphis Attorney.” An address and phone number come up, and I click on the number to place the call, hoping he’ll answer even though it’s night.
“Yello.”
I’m surprised to hear that greeting. “Is this Mr. Barbero?”
“Yeah, that’s me. Who’s this?”
“My name is Dylan Roberts.” I know I’m speaking too fast, so I try to slow down. “I understand you’re the attorney for Casey Cox.”
There’s a long pause. “For who?”
“Casey Cox. She’s been all over the news. You’re Billy Barbero the attorney, aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” he says. “And I know who she is, but I never met the woman. You say she named me as her lawyer?”
“That’s right.” I’m confused. How would Casey have known him? Maybe he has a billboard or commercial. Or maybe he was the first listing in the phone book. “Mr. Barbero, what kind of law do you practice?”
“Mainly I represent disabled people, but I consider myself a full-service attorney. If she named me, I’ll be glad to defend her.”
“Full service?” I ask. “So you aren’t a criminal attorney?”
“Does she need a lawyer or not? Just tell me where she is.”
I feel like an idiot for even talking to this man. But he’s the only option I have. “I need you to listen carefully. Casey Cox has been placed in the custody of a Detective Gordon Keegan of the Shreveport PD. She claims he is the real killer of Brent Pace, among others. I need for you to call Chief Gates of the Shreveport PD and throw around as much weight as you can to stop her transport. I have evidence that Keegan is guilty and plans to kill her.”
“I’m listening,” he says.
“She doesn’t have much time. Don’t tell him you’re not a criminal attorney.”
“I’ll call right now.”
“Threaten to call a press conference. Threaten to smear the entire police force.”
“Don’t worry. I’m pretty good at intimidation.” He chuckles. “Casey Cox, huh?”
I roll my eyes. “Move heaven and earth, and call me back at this number.”
When I hang up, I pull over and beg God to intervene for Casey. But I wonder if my faith is too flimsy these days to move the mountain of Gordon Keegan.