The detention center stood behind an ordinary municipal building that Nia had passed hundreds of times. Its rear entrance was a slab of concrete framed by iron gates, made more forbidding by the fact that nobody had tried to make it forbidding. Halverson parked beside a loading bay and opened her door. Two officers watched from beneath an overhang while he took her inside. They did not appear surprised by the way he handled her.
“Got somebody important tonight,” Halverson announced to the desk. “Claims she's a federal judge.”
“I am a federal judge,” Nia said.
A sergeant with thinning gray hair looked over his reading glasses. His nameplate said Mercer. He studied her face, then the clipboard in his hand, then Halverson with an expression that suggested he understood more than he intended to say. “We'll process the arrest as submitted,” he told the officers. “Bring her around.”
Nia asked to contact her attorney. Mercer replied that she would have the opportunity after intake. She repeated that she wanted counsel and did not consent to questioning. A younger clerk at the desk glanced up sharply, but Mercer continued reading from a form. The room was bright, all pale green walls and hard plastic chairs. A vending machine hummed in the corner, as indifferent to what was happening as the ceiling lights.
Halverson handed over a sealed evidence envelope. Nia watched him place it on the counter and made a point of observing who took possession. Mercer initialed a line without examining the seal. A technician carried the envelope toward a narrow door marked PROPERTY. The transfer was quick, routine, and so lacking in ceremony that it made Nia more concerned rather than less. A process built to preserve evidence was being handled as though no question about the evidence could possibly arise.
“I want the chain of custody preserved in its original form,” she said.
“Lady, you're not running the station,” Mercer replied.
“No,” Nia said. “I'm requesting that it be run correctly.”
An officer took her fingerprints, then another photographed her beneath harsh lighting. She kept her chin level for the camera, although the muscles in her neck had begun to ache. Somewhere a door slammed and a woman shouted that she needed her medicine. The officer photographing Nia told her not to look so severe. She did not answer. She knew that an unflattering photograph could live on a website for years after an accusation had been disproved, becoming shorthand for guilt among people who never read the disposition.
A television mounted over the processing counter turned to a news station. Nia saw her own car appear on the screen and recognized a shaky recording from the intersection. The image showed Halverson pressing her onto the hood, and then the clip jumped to him holding up the bag. A red caption beneath it announced that a federal judge had been arrested after a traffic stop. The reporter's voice was careful about the words “alleged” and “suspected,” but the framing made the distinction hard to hear.