"That will be an interesting position to defend. " Odell's voice again quieter. Where did you get that ID? I was appointed to the federal district court bench in 2008. Renee said by the president of the United States. Senate confirmation vote was 94 to3.
The ID is issued by the administrative office of the US courts. It has a federal holographic seal, a security thread, and my judicial circuit number on the reverse. You're welcome to verify any of that. Silence. Then Odell very carefully.
If that's true, it is true, Renee said. And you know it is. Another silence. Longer. Kowalsski again, but quieter now.
Something uncertain edging into his voice for the first time. Even if she is a judge, she's still obstructed. Citing constitutional precedent is not obstruction. Renee said, "I have now told three officers that tonight. I will tell a federal grand jury the same thing in approximately 10 days. " The room went very still.
Ferris in the hallway heard Odell say something low and urgent to Kowalsski. He couldn't make out the words. Then the door opened and Odell stepped out, nearly walked into Ferris, and stopped. The two men looked at each other. "Chief," Ferris said carefully.
"Have we verified her credentials? " Odell's jaw tightened. "Handle your own case load, detective. " He walked away. Ferris looked at the closed interrogation room door for a long moment. Then he reached into his jacket pocket, took out his personal cell phone, and walked to the far end of the hallway where the cameras had a known blind spot he had identified 7 months ago. for reasons that now felt he realized like they had been leading to exactly this moment. He opened his camera app and he started photographing everything.
The front desk phone rang at 12:09 a.m. The officer on desk duty. A young man named Torres, who had been with the department 14 months and had spent most of tonight trying to look like he wasn't noticing anything, picked it up on the second ring. Dalton PD Central when this is the federal court clerk's office for the Northern District of Georgia. The voice on the other end was crisp and unhesitating.
We're calling regarding the detention of a federal judicial officer. Please connect me with whoever is in charge of that booking. Torres looked at the phone then across the room at Puit who was refilling his coffee. One moment. Torres said.
He put the call on hold and walked to Puit with the particular careful speed of someone who does not want to run but very much wants to. Puit took the call in the side office. Through the glass partition, Torres watched his expression move through several distinct phases. mild annoyance, then a particular focused stillness, then something that Torres, in 14 months on the job, had never seen on Puit's face before. Uncertainty. Puit came out of the side office 2 minutes later and went directly to find Odell.
Torres went back to his desk and sat very still and did not reach for his own phone because he understood with the instinct of someone young enough to still have instincts that whatever was happening tonight was the kind of thing you wanted a clear record of having stayed completely out of. In the hallway outside interrogation room, two Ferris had just finished photographing the booking log when his own desk phone buzzed a text from a number he recognized as the marshall's office duty line. Aware of situation ETA 25 minutes keep the scene intact. He read it twice, put his phone away, walked back toward the booking area with his hands in his pockets and his face arranged into the expression of a man who had nowhere particular to be. The front desk phone rang again.
Then the second line lit up simultaneously. Torres answered the first US Marshall's service asking for the watch commander. The second line was the Department of Justice duty officer. By 12:21 a.m., four lines were lit on the front desk panel. Odell was in the side office with the door closed.
Through the glass, Torres could see him on his personal cell phone, not the department line. Jeffrey Pratt reappeared from wherever he had been waiting, and came to stand at the booking counter. His earlier composure had developed a fine visible crack, something around the eyes, something in the way he was standing slightly forward on the balls of his feet, like a man preparing to move quickly in a direction he hadn't yet decided on. "What's happening with the phones? " he asked Torres. "Multiple incoming calls regarding the detainee, sir," Torres said in the flattest voice he could manage.
"From whom? " Torres looked at his notepad. Federal court clerk's office, US Marshall Service, Department of Justice duty line, and he checked the most recent note Torres had written in increasingly careful handwriting. The office of the state attorney general. Pratt said nothing. His face did something complicated.
Why? They're all asking for her by name, Torres added, because he felt it was relevant and by title. Pratt turned and walked quickly back toward the side office where Odell was still on his phone. He knocked once and went in without waiting for an answer. In the hallway, Ferris heard raised voices through the office wall.
Not words, just the shape of an argument, the rhythm of two men trying to reassign blame in real time. He walked past the holding cells, stopped at cell three, looked in. Renee Caldwell was sitting exactly as she had been 40 minutes ago. Same posture, same stillness. She looked up at him.
"Detective Ferris," she said quietly. "His name," she remembered his name. "Your honor," he said. The words came out before he decided to say them, pulled by something stronger than caution. "Is there anything I can do? " She looked at him for a moment. measuring.
She had spent 22 years reading people across a courtroom, reading the ones who were telling the truth and the ones who were almost telling the truth, and the ones who thought they were hiding something they weren't hiding at all. You can make sure every phone call this station receives in the next 30 minutes gets properly logged. She said with the exact time the originating office and the name of the officer who took it already doing that Ferris said something shifted in her expression. Not surprise exactly, more like recognition. There's a journalist in the parking lot.
She said it was not a question. Ferris paused. "What makes you say that Sandra Obi is extremely thorough? " Renee said simply. Ferris glanced toward the front of the building. Through the narrow window at the end of the cell block hallway, he could see the parking lot.
A news van, Lights Off, was parked at the far edge near the street. A woman stood beside it with a camera. He turned back to Renee. Your clerk called her. Sandra calls everyone, Renee said.