TWENTY-NINE MINUTES LATER, the tiger-eyed brunet came slinking out of the Food & More. He sat back and watched from about thirty yards away. She quickly loaded the groceries into the trunk and got into her car. He started his Audi and drove toward her, timing his arrival with her exit.
He’d taken a quick inventory of her before they’d parted company: a bare ring finger; a smattering of items in her cart: veggies, spices, herbal tea, fresh salmon. No beer or frozen pizza, steaks or pork chops. Not as foolproof as checking the house for large tennis shoes or men’s clothing, but he felt reasonably sure she did not have a male significant other waiting for her at home.
They left the parking lot together and headed home.
The drive to the Adult Detention Center was a long one, slowed by rush hour traffic. The deputy moved through the lines of cars using his overhead light bar whenever possible, but even driving the shoulders made the hour-long ride seem twice as long.
Vail kept her head turned away from the window, hoping no one she knew would see her. With her arms drawn back behind her shoulders, she had to sit forward in the seat—and after the first fifteen minutes, her hands had gone numb and her back ached something terrible. But her ego and emotions were in far worse shape. Humiliation was much too weak a word to describe how she felt: the anger, the embarrassment ran much deeper.
For a fleeting moment, she wondered how the arrest would affect her position with the Bureau. She had heard of agents getting into domestic disputes, but it hadn’t happened to anyone she knew or anyone who’d worked out of her field office, so she never learned the agents’ final disposition.
For a fleeting moment, she wondered how her unit would relate to her now. She’d always had difficulty fitting in, even with six years under her belt. Now, having been accused of assaulting her ex-husband, it would feed the stereotype every law enforcement professional had of a female agent: that she had to be buff and butch and aggressive to succeed. She wanted to think it wasn’t true, but another part of her conceded that to some extent, it might just be the case.
For a fleeting moment, she thought of putting a gun to Deacon’s head.
For a fleeting moment, tears began to pool in her eyes.
And it was then that the cruiser pulled up to the sprawling Adult Detention Center on Judicial Drive. Populated with multistory buildings and encompassing several square blocks, the campus housed the booking center, the male and female prisons, the sheriff’s department, Juvenile and Domestic Relations, magistrate offices, and the courthouse. Vail had visited the ADC a number of times while meeting deputies in court, visiting prisoners she needed to interview for her research papers, and consulting on the department’s new LiveScan fingerprint identification database. But there were thousands of employees, and she knew only a handful. Doubtful she would run into any of them, particularly now, since the day shift had long since ended. Doubtful they could do anything to help her, anyway.
The squad car pulled down the long ramp leading to the Sally Port and waited for the guard, who was watching them on a monitor inside the building, to open the mammoth electronic steel doors. Vail had never come in this way before, and as the large entryway slammed shut behind them and darkness descended on the garage, she decided once was enough.
After parking the cruiser beside an unmarked cherry red Ford Mustang, the deputy placed his handgun and her Glock into the weapons locker, then led her through the Sally Port’s double set of electronic security doors into the central booking area. The last time Vail had been here was when she’d been given a tour of the new facility a few days before it had opened a few years ago. It was then a cavernous, deserted room, computers and equipment blanketed with clear covers, white ceramic tile, and freshly painted cinder block walls. Her nose had stung from recently varnished oak trim and countertops. It was almost too spiffy to be a jail, she’d thought at the time.
But she didn’t feel that way now. Deputies manned the expansive booking desk, where papers stuck to clipboards and files were stacked on end, memos and rosters were taped to walls. Phones rang, keys clanged, printers spat out documents . . . movement was everywhere as prisoners were being processed.
She was led to a counter-mounted camera, positioned in front of a wall with measured hash marks, and handed a metal identification sign that she held in front of her chest. The flash flickered, her face flushed out of embarrassment, and she was ushered over to a fixed cement stool. “Wait here,” Officer Greenwich instructed. He handed some paperwork to another deputy, who was operating the freestanding electronic fingerprint unit.
“It’ll be a while, I’ve got a line ahead of her,” the deputy said.
Greenwich leaned forward, turned his body slightly, and spoke into his colleague’s ear. The deputy glanced at Vail, said something to Greenwich, who nodded, then walked back over to Vail.
“He’s going to move you up a bit,” Greenwich said. “Professional courtesy.”
Forty-five minutes later she was standing in front of the LiveScan fingerprint scanner, where her ridges and whorls were recorded electronically. She knew this system intimately. The thought of being on the receiving—rather than the demonstrating end—depressed her. And she had plenty of time to be alone with her thoughts, as she waited again, this time for over an hour, before being led to a row of intake booths, a line of four-by-four semiprivate cubicles outfitted with bulletproof glass, a built-in microphone, and a pass-through slot. This was where she would meet with a magistrate, where she would finally have her chance to say something in her defense.
Greenwich slid the signed statement of facts through the narrow opening in the glass. The magistrate— Nicholas Harrison, according to the nameplate on the desk—was a broad, round-faced man with black-rimmed bifocals. He pushed a file aside and picked up the deputy’s form. He glanced at Vail, then nodded to Greenwich, who was standing behind her and off to the right.
“Good evening, Your Honor. I’ve got an eighteen-two-fifty-seven point two, Dom Vio. Complainant is Deacon Tucker. Suspect is Karen Vail, a special agent with the FBI. Mr. Tucker alleges that Ms. Vail presented to his house, and when he asked her to leave, she became violent and kicked him in the face—”
Vail stepped forward. “That’s not the way it happened—”
“Just a moment, Agent Vail,” Harrison instructed through the glass. His voice was tinny through the speaker, but his wrinkled brow and extended index finger were quite clear. “You’ll have an opportunity to give your version in a moment.” He turned back to Greenwich. “Continue.”
“After getting kicked in the face, Mr. Tucker fell. He alleges that Agent Vail then delivered two kicks to his torso. She left the scene and complainant was taken by ambulance to Virginia Presbyterian with multiple broken ribs. He was treated and released four hours later.”
The magistrate reclined in his high-backed chair. “Anything else?”
“Computer picked up a PD forty-two in the file from eighteen months ago.”
“Same complainant?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What’s a PD forty-two?” Vail asked.
Harrison removed his glasses and leaned forward. “It’s what’s called a suspicious event. If there’s a violent altercation between spouses but insufficient evidence to make an arrest, the incident is logged and held inactive in the file.” He replaced his glasses and opened a folder, then rifled through some papers. He pulled a document and looked it over.
Vail shifted her feet. Eighteen months ago. That was when Deacon hit her with his fist and she hit him back with an iron skillet, opening a gash on his forehead. He called the police and attempted to have her arrested. But because she had also had physical signs of an injury—a swollen and bloody lip—and no eyewitnesses, the officers were unable to identify the primary aggressor and could not take any action.
“Well,” the magistrate said without lifting his eyes from the sheet, “there seems to be a pattern of violence here, Agent Vail.” He slowly met her gaze. “Do you have anything to say?”
“I do, Your Honor. The incident eighteen months ago was perpetrated by my ex-husband. He hit me and I hit him back with a pan. I took my son with me and we left that night. I filed for divorce the next morning. Today’s incident was an extension of something that happened a few days ago. Deacon Tucker assaulted me—”
The magistrate’s eyebrows rose. “Oh. Is there a report on file with FPD?”
