“Save it, Sheriff. I understand that this is embarrassing to the department. Christ, of all the people in the room right now, I understand that better than anyone.”
“You’re getting defensive,” Meyer said with a roll of his eyes and a wave of his hand.
Granville shot to his feet, toppling his chair with his knees. “Defensive, my ass. Shall we talk about what really happened here tonight?”
“What we’ve been trying to do since we got here,” Sergeant Wilson said.
“Bullshit. Y’all have been trying to dig a bunker for yourselves with a door that’s too small to let me in.” As he felt the color rising in his cheeks, he knew that his dreams of getting away from the desk were done, but he didn’t give a shit anymore. “What actually happened here is a very carefully planned and brilliantly executed prison break.”
“That better not be admiration I hear in your tone, Deputy,” Willow said.
Granville glared. “Jesus Christ, Sheriff, open your eyes. ‘Admiration’ might not be exactly the right word, but I gotta tell you it’s close. It was a flawless plan.” He turned on Agent Meyer. “And why would you doubt that a team that was able to hijack our entire security system-and, in the process, erase every goddamn trace that they were ever here, despite the eyewitnesses-could figure out a way to forge a hunk of metal into a precious FBI badge, and some papers into convincing creds?”
He paused. It was a real question, but Agent Meyer’s only answer was to make his ears turn red.
Granville shifted his attention to his boss. “You know, Sheriff, as you struggle to find the right kind of message to send out to the voting public, you might want to mention the fact that thanks to me and all the other competent deputies you hired, we came this close to stopping them, and we limited what could have been a mass breakout to only one.”
Sheriff Willow prepared to be angry, but then the words got through, and he backed off.
Granville lowered his voice as he closed the deal. “What I saw happen tonight was nothing short of heroic. One deputy was overpowered and severely beaten, and then the rest of the team risked their lives to keep everything from going to hell.”
He turned to Meyer. “I’m guessing that your guy has some damned important friends, and they didn’t want him spending time with you. The kind of help he got doesn’t come cheap.”
“But he’s nobody,” Sergeant Wilson said. “Jimmy Henry is a small-time crook, in and out of the system two or three times, but no known ties to anyone important. No known ties to anyone at all.”
Just like that, Granville saw that he’d earned his way inside the circle. She was speaking to him, not at him. “He was accused of shooting up that school yesterday, right?” he asked. He knew the answer, so he kept going. “Maybe it was just a vigilante thing. People broke him out to string him up.”
“For God’s sake, Deputy George,” Sheriff Willow growled.
Again, Granville decided not to engage the boss, deciding to cut a break for the guy who was watching his career implode.
“Was there anything in this Leon guy’s words or actions that make you think that might be the case?” asked Sergeant Wilson.
Granville shrugged. “No. But then again, there was nothing in his words or actions that made me think he wasn’t an FBI agent.”
“Seems awfully Zane Grey to me,” Meyer said, alluding to the famed writer of pulp Westerns.
“You know what goes on at the school, right?” Granville pressed. “Every single student there is the child of an incarcerated parent. If ever there was a group that could open up a can of Zane Grey vigilantism, that would be the one.”
“It’s worth looking into,” Wilson said, jotting a note to herself. “We start with the parents of the two who were kidnapped-”
A state trooper who looked too old not to have any stripes on his sleeve interrupted Wilson by clearing his throat. He held a cell phone in his fingers, ready for it to be taken. “Excuse me, Sergeant, but this is a park ranger. He first asked for Sheriff Willow, but when I told him you were running the investigation, he said he wanted to talk with both of you.”
“A park ranger?” Wilson said. She looked to Willow. “Any objection to putting it on speaker?”
The sheriff shrugged.
She pressed the button on the phone. “This is Sergeant Wilson with the Virginia State Police,” she said. “I’m here with Sheriff Willow. How can we help you?”
The background noise through the speakers made it clear that the ranger was outdoors. “Yeah, hi,” said a young voice. “This is Paul Johnson with the National Park Service. I’m at the George Washington Birthplace Memorial here on Popes Creek?”
Everyone in the room shrugged together. “Okay,” Wilson said.
“Well, I think I’ve got something here that belongs to you.” A smile appeared in his voice. “Some one, actually. He says his name is Jimmy Henry. Does that mean anything to you?”
The morning crew at the Washington Birthplace Memorial had been shocked to find the shackled man chained to the base of the obelisk that marked the entry to the park. According to the incident reports they’d filled out for the National Park Service, the young man had been sleeping soundly on the ground. Once the workers saw the chains and the orange jumpsuit, they were able to link what they were seeing with the reports they’d heard on the radio, and they’d called higher-ups without actually approaching the fugitive.
Granville George was waiting at the jail when Jimmy Henry arrived. The overtime hadn’t been approved, but he didn’t care. If he had to eat a couple of official hours on his own nickel, that would be fine, just so long as he saw justice done.
They’d sent a car from Middlesex County to Westmoreland County to make the pickup, and when Jimmy was escorted in, Granville made a point of being right there in his face to let him know that actions had consequences in this part of the world, and that Jimmy had chosen poorly.
The rules in a case like this were clear. Jimmy Henry was processed just as if he were a first-arriving prisoner. His personal effects-none-were catalogued, and then he was escorted to the processing bay, where he was stripped naked and cavity searched. It was a part of the process that Granville didn’t particularly enjoy, but he’d long ago lost his guyshy instincts. It doesn’t take but one incident where someone literally pulls a weapon out of his ass to make you respect the importance of a cavity search.
He’d accordingly been prepared for the humiliation; but he hadn’t been prepared for the bruises. Jimmy Henry’s left leg was bruised beyond purple. It bore a deep black stripe from what must have been a brutal attack. When they called in the jail physician-actually a local doctor who moonlighted for folding money-they also found bruising around the kid’s throat, in addition to the more typical stress wounds inflicted by the unyielding shackles.
“Who did this to you?” the doctor asked.
“I don’t have to tell you anything,” Jimmy answered.
“Seems to me it serves your best interests to talk about the people who tortured you,” Agent Meyer said. Sergeant Wilson was in the room, too, but remained silent. If Granville wasn’t mistaken, she was embarrassed by the prisoner’s nakedness.
“Who said anything about torture?” Jimmy asked. “These bruises are from falling down.”
“Must have been a hell of a fall,” Granville said.
But the prisoner had shut down. “I know my rights,” he said. “I don’t have to tell you anything without a lawyer.”
“Who broke you out of here?” Sheriff Willow asked.
Sergeant Wilson put a hand on his shoulder. “He asked for a lawyer,” she said. “We’re done with questions.”
With that, it was over.
Granville stayed with Jimmy as he dressed himself in fresh orange coveralls, and then escorted him back to the cell where his evening had begun only a few hours before. As they walked together down the central hallway, Granville called out to the other inmates, “Take a look, gentlemen. You can try to run, but you’ll never get away.” Faces appeared at the windows in cell doors. “Jimmy Henry is back with us after only five hours on the run. He raised all that ruckus, and what did it buy for everyone? Forty-eight hours in lockdown. When y’all start going stir- crazy in there, I don’t want you getting pissed at me and the other guards. I want you to remember that Jimmy is
