I resigned myself to slipping away at my first opportunity. It's a small town sheriff station. How hard could it be to break out of?
Chapter Seven: I am Being Detained
AS IT TURNED OUT, IT was harder than you'd think. Farnell radioed ahead, telling them he was coming in with a suspect and to get a cell ready. Faster than I expected, there was the clunk of the solid, barred door closing and locking behind me.
"Back up to the bars and stick your hands out, I'll uncuff you," Farnell said.
The cuffs released and I got my hands back. I turned to face Farnell, who was studying me.
"Marty will take your prints and run them. Before he does that you can come clean with me and tell me who you are. It's really uncanny how much you look like Jake. You're definitely a relative. Why don't you just be straight with me? Tell me what's happened."
I trusted Farnell. He'd been nothing but kind to me. Even now, he was trying to do right by me. He'd seen some random stranger screwing around with my car and claiming to be me, and had arrested him. Well, detained him—me anyway. Something clicked and I decided to just be straight with him. Worst case scenario I could just break out and try not to hurt anyone.
Farnell was waiting for me to speak. I opened my mouth to do so and was interrupted.
"Sheriff, can you come in here a minute? Minuteman Ranch again," a female voice called from the other room.
"Oh for Pete's sake. Hold on, son. I'll be back," he said, turning and hurrying out of the holding area.
I heard a conversation start, Farnell and one or two others talking, but couldn't make out the words. After a few minutes passed I realized I might be waiting a while.
The cell I was in was pretty small, roughly fifteen feet square with a concrete floor and two cots. There was another with the same layout right next to it, empty. A pair of cameras mounted high on the walls looked down into the cells.
Idly, I gripped the bars of the cell door and tugged on them. They had absolutely no give to them at all. Let's see just how strong I am.
I braced my feet and tried to force the door open, a hand on the bars to each side of the opening. The muscles of my arms, chest, and back bulged. The steel cage creaked and groaned as I torqued it, but I could feel that I simply didn't have the strength to force it open. Maybe the locking mechanism would fatigue and snap eventually, but it wasn't going to do it anytime soon. I released my grip with a frustrated sigh.
"Holy shit, how strong are you?" a voice asked, and I jumped a bit.
Framed in the doorway to the right was a tall, lanky man. He had dirty-blonde hair down past his shoulders, a receding hairline, and a magnificent Wild Bill Hickock handlebar mustache. Above the stache were curious, watery blue eyes under wire-rim glasses.
He didn't seem to be one of the deputies. He was wearing jeans and underneath his open parka I could see a black t-shirt with a UFO and the slogan "I want to believe" underneath it. His boots were caked with snow.
"Ah, yeah. I lift a bit," I replied. "I wanted to see just how strong these doors were."
"Just a bit? I think you'd need a truck to pull that door off. You made it sound pretty unhappy."
I shrugged, not sure how to respond to that.
He stomped a couple times, knocking the snow off his boots before coming into the room and closing the door behind him.
"What's the sheriff got you in there for anyway?"
"A bit of mistaken identity."
Sheriff Farnell ducked back into the room and spotted the newcomer. "Marty, don't bother this man. Take his fingerprints and run them."
"Yes, sir," Marty replied and with a glance at me left the room. Farnell closed the door behind him, leaving it open a crack.
Marty returned a few minutes later, having hung up his parka and fetched a fingerprint scanner.
"Put your right hand through the bars, please," he instructed.
I did and he pressed my fingers down onto the scanner one at a time, waiting for a beep. He then repeated the process with my left hand before leaving again.
Farnell came back a minute later, pulling his toque back on his head.
"I've got a bit of a crisis that I have to deal with. You're going to have to wait, I'm afraid. We'll be back in a couple of hours. Anything you need to tell me before I go?"
"Sheriff, I know I look different. I've changed over the last two weeks and you don't believe it, I get it. I'm Chris Monde's son. The same guy that got punched in the face by Wayne a couple of weeks ago. I can explain all of it, but I haven't got a lot of time. I've got somewhere I need to be. Let me go. Please."
Farnell scratched his chin, looking tired. "You're right, I don't believe it. Not at all. But I'll listen when I get back. I've got to go talk these Minutemen dickheads down before they get the ATF here and we have another Waco. You sit tight."
With that, he was gone. I heard a few engines start outside and vehicles roared off. The station was quiet.
It didn't take more than a minute to decide staying in that cell any longer was completely pointless. Sure, maybe I could convince the sheriff, but I didn't need to do that. I could just leave, and now that he was gone, there wouldn't be any
