strength to pull open the top of the bag, and when I did, I noticed that a series of thin red stripes along the top got ripped to hell. Even our jails had adopted tamper-evident packaging. That was a good thing, I supposed; it could be the reason my TBI badge wasn’t going to show up on eBay during my murder trial.
I put on my shirt, watch, and badge, and Andrews led me out a glass door and into the sally port. The door, likewise labeled RELEASE, mirrored the Intake door some fifteen feet away. Anderson raised his radio to his mouth. “We need one-sixty-two,” he said, and I heard an electronic lock click open in a steel door set into the wall beside the garage door. He ushered me out, blinking, into the brilliant Tennessee sunshine, where DeVriess sat idling in his car. On the embankment above, at the edge of the facility’s parking lot, I saw a thicket of television cameras, and I guessed that one of the sightseeing deputies inside had tipped off a cousin or girlfriend who worked at one of the stations. I got in with as much speed and dignity as I could combine, and Burt backed down to a spot where he could turn around. Then we retraced our route along Maloneyville Road, Washington Pike, and the expressways until we pulled into the garage beneath Riverview Tower once more. Burt dropped me at my rental car. As I opened the door of the Bentley, he reached over and took my arm to keep me there a moment longer. “Those reporters will probably show up at your house in a few minutes,” he said. “You might want to go back to the cabin for another night or two.”
“Damn. You’re probably right.”
On the drive back to Norris, I mentally replayed the experience of being booked for murder. Aside from the extra set of prints for the “major crimes package,” nothing about the process seemed to have any relation to the terrible outrage inflicted on Jess. I might just as well have been getting booked for shoplifting. For that matter, it wasn’t that different from the paperwork for a minor surgical procedure at an outpatient clinic; a proctoscopy sprang immediately to mind. The criminal justice system-like my own forensic work-contained relatively few moments of high drama, I realized, widely spaced by long intervals of boredom and drudgery.
During my hour and ten minutes as an inmate-I had been promised I’d be out in an hour, but I figured I’d asked at least fifteen minutes of questions along the way-I had moved along a carefully orchestrated assembly line, like a car chassis moving through the factory. I had traced a big U, with one side of the U corresponding to Intake and the other side to Release, with a short hallway connecting the two at the base. Some of the procedures seemed silly, such as surrendering and inventorying my personal effects only to reclaim them a mere seventy minutes later. But there was an elegant symmetry to the process, too, a satisfying sense of ceremony or ritual.
I’d gone in one side, stripped of almost everything I had, and had come out the other, where everything was restored to me. I wondered if there was any hope of that same symmetry holding true in the rest of my life. I couldn’t see it yet. I hoped that was merely because I was still locked on the “Intake” side of the nightmare.
CHAPTER 35
TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AFTER I’D gotten dressed up for my arrest, I put on the same outfit once more and climbed into the Taurus. I felt odd and conspicuous-ashamed, almost-to drive through the rustic cabins and campground wearing a coat and tie, especially two days in a row. The fancy getup seemed as inappropriate here in the woods as shorts and a T-shirt would have seemed at a symphony concert. But once I got to the funeral, I would blend right in.
I had not known Jess was religious; for that matter, I still didn’t, but the location of her memorial service-St. Paul’s Episcopal Church-suggested that either Jess or whoever arranged her funeral was. How strange, I reflected as I approached the outskirts of Chattanooga yet again, to know someone’s flesh as intimately as I had recently come to know Jess’s, yet to know nearly nothing about their spirit, or at least their beliefs.
St. Paul’s was located in downtown Chattanooga, three blocks from the convention center and practically alongside U.S. 27, the elevated expressway that skirted the western edge of the business district before crossing the Tennessee River and angling northeast up the valley of the Tennessee River. I took the second downtown exit, which fed me north onto Pine Street; I was early, so I was able to park at a meter directly across the street from the church’s main entrance.
St. Paul’s was set above street level, and the entrance was beside a tall bell tower of red brick, rising from a gray limestone base. Episcopalians, I’d observed, tended to have a flair for architecture, along with the money to indulge it. As I crossed the street to the front steps, I noticed several police cars at the curb. Technically, Jess wasn’t part of the police department, but she was part of the extended family of law enforcement, and the code of honor extended to her: You turn out to honor your fallen comrades. The unwritten, darker corollary, I’d noticed over the years, was that the more shocking the death, the bigger the turnout, as if a show of posthumous solidarity might somehow make up for the tragedy that had struck down one of their own-or prevent the next one.
As I topped two flights of steps and reached a brick plaza just below the double wooden doors into the nave, I noticed two uniformed officers flanking the entrance. I thought perhaps they were giving out programs, but their hands were empty, so I decided they were simply some sort of honor guard. One of the officers looked my way; I made eye contact with him and nodded somberly. He stepped forward to meet me. “Dr. Brockton?”
“Yes, hello there,” I said, holding out my hand and reading the name MICHAEL QUARLES on a brass bar on his chest. “Have we worked together before, Officer Quarles?”
“No, sir,” he said, “we haven’t met. Dr. Brockton, I’m sorry, but you’re not allowed here.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re not allowed to be here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I said, sir. You’re not allowed to enter the church; in fact, you’re not allowed anywhere on the church property, so I’ll have to ask you to go back down these steps.”
“This is Dr. Carter’s memorial ser vice, isn’t it?” He nodded once. “She was a colleague and a friend of mine,” I said.
“Maybe so,” he said, “but there’s a restraining order, signed by Judge Avery, that bars you from entering this church or setting foot on this property today. So I’m asking you-no, sir, I’m telling you-to leave the property now.”
I stared at him, dumbfounded. “Who requested this restraining order?”
“Assistant District Attorney Preston Carter.” Jess’s ex-husband.
“This is not right,” I protested. “He has no grounds for this.”
“Way I hear it, you’ve been charged with her murder,” he said. “I’d call that pretty solid ground. In any case, we’re here to enforce a restraining order that bars you from this property. I’ll give you to the count of three to comply; if you do not, I will take you into custody, sir.”
“Who can I talk to about this?”
“One.”
“I need to be in there.”
“Two.”
“
“Three.” He stepped forward and took my arm. I shook off his grip; without taking his eyes from mine, he reached to the back of his belt, where I knew police carried their handcuffs. Holding up both hands, I began backing down the stairs. He allowed me to retreat. A small group of onlookers who had gathered at the foot of the steps parted to let me pass. Some of them glanced at me furtively; others stared openly.
I noticed Jess’s receptionist at the edge of the group, her eyes rimmed in red. “Amy,” I said, “
The two policemen were still watching me. I looked from one unyielding face to the other, then finally shook my head and walked across the street to the Taurus. As I pulled away from the curb onto Pine Street, I rolled down my window and stopped to give the officers a long last look, which they returned without expression. Then I took my foot off the brake and eased north on Pine, toward the STOP sign at Sixth Street. As I turned right onto Sixth, I
