The 7th Victim - Alan Jacobson [58]
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