Page 92 of The 1 Lawyer

The phone rang. The caller ID showed that it wasn’t coming from the courthouse or the Harrison County DA’s office, so I let it ring. I had a deadline to meet.

When I heard the front door of my office open, I wished I’d thought to lock it. I decided to go tell whoever was out there to come back later.

The door slammed shut. “Stafford Lee Penney!”

I knew that voice. With a jitter of trepidation, I pushed away from the desk, stepped out of my office, and went into the reception area. Sergeant Gorski and one of his fellow officers stood just inside the door.

He said, “We have a warrant for your arrest.” He held it in his hand.

It felt like my heart stopped.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. Jenny had warned me that it was going down. But hearing the words spoken and seeing the uniformed officers waiting to take me into custody—the reality sent me into shock.

My body went cold when they cuffed me. Despite the disconnect in my brain, I heard myself speak to Gorski. They read me my rights, but the words I knew by heart didn’t even register. Inside my head, a voice kept insisting: This isn’t possible. It can’t be happening. I haven’t done anything wrong.

I haven’t done anything.

My brain continued the litany of disbelief as they pulled me out to the squad car. One of them put a hand on my head and pushed me into the back seat. While I sat in the patrol car, staring at the officers through the battered prisoner partition barrier, the numbness faded and was replaced by a very different sensation.

It was fear.

I’d been arrested for murder. Murder.

This was really happening, and I was scared. Scared shitless, like they say.

They were going to lock me up. I might never walk free again.

CHAPTER 73

I’D BEEN arrested before, less than a year ago.

This was different.

Back then, they’d dragged me in for passing out on the beach. After my drunken scuffle with the cops, when I was banged up and miserable, they’d tossed me into the drunk tank with the other lowlifes, and I’d waited to be released.

This time, I wasn’t going anywhere.

At the jail, they fingerprinted me, took a mug shot. After I was processed, I figured they’d take me to a jail cell. They took me to an interrogation room instead.

I sat alone in the room for a time. On my feet, I wore white crew socks and orange Crocs. The jailer had issued them to me along with my jailhouse scrubs, and I’d stared at the shoes I’d never worn before until he said, “We started using these to cut down on escapes.”

“What?”

“So you can’t get away. They’re hard as hell to run in. You’re not going to make a break for it if you’re wearing Crocs.”

They kept me cooling my heels in the interrogation room for about an hour, I think, but I had no way of knowing for sure. They’d taken my phone, my wristwatch. My clothes were stored in the inmate property room. The orange jail scrubs I wore were a poor fit. My feet and ankles stuck out from pants made for a man much smaller than I was.

Figuring someone was watching me through the camera mounted on the wall, I tried to sit still and not let them see me sweat.

But I was sweating, big-time.

Finally, the door opened. I was surprised to see Detective Sweeney enter, carrying two foam cups. I had naively assumed he would avoid a confrontation with me. We had a history from Carrie Ann’s death.

Sweeney was accompanied by another plainclothes officer, a detective named McGuire. McGuire held a folder in his hands. They sat, and Sweeney nudged one of the cups across the table. “I thought you might want some coffee,” he said.

Ah, he’s the good cop.

McGuire passed the folder to Sweeney. The detective opened it and pulled a pen from his inside jacket pocket. “I’ve got a Miranda waiver here.”

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