Page 28 of The Wrong Side of the Law

“I’m sorry, Miss Wilson,” he interrupts, opening the door and leading me in the direction of the holding pen. “There is no mistake. Your brother was in possession of rather a large amount of MDMA. Ecstasy. Almost a half-kilo of it.”

“That’s not possible!” A half-kilo? That’s… “Trafficking? You’re going to charge him with trafficking. That amount… that’s a fifteen-year mandatory minimum sentence!”

The cop gives me a sideways glance.

“You’re remarkably familiar with trafficking laws,” he says.

“I work for the State Attorney’s office,” I tell him, rolling my eyes. “Specifically, I’m a paralegal in the Narcotics Unit. It’s myjobto be familiar with the laws.”

You jerk, I add, but only in my head.

“Really?” He cocks his head to the side, raising his eyebrows. “That’s absolutely fascinating.”

I open my mouth, a hot retort primed and ready to go, but Mayfield raises his hand to stop me.

“It’s out of my hands,” he says. “Even if I wanted to just somehow magically overlook the fact that Francis Wilson was arrested in possession of a rather illegal drug, in a large enough quantity to constitute trafficking, I couldn’t just make it go away.”

Lieutenant Mayfield stops mid-stride in the hallway.

“And even if Icoulddo it,” he says, his eyes and voice turning to razor-edged steel. “I wouldn’t do it. No matter what kind of… payoff was offered.” His mouth twists into a scowl of disgust. “As I was forced to explain to your mother, tonight.”

Shaking his head, he begins walking again.

“Stepmother,” I say, reflexively, frozen in place and trying to make sense of what he’d just said. “Wait, wait. Stop,” I call out, running a few steps to catch up. “Are you telling me that Margaret offered you abribe?”

“In a manner of speaking,” he answers, shaking his head. “While your brother was being fingerprinted, she backed me into a corner, pressed up against me, and started unbuttoning her blouse. It was…”

I don’t even hear the rest of what he says. My head is spinning.

Margaret tried to buy Francis’s way out of jail with her own body. She truly must be desperate. She’d never have done that, not if there was any other magic wand she could wave to get the right end result.

She really does believe that it’s all gone.

Lieutenant Mayfield stops outside a door.

“This is the waiting area. Your stepmother is in there,” he says. He pauses before pushing the door open. “I’d, ah… I’dprefernot to go in there, myself. You understand, don’t you?”

The awkwardness on his face would have made me laugh under any other circumstance.

“Yeah. I do.” I sigh, leaning against the wall. “I’d rather not see her tonight, either. I don’t think I have any choice, though.” I pause and look over at the cop. “Can I see my brother first? Please?”

Mayfield frowns, staring at the floor over crossed arms for what seems like an eternity.

“Okay,” he says, finally. “Five minutes. You’re right. I do know your family. I did know your father. And, yeah, Jeanne-Michelle did talk about you guys. About you and Francis.” Mayfield sighs. “And you’re right, this does not sound like the young man that I’d have expected Francis Wilson Junior to have become. Five minutes. That’s all I can give you. Then you have to take yourstepmother and get her the hell out of here before she tries to bribe anyone else.”

“Thank you,” I tell him. “Five minutes is all that I’m going to need.”

Lieutenant Mayfield leads me in a different direction, toward the back of the building. Toward the holding cells.

The first thing that hits me is the stench. Three large cells. In the first, two men, thin as rails. One sleeps peacefully on a stainless-steel bench. The other is curled up in the fetal position on the floor, one foot twitching like a dog in the middle of a dream.

The smell grows worse at the second cell. It’s empty, except for another shiny metal bench and a bucket, and a small lake of something that I avoid looking at too closely.

“We haven’t had time to clean it up yet,” Mayfield says in a matter-of-fact tone.

Francis Junior is in the third cell, curled up against the wall with his arms around his legs and his head on his knees. He looks up at the sound of footsteps, and rushes to the metal bars as soon as he recognizes me.

“Em,” he says. “Thank God you’re here.” His eyes dart between me and Mayfield and he frowns. “Aren’t you going to open the door?”

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