“Come on,” Josie said as Gretchen squeezed the vehicle into the nearest parking space. “Let’s see what’s going on.”
The reporters didn’t even register them as they walked toward the Chief. Uniformed officers emerged from the cars and began unloading their prisoners from the back seats.
“Sweet baby Jesus,” Gretchen muttered under her breath as the Mayor and her husband were taken from the back of the first car in handcuffs. Connie Prather followed, also cuffed. From the backseat of the second car, the officers brought out Marisol Dutton and two men, one of whom Josie recognized as Kurt Dutton. She had only seen him in campaign photos around town, but the Dutton Enterprises insignia on his navy polo shirt left no doubt. All of them were lined up in single file. The Chief began marching them inside. As the Mayor passed Amber, she glared. “Did you know about this? Did you know? If I find out you knew about this and didn’t tell me, you’re fired.”
“Shut it, Charleston,” the Chief said over his shoulder. “You’re not firing her. You wanted a press liaison so now we have a press liaison. Watts! Handle the press!”
He left Amber behind, standing before a gaggle of reporters. Josie and Gretchen slipped past her and into the building where the Chief was directing the women into one holding cell and the men into another. All of them except Connie Prather were shouting, demanding phone calls and attorneys and hollering about how the Chief had no right to arrest them.
Chief Chitwood stood before the two cells, holding his hands up until he had complete silence. “I know what your damn rights are. You’ll each get a phone call so you can have your attorneys down here. You just wait until we get you booked in here.”
“This is outrageous,” Tara Charleston shouted, her voice full of venom. “You’re done in this town, Chitwood.”
“Save it,” the Chief told her. “I’m not interested.”
Kurt Dutton stepped forward, wrapping his hands around the bars. When he spoke, his voice was calm and reasonable. “Chief,” he said. “I understand you’re trying to make a point here, and you’ve made it. What can we do to resolve this without having to involve our attorneys?”
Tara said, “Kurt, didn’t you see the press out there? It’s too late to not involve our attorneys! If nothing else, we should sue him for defamation of character.”
Tara’s husband, who sat on one of the benches in the men’s cell dressed in surgical scrubs, said in a weary voice, “Tar, just stop, okay? Let Kurt handle this.”
The third man, a stocky guy with thinning blond hair dressed in a suit, stepped up to the bars. He called out, “Conn? You okay?”
Connie Prather spoke for the first time since they’d entered the station. “I’m fine, Joe,” she said tightly.
Her husband, Josie realized. Mr. Prather turned his attention to the Chief. “I’m interested in hearing your answer, Chief. What can we do to avoid taking this any further?”
The Chief raised a brow. “I’ve been fighting with you people for days. Now you’re ready to talk? Now I have your attention?”
Kurt Dutton’s expression was conciliatory. “Look, Chief, I apologize. Perhaps some of the city’s supplies were… misappropriated.”
The Chief snorted.
Kurt went on. “We owe you an apology for making your job more difficult.”
Josie said, “You could have cost this city lives by taking resources meant for other areas.”
The Chief didn’t shush her. Instead, he looked at his prisoners, bushy brows raised, as if waiting for one of them to give an explanation. Connie Prather came to the front of the women’s cell and said, “What we did was wrong, okay? Is that what you want to hear?”
“No,” the Chief said. “What I want to hear is that you’ll return every last thing you took from Emergency Services.”
Tara’s husband said, “What if they return it? Kurt?”
Dutton glanced back at the surgeon, looking uncomfortable at being called out specifically. Turning his attention back to the Chief, he said, “Take us back to Quail Hollow, and your officers can supervise the return of every last resource. It won’t happen again, and we can forget this whole thing.”
The Chief studied him for a moment. Josie sidled up to him and without moving her lips, spoke low enough so that only he could hear her. “We need to talk to the wives about the Urban matter.”
“Fine,” the Chief said to Dutton. “But just you three. Patrol will take you back to Quail Hollow. Once everything is returned, you can collect your wives. I’m going to ask Emergency Services to patrol around the back of your development until all this is over to make sure you’re not sneaking supplies over there.”
Protests erupted from both cells. Chitwood shouted, “I’m not done!” and they fell silent.
“You’ll also be cited.”
Tara said, “You’ve got to be joking.”
Prather said, “For what?”
The Chief said, “I’ll think of something! You’re not getting off scot-free, you got that?”
“No deal,” Tara said. “Forget it.”
Chitwood shrugged. “Okay, we’ll do it your way. We’ll book you all in, and you can call your attorneys one at a time.” He walked away, Josie and Gretchen following. The patrol officers went to the desk. One of them started booting up the computer. Everyone in the cells began shouting at once. The noise rose to a deafening crescendo before Chitwood stopped. He looked over his shoulder. Josie glanced back as well. Tara’s face was hot pink with fury. Kurt Dutton said, “We’ll pay any fines you deem necessary. Please. We’d much rather do it your way.”
Josie could see from the way Tara’s lips pressed into a thin line that it was killing her not to be in control of the situation, but she kept silent. After a long, drawn-out moment, Chitwood nodded at the patrol officers. “Get these guys back over to Quail Hollow.”
An audible sigh of relief sounded from the back of both cells. Chitwood went back upstairs. Josie and Gretchen lingered, waiting for the men to be escorted back out to the patrol cars. There was the whoosh of the door followed by the shouts of reporters and then silence as the door closed again. Josie checked her wet, dirty pants again but no blood had soaked through. Still, she’d have to clean her wound as soon as possible. Alone with the women, Josie and Gretchen took up position just outside of the cell. Tara remained at the front with her hands white-knuckling the bars. Connie and Marisol sat on the benches behind her, Connie hugging herself and rocking slightly, and Marisol slouched down, looking bored.
Josie said, “We spoke with an old friend of yours today. Silas Murphy.”
Connie’s head snapped up. Marisol looked over slowly, unsurprised. The pink of Tara’s cheeks turned to dark red. Gretchen said, “It’s interesting that none of you mentioned him when discussing Vera Urban and her drug habits—well, your drug habits.”
“Silas Murphy is irrelevant,” Tara snapped.
“Is he?” Josie said. “Or is the real reason none of you mentioned him was because you had sexual encounters with him while you were married?”
Now three sets of eyes widened and stared at them. After a long couple of seconds, Tara said, “Don’t be absurd.”