He was running a number in his head and the answer kept coming out wrong and he didn't know what to do about that. Shepherd climbed out of of Subaru. His expression was the expression of a man who hasn't found what he wanted and has decided that this is somehow the fault of the other person. "Nothing?" Slater said quietly.
Must have ditched it before I got to her. He looked at Naomi. Here's what I think happened. I think you were acting erratic on a county road. I think you were combative and evasive with a lawful stop.
I think your attitude has made this situation significantly worse for you. He tilted his head toward the cruiser. You're coming in. Disorderly conduct, failure to comply. We'll sort out what else applies once we're at the department.
Naomi looked at him steadily. She let a beat pass. Not out of hesitation, but out of the particular discipline of a woman who has learned that the most powerful thing you can do in certain moments is simply let the silence do the work. "Officer Shepherd," she said quietly, "you are making a serious mistake." Not angry, not frightened, factual.
Only mistake I made was letting you keep talking, he said. He put his hand on her arm. The handcuffs went on in the parking lot of the Harlow County Sheriff's Department. Because Naomi had stated clearly during the drive that she would not be cuffed on an empty roadside. Shepherd obliged, which she suspected was because some dim, instinctive warning in the back of his mind had suggested he should not create any unnecessary exposure.
The cuffs went on too tight, the ratchet clicking down with a deliberate extra notch. A small act of punitive communication from a man who wanted her to feel precisely how little power she had. She did not wince. The Harlow County Sheriff's Department was a concrete block building at the county's edge, surrounded by chain link and gravel, with a sign out front that had been bleached by enough Georgia summers to be more suggestion than information. Inside, the booking room smelled of burnt coffee and old cardboard.
Fluorescent tubes buzzed overhead. Three deputies were at a card table by the far wall. A young deputy named Obie Pruitt sat behind the booking counter looking at his phone. Nobody looked up when the door opened. Sheriff Terrence Dodd emerged from his glass-walled office holding a Styrofoam cup.
A square-jawed man in his 60s who had run Harlow County law enforcement for 11 years with the settled authority of someone who has never seriously worried about accountability. He looked at Naomi the way a man looks at something familiar. "What's the charge?" Disorderly, failure to comply. She was combative during a lawful stop.
Shepherd dropped her license on the counter. Came down from DC, found nothing in the car, but I want her processed. She needs to cool down. Dodd looked at the license, then at Naomi. Long drive, he said.