Voss straightened his uniform and stepped forward with his hand out, like a man welcoming guests to a barbecue.
“Afternoon, folks. Sheriff Dalton Voss. What can I do for the FBI today?”
The lead agent, a tall Black woman in her forties with close-cropped hair, walked right past his hand without looking at it and came straight to me.
“Judge Whitlock,” she said. “Special Agent Renee Calloway, FBI Atlanta. Are you injured?”
She looked at my wrists, and her jaw tightened.
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “But I’d like every detail of what happened to me today preserved. All of it.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Agent Calloway turned to her colleague, a younger agent with red hair named Kessler. “Secure the booking logs, the dispatch recordings, the body camera footage from every officer involved, and the surveillance video from this building. Then go to the Magnolia Diner and get their security footage and the name of every witness.”
“On it,” Kessler said.
The woman in the navy suit stepped forward. “Monica Delgado, Assistant United States Attorney, Public Corruption Section.” She nodded at me. “Judge. We were on our way here today for a different reason. I’m sorry you got caught up in it.”
“What reason?” Voss asked. His voice had gone up half an octave.
The silver-haired man set his accordion file on the booking desk and unwound the string.
“Special Agent Thomas Greer,” he said. “I’ve been leading an investigation into this department since July.” He pulled out a stack of documents and spread them across the desk. “These are complaints from residents of Pell County. People who say they were threatened, wrongfully arrested, or pressured to drop complaints against your department. Some of these complaints were filed with your office and then disappeared. Others were marked ‘resolved’ with no investigation at all.”
For the first time since I’d come into his county, nobody was asking Sheriff Voss what he wanted.
