He didn’t know my judicial credentials were zipped into the inside pocket of my purse. He didn’t know why I was in his county. And he didn’t know that for the past four months, a stack of letters from his own residents had been sitting in a locked drawer in my chambers in Atlanta.
“You’re making a serious mistake, Sheriff,” I said softly. I kept my voice steady and even.
“I don’t make mistakes in my county, lady.”
He leaned down so close I could smell stale coffee and cigar smoke on his breath. He twisted my right arm behind my back and snapped the second cuff closed with a vicious click.
“You match the description of a suspect in an armed theft,” he said. “And right now, you’re resisting arrest.”
I hadn’t moved an inch or raised my voice.
He yanked me out of the booth so hard the table jumped and my water glass tipped over. Ice and water ran across the Formica and dripped onto the floor. Somebody gasped. An old man at the counter half rose from his stool, saw the sheriff’s face, and sat back down.
