He said, “Look, I don’t belong in this facility. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Local law enforcement jammed me up because a young, white college student was killed and they had to pin it on somebody. It was blatant profiling.”
Faith said, “Statistically, white women are more likely to be murdered by white men.”
“That’s not the kind of profiling I’m talking about!” Nesbitt’s temper finally broke through. “Why aren’t you listening to me, you stupid fucking bitch?”
Faith felt Will coil behind her like a rattlesnake.
Nick had pushed away from the wall.
Nesbitt was surrounded, but his hands were still clenched. His ass was barely in the seat. Faith thought of all the places he could punch her before Will and Nick stopped him. Then she banished those thoughts, because she had a job to do. She’d told Will that inmates were like toddlers. If there was anything Faith knew, it was how to handle a bratty kid.
“Time out.” Faith T’d her hands to call it. “Nesbitt, if we’re going to keep talking, you’re going to have to do something for me.”
Nesbitt continued to stew in his chair, but he was listening.
Faith said, “Take in a deep breath, then slowly let it go.”
He looked confused, which was the point.
“Five times. I’ll do it with you.” Faith sucked in a deep breath to get him started. “In and out.”
Nesbitt finally relented, his chest rising and falling once, then twice, then eventually, the fury started to drain from his eyes.
Faith shushed out the fifth breath, feeling her own heart rate start to slow. “Okay, lay out your case for me. Why did you bring this to agent Shelton instead of the warden?”
“The warden’s a limp-dicked piece of shit. I know the law. The GBI is in charge of investigating corrupt law enforcement officers.” Nesbitt had spat out the words, but now he visibly worked to force some calm into his tone. “I am a victim of police corruption. I was profiled because I’m poor. Because I had a record. Because I spent too much time with girls.”
Girls.
Faith asked, “How old were these young ladies?”
“That’s not the point. Christ.” Nesbitt’s fist hovered over the table. He caught himself before banging it down. Unprompted, he took another deep breath, then hissed it out between his teeth. His breath was foul. She noticed that his skin was clammy.
Faith glanced over Nesbitt’s shoulder. Nick had put on his glasses so he could read about the Grant County side of things. Eight years felt like a lifetime. The newspaper clipping was so old that he was holding it with both hands so it wouldn’t tear. She could tell from his face that every word he was reading was like a punch to the gut.
Faith told Nesbitt, “Like I said, we’ve got the Vasquez thing pretty much figured out and if we choose to investigate these cases, you’ve already given us the articles, so we really don’t—”
“Wait!” He reached for her hand, but stopped at the last minute. “Just wait, okay? I’ve got more.”
Faith left her hand on the table, though her instinct had been to reel back. She looked at her watch. “You’ve got one minute.”
“Vasquez was killed for his distribution network.” Nesbitt licked his lips, anxious for a reaction. “I can tell you how they’re bringing in the phones. Where they’re stashing them. How the money works. I won’t testify, but I can put you exactly where they’ll be when the phones come in.”
Faith felt obliged to point out the obvious. “We can break the distribution network ourselves. We did it four years ago. Almost fifty corrections officers are behind bars right now because of it.”
“Do you have another year to launch an investigation?” Nesbitt asked. “Does the GBI wanna waste all that time and money and resources and pull in the FBI and DEA and the sheriff’s office and put agents undercover and work another sting that takes millions of dollars and ends up embarrassing your sorry asses with all those bad cops on trial every time you turn on the news?”
The guy had done his homework. Money. Federal agencies. Public humiliation. There wasn’t one part of what he’d said that didn’t shoot fear into the heart of every cop over the rank of sergeant.
“I can hand the phone racketeering to you on a silver platter,” Nesbitt said. “I’ll give you one week to look into these cases in the newspapers. One week instead of a year-long investigation. Plus you get to nail a serial killer. All you’ve got to do is—”
“Stop the bullshit!” Without warning, Nick raked back Nesbitt’s chair and slammed him into the wall.
Faith was so shocked that she stood up, hand going to her belt, but her gun was in a lockbox by the metal detector. “Agent Shelton,” she boomed, using her cop voice. “Back away from—”
“You slimy kidfucker.” Nick grabbed Nesbitt’s shirt and yanked him up to standing. “You know you’re not getting out of here. Your own article says your conviction was upheld twice. No one believed your bullshit. Not the jury. Not the appellate court. Not the state supreme court.”
“So what?” Nesbitt screamed back. “Sandra Bland is dead! John Hinckley’s a free man! OJ’s playing golf in Florida! You’re telling me our legal system is fair?”
Nick’s face was so close that their noses were touching. His fist reared back. “I’m telling you to watch your fucking mouth or I will beat you to the fucking ground.”
Will’s hand was on Nick’s shoulder. Faith hadn’t seen him move, but suddenly, he was there. She saw his fingers flex, more like the pat that Nick had given him back in the interrogation room.
Faith was running through all the ways this could go from bad to worse when the air changed in the room.
Slowly, Nick turned. He looked at Will. His eyes were wild, and then they weren’t. His muscles were tensed, but then they weren’t. His fists unclenched. He took a step back.
“Jesus!” Nesbitt hopped on one leg, trying to put some space between them.
Will righted the chair. He helped Nesbitt sit back down.
Faith silently begged Nick to leave, but he took his post behind the inmate, hands shoved deep into the front pockets of his jeans.
“Asshole.” Nesbitt smoothed down his wrinkled shirt. He was visibly shaken. Faith felt the same. This wasn’t how they did things. She had never seen Nick explode like that. She never wanted to see it again.
“Okay.” Faith could barely hear her own voice over the rapid tap of her own heartbeat. She had to get the interview back on track, not least of all because she didn’t want to be called to testify by a prosecutor who was charging Nick with a custodial assault. “Nesbitt, I’m listening to you. Tell me about the articles. What are we looking for?”
Nesbitt wiped his mouth with his hands. “You gonna let him get away with that?”
“Get away with what?” Faith shook her head in mock disbelief, making herself the shittiest kind of cop there was. “I didn’t see anything.”
She didn’t need to look back at Will to know that he was shaking his head, too.
“Nesbitt,” she said. “This is your moment. Either start talking or we’ll leave.”
“I was set up.” Nesbitt wiped his mouth again. “God’s honest truth. I was framed.”
“Okay.” Faith could feel a river of sweat flowing down her back. She had to make this man feel like he was being listened to. “Who framed you? Tell me about it.”
“It was those fucking small-town cops, okay? They controlled everything that happened in that county. The prosecutor, the judge, the jury—they all bought into that self-righteous cowboy bullshit.”
He turned around, making sure that they all knew the kind of cowboy bullshit he was talking about.
“Careful, son.” Nick’s voice sounded gravelly. “You don’t wanna go letting something out that you can’t put back in the bottle.”
Nesbitt’s anger had given way to despair. “You stupid redneck motherfucker, what do you think I’ve got to lose?”
Faith waited for Nick to do something stupid again, but he just lifted his chin and stared out into the hallway.
She studied Nesbitt’s face. Dark circles pooled under his eyes. Deep lines creased his forehead. He looked like an old man. Being inside could age anyone, but being inside with a disability must’ve been a whole new circle of hell.
In the silence, she drummed her fingers on the table. She asked Nesbitt, “How do you know about Vasquez’s phone business?”
“I’ve been doing janitorial in this place for six years. Nobody sees me, so I can see everybody else.” Nesbitt counted off on his fingers. “I can give you names, places, suppliers and dealers. You think the warden found all the phones in this place? A man can’t take a shit in here without a cell signal squirting out.”