The trembling deputy unlocked me and retreated. Both wrists bore deep red impressions. My left wrist swelled where Voss had twisted it against the booth.
The clerk behind the desk, a gray-haired woman whose nameplate read DORIS KEELER, quietly lifted a pen and began writing on a legal pad. Later I learned she wrote down the time the cuffs came off: 1:47 p.m.
“Thank you, Deputy,” I said to Miller. I said it without any anger, because I suspected this young man stood at the most important fork in the road of his life, and I hoped to see which way he’d turn.
As sirens grew louder, the front doors opened.
Three FBI agents entered—two women and a man in dark jackets bearing yellow FBI letters. Behind them were a tall, silver-haired man in a gray suit carrying an accordion file marked PELL COUNTY in black, and a keen-eyed woman in a navy pantsuit with a leather portfolio.
