Of all the times I had to go to jail… just when I started smoking again. Damn-it, they don’t allow smoking at all in the Santa Barbara Police holding cells and certainly not in County. I would have confessed to anything for a smoke. My feelings were running all over the place. I wondered what Adriane had told the police and then I smelled Nick’s B.S. in it. What the hell, I knew I was innocent and I knew that my luck was with me… but, what if… what if… what if. I was kept in an interview cell where the powers that be had me cooling off. It seemed like a long wait... at least an hour… there are no clocks. My heart leapt when detective Ryan opened the door to peak in. When he saw me I thought I saw his face light up too.“Mr. McKee, what the hell? I haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Under these circumstances, I can’t say that I’m all that pleased to see you again,” however, I was glad to see him. I can’t explain it but any familiar face in jail gives one hope.
“Let me get your file and I’ll be right back.”
“I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
He was gone for something like a half hour. Time means nothing in jail. Being right back can mean any day now. He finally came back into the room plopping a file down on the table. “See here, Mr. McKee, we seem to have a problem…”
“We? You mean me. I have a problem.”
“Why don’t you just tell me your version of what happened and…”
“All due respect, sir… Aren’t you going to read me my rights?”
“I can tell you now that the courts will go easier on you if you cooperate,” he said as he thumbed through his reports.
I wasn’t sure whether or not it would do me any good to talk but I suspected by the detective's tone that anything I’d say one way or another was going to be used against me whether or not I had my rights read. If I didn’t say anything they’d be able to say I was uncooperative and if I did say anything it wasn’t likely it would matter one way or another.
“I took a break and was at home for lunch." I hesitated, Ryan didn't seem to be listening, "I didn’t have much time.”
“Did you stop by Adriane’s house then?”
“I had no plans to see her. I just had time to get home, gulp down a ham sandwich and get back in the hack…”
“The, are you saying you didn’t go to Mrs. Baker’s house?”
“No, I went there alright… I got a phone call. She was hurting.”
“How did you know she was hurting?”
“Listen, maybe you want to get this interview over with and read me my rights?”
“Mr. McKee, we have enough to hold you in jail tonight along with a restraining order. We have enough of your past on record to throw the book at you. Do you want to cooperate or not? Tell me now, because I’d just as soon get home to dinner.” He slammed the file shut.
“She called me at home and she was hurting. I could tell she was hurting because she could hardly talk.”
He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket … lit one and passed it to me. “Thanks.” Man, that was the best smoke I’ve ever had. “I mean it.”
He watched me take a drag and leaned back in his chair. “So, you're telling me didn’t do it, are you?”
To tell the truth I wasn’t sure what to think… was he setting me up?
“Do what, smash her face up or inject her butt with tar?” I was tired… “Tell me, Ryan, is she going to be okay?”
‘Tell me, McKee… the last time we had a talked… the Bea Brinker case… it turned out that the judge thought you hadn’t done anything wrong… lack of judgment were his words, I recall.”
“You were there... in court?” I didn’t remember seeing him…
“Yes, when one of my cases gets to court I want a conviction. The DA doesn’t care to lose cases and I thought we had enough on you for something… maybe not spousal abuse… maybe something like creating a disturbance… anything.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“Don’t get smart with me, asshole. This time we have a clear-cut case of bodily injury. Mr. Baker saw you on the way up the hill on your motorcycle as he was leaving and, guess what? When he left home he says Adriane was okay…”
“I was in my cab."
"Whatever."
"So, does this mean you will read me my rights and tuck me in for the night?” I knew by then that there was no chance of going home now.
“Just tell me what happened and stop wasting my time.”
“I went up there… her face was bashed in and her eye was swollen shut…. Then she showed me the abscess on her hip and I took her to the ER. in my cab and not my motorcycle. I had to get back to work... time is money in a cab after all... so I took off thinking she would explain what happened.”
“According to this report she did tell officer Richards what happened.”
“Was he the rookie that was with you on the Bea Brinker case?” I grinned thinking of the tomato soup he’d mistaken for blood.
“And it ain’t lookin’ good for you, Mr. McKee.” He pulled out the Miranda card and read it to me.
“Could I ask one more question before you go, Ryan?”
“Go ahead, Mick, make it a good one.”
He kind of pissed me off. I consider Mick like using the "N" word. Friends could use it but, I got the point, Ryan wasn't a friend... “What kind of pull does Nick’s daddy have over you guys… eh?”
Ryan just stood up and had another officer cuff me to take me back to a holding cell. But before we parted paths he said, “Keep asking those kinds of questions and you will be in deeper shit than you are now.”
There I was again, in County jail. My life was an old country/western song, “I’m in the Jailhouse Now.” Pardon me, Hank Williams, but I don’t want to be in one of your songs at this moment, eh? I thought I’d broken that cycle when I got sober but here I was. Surely, I thought, I ought to be able to get out on O.R. first thing in the morning. I’ve cleared up all and any warrants or fines. I’ve been able to live pretty clean too. I wondered what all this had to do with a cosmic plan. A now familiar calm came over me as I sat on my bunk after all the noise of the concrete and steel settled down. I was at peace and it felt as though a hand was on my shoulder. I actually turned to look but no one was there. So I sat with my back to the wall of my cell… I had a private cell this time…isolation they call it… and waited. Would an angel appear before me and unlock my cage? The hand on my shoulder assured me and I laid down to fall into a deep sleep.
It was about a week later that I was awakened at three in the morning, “McKee, roll it up, you’re goin’ home.”
“What… Someone bailed me out?”
“I don’t know… just roll it up, will ya!”
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