I was six, after a white man at a Waffle House called my grandfather an ugly word I refuse to repeat.
“You keep your breath,” she told me, “and you keep your mind. They can’t take either one unless you hand it to them.”
The sheriff’s office was a squat tan-brick building beside the courthouse square, with a flagpole out front and a faded sign: “Serving Pell County with Pride Since 1871.” Voss pulled around back to the sally port and hauled me out of the car by the arm.Find Police Jobs
Inside smelled of scorched coffee and floor polish. Fluorescents hummed overhead. A clerk with reading glasses on a beaded chain sat behind the booking desk. Two deputies stood near the holding cells. A third sat at a computer.
Each glanced at me, then avoided my gaze.
“Put her in the chair,” Voss said. “I’ll be in my office.”
