Jamieson looked like a man doomed to die. He held his shaggy head in his
hands. Tattered hair drooped like an unruly bush over his fingers. Outside the
holding facility floodlights oozed light into the cell. It crept past the line of trees
outside and created shadows in the chamber like the jagged fingers of trees,
reaching for the bent and broken figure.
Pete turned from the viewing window in the door and consulted the police
report. It claimed Jamieson's age was 36, but the lines cracking his face told a story
of too much seen too soon. Pete turned to the broad-chested deputy beside him.
"What have you got him for?"
"Speeding, reckless driving," rumbled Bolton. "Swerved into oncoming traffic.
Scared the daylights out of a family coming back from Lubbock."
"That's it?" grimaced Pete.
"Had a ton of herbicide in his truck. Enough to make a bomb, we figure."
"Herbicide?" growled Pete. "You make bombs with fertilizer, not herbicide.
Jesus, Dean! You should know better. Is that why you got him isolated?"
The muscular deputy, who outweighed the diminutive lawyer by eighty
pounds, looked suitably cowed. "No, sir. He was screamin' crazy stuff all the time.
He's so weird, we were concerned the other prisoners might attack him." He
pointed through the window at Jamieson. "Then again, lookit 'im. Looks like he's
been fighting a lot. We don't abide that here."
Pete looked and noted the fresh rips in Jamieson's dirty flannel shirt. A halfhealed scar beside his eye showed crimson. Pete turned a baleful eye on Bolton.
"Dean. You boys didn't…"
Bolton held his hands up. "No sir! He didn't give us no trouble. He didn't resist at
all. He just screamed and… cried a lot. Talking about trees like they were comin' to
get him. Damnedest thing I ever saw."