Adler blinked. "What happened?"
"I gave a lawful order. He refused. That's all you need to know. Book him."
Adler looked at Malcolm. Malcolm looked back. Calm. Steady. The kind of calm that made Adler more nervous than if the man had been screaming.
"Yes, sir," Adler said, and he started the paperwork. Fingerprints. Mugshot. Malcolm stood in front of the height chart while Adler fumbled with the camera. Flash. Click. The most powerful law enforcement officer in the country. Photographed like a common criminal in a three-cell county lockup.
Crenshaw leaned against the doorframe the whole time, arms crossed, watching, savoring. "You know what your problem is?" Krenshaw said. "You people always think you can walk into a place and act like you run it. Like the rules don't apply to you. But in this town, my rules apply to everybody."
Malcolm said nothing. He let the silence do the talking.
"What? Nothing to say now? Big man in the diner talking about rights and consent. Where's all that mouth now?"
Malcolm looked at him. Not with anger, not with fear. With something Krenshaw couldn't read. And that made it worse.
"I'd like my phone call," Malcolm said.
Crenshaw laughed. "You'll get it when I decide you get it."
"That's a constitutional right, Sheriff. Not a favor."
"In here." Krenshaw pushed off the door frame and stepped closer. "In here, I'm the Constitution." He pointed to the holding cell. Adler walked Malcolm in. The steel door clanged shut. The lock echoed off the cinder block walls.
Malcolm sat on the metal bench. The mattress was a thin pad that smelled like bleach and sweat. A single fluorescent tube buzzed overhead, flickering every few seconds. No window, no clock, just gray walls and the faint sound of Krenshaw's boots walking back down the hallway.
And that's when Crenshaw decided to search the car. He drove back to the diner alone. The silver Camry was still parked out front. Crenshaw didn't have a warrant, didn't have consent, didn't have probable cause. He didn't care. He popped the trunk. Nothing. Checked under the seats. Nothing. Opened the glove box. Rental agreement. A pair of sunglasses. A pack of tissues. He almost closed it. Then he saw the leather briefcase on the passenger seat. He opened it. Inside a manila folder marked Howard University speech draft, a leather-bound notebook, a government-issued phone charger, and at the bottom, tucked inside a felt pocket, an FBI credentials case.
Krenshaw flipped it open. The gold badge caught the light. The photo ID stared back at him. Malcolm Briggs, director, Federal Bureau of Investigation. Krenshaw looked at it for 5 seconds, then he snorted. "FBI director." He said it out loud to nobody. "Right. And I'm the damn president."
He tossed the credentials back onto the seat, closed the briefcase, walked back to his cruiser. In his mind, the math was simple. A black man with a fake FBI badge probably bought it online. Probably trying to scam somebody. It never, not for one second, occurred to Wade Krenshaw that the badge was real. Because in his world, a black man could not be the FBI director. That job belonged to someone else, someone who looked like him.
He drove back to the station, walked past Adler's desk, went straight to the holding cell, and sat in a folding chair across from the bars. "So, I searched your car," he said. Casual, like he was talking about the weather.
Malcolm looked up. "Without a warrant."
"Found something interesting. An FBI badge." Krenshaw grinned. "Real nice one, too. Where'd you buy it? eBay?"
"That badge is real, Sheriff."
"Sure it is. And that makes you what? The director of the FBI." He laughed, slapped his knee. Malcolm didn't blink.
"Yes, that's exactly what that makes me."
Grenshaw stopped laughing, studied Malcolm's face for any crack, any smirk, any sign of a bluff. He found nothing but stone. For one brief second, one half second, something cold moved through Krenshaw's chest. A whisper, a doubt. What if? Then he crushed it.
"You're full of it," he said. Stood up, walked out.
Back in the hallway, Dawson was waiting. She'd been listening. "Sheriff," she said quietly. "I saw that badge when you brought his things in. It looked real."
"It's fake. Maybe we should just verify."