She paused. "I would recommend accepting the envelope."
He looked at her for a long moment. A man watching everything he had built, 30 years of favors and leverage and carefully maintained fear, come apart at its rivets.
He took the envelope.
Seven seconds later, the roof access door above the holding cell corridor detonated inward with a controlled breach charge that shook the building to its foundation.
Dust rained from the ceiling tiles. Gray smoke billowed down the east hallway. And then they came.
12 federal agents in full tactical gear, moving through the smoke in pairs, rifles at low ready, voices clipped and authoritative.
"Down! Down now!"
"Hands! Show hands!"
"Stay down!"
It took 90 seconds to secure the entire building.
Beaumont was walked to a transport vehicle with his hands zip-tied behind his back. Every filing cabinet on the second floor was photographed, sealed, and removed on a federal evidence warrant. Pruitt was transported separately, by himself, in a vehicle that went directly to the federal processing center.
The whole operation was over before the town's morning news cycle began.
Six hours later, in a federal holding facility two parishes north, Josephine Duval sat across a steel table from Dale Pruitt.
She had changed into a fresh suit. Deep charcoal, white shirt, no tie. Her jaw was bandaged with a butterfly closure, the bruising spreading from her cheekbone to just below her eye in a wash of deep purple.
She set a cup of black coffee on the table in front of him, opened a case file, and said nothing for two full minutes.
Pruitt sat in an orange federal jumpsuit that was a size too small. He had lost the belt, the badge, the gun, and everything else that had ever made him feel like he had standing in this world. He stared at the table like it owed him an apology.
"I want a lawyer," he finally said.
"Your union representative, Officer Thibodeaux, was arrested at his home at 6:14 this morning," Josephine said, not looking up from the file. "He's currently being indicted for facilitating the destruction of use-of-force records in three separate civil rights cases. He will not be available to you."
She turned a page.
"You have the right to a court-appointed attorney, and one will be made available to you at arraignment. That's not what I'm here to discuss."
Pruitt looked up. "Then what are you here for?"
Josephine set down the file and folded her hands on the table.
"I'm here because of a text message," she said. "Sent at 8:47 this morning from a burner phone registered to an intermediary working for Sheriff Beaumont's administration."