Then he sat in a holding cell with seven other men and a stainless-steel toilet, and waited.
At 2:47 a.m., while he was waiting, his phone, sealed in a plastic property bag in a bin behind the booking desk, buzzed twice. He would not read the messages until Monday. The first was from Ruth: Do not talk to anyone about your case. Do not sign anything. I'm on it. The second was from the night manager at Capitol Premier Parking.
Teodoro, per company policy your employment is terminated effective immediately for (1) allowing an unauthorized customer access to the key cabinet and (2) involvement in a law enforcement incident while in company uniform. Please return your vest and badge to the Grace St office. Final paycheck will be mailed.
At 7:15 a.m., an electronic message arrived in the Justice Center's records system from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Richmond. It was a Form I-247A, an immigration detainer, requesting that the Richmond City Sheriff's Office hold Teodoro Barrientos-Mejía for up to forty-eight hours beyond the time he would otherwise be released, so that ICE could take him into custody.
Teo did not know about the detainer. Nobody told him. He sat on the steel bench with his back against the cinderblock and thought about the floodlight falling across the green hood, and about Ashby's one open eye looking at him, and about the fact that if he could go back and do it all again, he did not know whether he would do it differently. That was the worst part. Not that he had been brave or stupid. That he still did not know which.
* * *
Julian was released on a summons at 3:40 a.m., after a magistrate in a windowless room at the Justice Center, appearing on a video screen with a mug of coffee at his elbow, looked at the charge, looked at the criminal complaint, looked at the defendant's age and address and lack of any record whatsoever, and said, in a voice heavy with the hour, "Mr. Ashby, you're released on your own recognizance. Arraignment's set for November ninth in General District Court. Please don't leave the Commonwealth."
"I'm not going anywhere," Julian said. "I've got a granddaughter."
Delphine was waiting in the lobby in her red gown with her heels in her hand and a legal pad full of notes. She drove him back to VCU. In the car, neither of them said anything for a long time.
"How's the face?" she said finally.
"Broken, apparently. A little."