Welcome to Year of the Firefly: The Free Serialization. Here’s Chapter 8. 📖 New chapters are released every Monday and Thursday. Whether you’re a long-time reader or discovering my work for the first time, you can read the entire novel on Substack for free. Visit there anytime to catch up on chapters you may have missed. 📚 Prefer holding a real book in your hands? Skip the weekly wait and grab the complete paperback edition right now on Amazon or other online retailers. Ebook is available on Amazon and Kindle+. 📝 New to my writing? Explore all eight of my published books on my website, malcolmivey.com. 🙂 Thank you for reading, and as always, reviews are highly appreciated! Wishing you momentum. —IV
👉Looking for Chapter 1? Begin here: Part One: Eight Weeks | Chapter 1
👉Read about the genesis of Miranda McGuire here: To My Incarcerated Sisters
👉Get an introduction to Year of the Firefly here: Introduction to Book One of the Miranda Rights series
CHAPTER 8
The interrogation room was nothing like the ones she remembered from Law & Order or LA Law or any of the other police procedural reruns that her dad liked to watch. There was no two-way mirror, no dangling light bulb, no craggy-faced detective attempting to soften her up with a cigarette. Just a small office with a table and chairs and a plexiglass view of the main hallway of the jail.
Detective Sandifer was an attractive man in his thirties with Adam Levine hair and a blue pastel tie that matched his eyes. He laced his fingers together and rested his stubbled chin on the apex as he stared at her from across the table.
“Nice t-shirt. Are you a student at the university?”
She nodded.
“My little sister just transferred there. From Pensacola State. It feels weird calling it that, doesn’t it? It’s been PJC my entire life. You probably don’t remember that. You can’t be older than twenty. Sophomore?”
“Freshman,” she said. “I’ll be nineteen next month.”
“Jamie’s a junior. Communications. I’ve never quite understood what that means, a degree in communications. I’m not entirely convinced that she does either.” He removed a box of gum from his pocket and shook a piece into his palm. “Want one?”
She eyed the box with suspicion. She absolutely wanted one. Needed one. It had been close to 24 hours since she’d brushed her teeth and her breath tasted like Nick’s Girl Scout weed and gingivital jail phones. But in the end, she declined. She may have been naïve, but she knew what he was up to. And she refused to sell her soul for a piece of gum.
The door opened and a tall, blond, hatchet-faced woman strode in. She wore faded jeans, boots, and an unbuttoned oxford shirt over a white tank top. A detective shield hung on a beaded chain inside her collar. “Sorry about that,” she said to Sandifer. “This our armed trafficker?”
He leaned back in his chair and nodded. “This is her.”
“Not exactly from central casting, is she?” The woman sat down. “What are you, an aspiring junkie? Some dealer’s side piece?”
“She’s a college student,” said Detective Sandifer.
“Nice.” The woman crossed her arms and smiled coldly. “You introducing all your little sorority sisters to the wonderful world of the needle?”
“No!” Miranda blurted.
“Go easy on her, Beth.” Sandifer’s eyes softened with sympathy. “She’s just a kid.”
“Yeah?” The woman smirked. “How old are you?”
Miranda stared down at her chipped fingernail polish. How old was she? She felt as if she had aged exponentially over the past 24 hours.
“She’s eighteen,” said Sandifer.
“That’s old enough to die in a war, old enough to work in a Las Vegas brothel, old enough to vote.” She leaned forward and glared at Miranda. “And it’s old enough to know better than to be driving around with an ounce of heroin and a loaded nine-millimeter. You’re in deep shit sister.”
“Beth . . .” He touched her shoulder.
“No.” She shook it off. “I’m so sick of these scumbags contaminating our communities, enslaving our citizens. How many overdosed nonresponsives did we see last month? How many neglected children? How many funerals? Nonviolent victimless crime, my ass. These drug-dealing ass-wipes are the worst kind of criminal.”
“I don’t think it was hers.” He cocked his head at Miranda, his eyes now imploring. Help me out here. I’m on your team. “You said it yourself Beth, she doesn’t fit the mold. Look at her. I could see if it was trespassing, retail theft, maybe simple possession, but armed trafficking? No way.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” Detective Beth smirked. “Have you listened to the radio lately? Everybody’s a drug dealer nowadays. It’s the new fad.”
Her look was pure disgust. Miranda wanted to slide under the table. A tear dove down her cheek, cliffhung from her chin and freefell onto her folded hands, where it exploded on a trembling knuckle. She wiped her face with the back of her wrist. It came away smeared with mascara. “I’m not a drug dealer.”
“See there,” said Sandifer.
“Oh yeah, that settles it,” she sneered. “Interesting that we’re giving her the benefit of the doubt. Where was your let’s not rush to judgment attitude last night when we were interrogating the kid from Truman Arms?”
“All’s I’m saying is that maybe it wasn’t hers.”
“Of course, it wasn’t hers!” She slapped the table.
Miranda flinched.
“And you know what?” She smiled sweetly. “I don’t give a damn. These little bimbos who ride around in their wannabe-Scarface boyfriends’ Corvettes and Escalades, with their fake boobs and their dyed red hair and their designer handbags bought with blood money . . . They’re just as guilty as the pushers they spread their legs for.”
Miranda was mortified. This woman was the single most horrible person she had ever met in her life. It was like being interrogated by Ann Coulter and Cruella Deville all in one.
Detective Sandifer’s face reddened. “You’re out of line, Beth.”
“Yeah? So file a report with Internal Affairs.” Her words were acid. “Probably won’t be the first time you’ve ever done it.”
“I resent that,” he said, staring at her for a moment before speaking again. “Look, I know you’re angry right now and I understand why, but I just don’t see it.”
“See what? A conviction? You’re insane. With the physical evidence we have, there’s not a jury in the Panhandle that wouldn’t find her guilty.”
He shook his head. “I don’t see the logic in settling for a minnow when Jaws is swimming around out there. Sure, we could nail her and have her put away for, what? Ten years? Fifteen?”
“Try 25 . . . and that’s without the firearm enhancement. Trafficking over 28 grams of heroin carries a minimum mandatory of 25 years in prison.” She paused, flashing that cruel smile once again. “The amount of heroin seized from her vehicle was 28.4 grams. It was in her purse, Sandy, and regardless of how cute and innocent you think she is, possession is still nine-tenths of the law.”
“Fine, 25 years. Whatever. All’s I’m saying is that I don’t see any reason to put her away for that long while whosever dope and pistol she was holding remains free to, as you say, contaminate the community and enslave our citizens.”
Miranda had to swallow to keep from vomiting in her lap. 25 years? She hadn’t even lived 25 years yet.
“Oh, we’ll get him too.” She flicked a mote of dust from her detective shield. “Eventually . . . We always do. And if not us, some desperate junkie or rival drug dealer will.”
“Yeah? And how many Scarlett McGhees will we run across between now and then?”
She froze. Then quietly, “That was a low blow.”
He shrugged. “And you think your Internal Affairs comment was above the belt?”
“Touché,” she ceded after an ice age. Her jaw worked beneath the thin pale skin of her face. “What are you proposing?”
He glanced at Miranda. “Let me talk to her.” His look was subtle. More blink than wink. But it spun out toward her and splashed amid the rising waves and circling sharks with all the promise of a life preserver.
Beth’s eyes narrowed as her head swiveled back and forth between them, vibrating on a frequency of suspicion and contempt. Miranda gnawed a thumbnail behind her bangs as the tension mounted.
“Okay,” she finally said, hands flat on the table as she rose from the chair. “I’m gonna get a Yoo-hoo from the machine and step outside for a smoke. If Molly Ringwald can’t remember her boyfriend’s name by the time I get back, I’ll make sure Donna houses her with the meanest, ugliest dyke on the sixth floor.”
She slammed the door behind her.
Miranda slouched in her chair. Gratitude washed over her with every fading footstep. Even a five-minute break from Kellyanne Conway was a relief.
“You’ll have to forgive my partner,” Sandifer smiled. “She’s a little jaded but she means well.”
“She’s horrible,” said Miranda.
“Nah, she just hates heroin is all. Can’t really fault her for that, can we?”
Miranda shook her head slowly. Nobody hated heroin more than she did at that moment.
“But I do think she’s wrong in wanting to lock you up and throw away the key. You don’t belong in prison. You belong in school.”
“I know,” she began to cry again. “Oh . . . God.”
He leaned in. “So real quick before she gets back, help me out here. Who did the dope and pistol belong to? Where did he get it? Do you know his suppliers? Any info you can come up with will look good. Especially in Beth’s eyes. Names, addresses, phone numbers. Help me help you.”
Her inner narrator, who had gone radio silent since the holding cell, finally stirred. Her tone was even more condescending than usual. Seriously? You turn down his gum on grounds of suspicion and then you fall hook, line and sinker for this Hollywood cliché?
She chewed on her bottom lip and contemplated the detective with new eyes. This was the part in every Law & Order where the suspect breaks down and sings like Selena Gomez. Those pivotal few hours between the time her rights were read and the moment an attorney was appointed. This was the sweet spot where confessions were secured, codefendants were named, and Oscar caliber good cop/bad cop routines were performed.
Nick’s words from the parking lot came back to her. “I just can’t get caught slippin’. With my record, I’d probably never see daylight again . . .”
Detective Sandifer glanced at the plexiglass window. “I don’t mean to rush you, but time really is of the essence here. Gimme something. Anything.”
Fear. Nausea. Exhaustion. Turmoil. All these things churned within her as she stared down at the socks that the nice woman in the holding cell gave her. Socks that were now filthy from the jail floor. In a small voice she uttered the words she was pretty sure would put an end to this meeting. “I want to speak to my attorney.”
A hush fell over the interrogation room. Even the roaring AC vent went silent. “That’s unfortunate,” said Sandifer.
She didn’t bother looking up.
“Well here,” he pushed a business card across the table. “In case you change your mind.”