In the side mirror, Marcus watched the officer step out of the Crown Victoria. The man was broad-shouldered and heavy-set, his belly hanging over a thick leather gun belt loaded with brass snap-cases. He wore a faded beige sheriff’s deputy uniform with two silver stars pinned to his collar—Deputy Chief Thomas Miller. His face was weathered like cured leather, red-nosed from decades of cheap bourbon and harsh Georgia sun, and his eyes were obscured behind silver mirror aviator sunglasses.
Thomas Miller was fifty-nine years old, a relic of an era when county lines were iron borders and law enforcement was an inherited family trade. His father had been the county sheriff in 1968, and his grandfather had been a deputy before that. To Thomas, authority was not a civic duty granted by the people; it was an absolute property right granted by blood and longevity.
Thomas walked with a slow, deliberate limp—the legacy of a knee injury sustained in a high-school football game forty years ago. He kept his right hand rested lightly on the black hilt of his Glock 17 holster. He did not approach from the rear quarter panel as trained in modern police academies; he walked right up to Marcus’s driver-side door, blocking the afternoon sun and casting a dark shadow across Marcus’s face.
"License and registration," Thomas said. His voice was raspy, thick with tobacco residue, carrying no greeting, no explanation, and no professional formality.
"Good afternoon, Deputy Miller," Marcus replied calmly, his voice low and measured. "My license and registration are in the glove compartment. I am going to reach over slowly with my right hand to retrieve them. Do I have your permission to do so?"
Thomas sneered through his yellowed teeth. He recognized Marcus instantly. He had sat in the back of the courtroom that morning, watching this city lawyer from Atlanta question the Sheriff's integrity in front of a court reporter. "I didn't ask for a legal lecture, Vance. Just get the damn papers."
Marcus reached slowly, opened the latch, retrieved the leather folder containing his vehicle documents, and handed them through the three-inch gap in the window, along with his bar card and driver’s license.
Thomas took the cards, barely glancing at the driver's license before throwing his gaze toward the leather briefcase resting on the front passenger seat. "You're driving pretty fast through here, counselor. Swerving over the center line back near the bridge."
"I had my cruise control set to forty-three miles per hour, Deputy, and my wheels never crossed the double yellow," Marcus said smoothly. "If you are citing me for a traffic infraction, I am happy to sign the ticket so we can both be on our way."
"Is that right?" Thomas leaned closer, his sweaty forearms resting against the glass of the window. He smelled faintly of stale menthol cigarettes and woodsmoke. "You know, folks around here don't like outsiders coming down from the capital, trying to stir up trouble, making good boys look like criminals. You're poking your nose into things that don't concern you, Mr. Vance."
"Justice for a slain young man concerns everyone in this state, Deputy Miller," Marcus said, looking directly into the silver reflections of the officer's glasses. "And the subpoena signed by Judge Hargrove this morning makes it officially the court's concern."
Thomas’s jaw tightened. The muscle along his cheek twitched violently. "Hargrove is an old fool who’s getting ready to retire. But out here on Highway 17, I'm the law. Not a court reporter. Not an Atlanta judge. Me."