Bright Sky Beach Ch. 01

She looked over her shoulder and saw Jason being pushed into the building. He must have noticed her panic and his eyes darted around the room, coming to the same conclusion. "You're going to be ok. I'll see you, soon. It's alright," he called.

Heather, feeling helpless let herself be pushed forward, but tried to slow down her progress. She nodded in Jason's direction, trying to signal that he shouldn't worry about her, but her voice was caught in her throat.

"Come on. Keep moving," Burkes growled, "You don't want to be with the guys, believe me."

The two of them headed through the door and Heather hated that she wasn't going to be with her boyfriend, and, plus, he was going to be all alone. "Why not?" she asked as she walked down a hallway with closed wooden doors lining both sides.

"Drunk guys get handsy," the cop grunted, "You're better off with the other girls."

"I get to be with my friends?"

"You'll probably end up in the same holder. Now, come on. I have to get you processed," Burkes said.

The officer directed her into one of the rooms to her left. "Sit there," Burkes grumbled, indicating a faded red chair with metal arms that stood against the back wall.

Heather sat down and took in the small room as Burkes closed the heavy door with closed with a chunk. The sergeant opened a tall, gray metal cabinet against the wall to her right. The wall to the left was clear of furniture and painted with thick black lines labeled in inches where she presumed she would stand for her mugshot. On the wall with the door, there was a standing scale like she had seen in doctor's offices.

She hoped that that was all there was going to be. Whispers about strip searches were everywhere among the women she knew, but the message boards she read said that wasn't an issue in Bright Sky Beach. The cops here weren't so worried about that as they kept the conveyor belt of vacationers on its way to the spanking benches.

Her mind raced through the horror stories she'd read online as she worried that being held overnight meant that would be different. Women being fingered and groped was almost assumed when they attended a Punishment Center for their sentence.

Heather continued to tell herself that she was fine. She wasn't going to strip for this stranger who arrested her and stood over her in this tiny room. It was just a mugshot and, like, fingerprinting, maybe, but she didn't really know. It felt like Burkes was rummaging through the cabinet for a really long time as she sat with her thoughts and she was growing cold.

She wasn't dressed for the heavy air conditioning of the police station. She wore high waisted cut off jean shorts that ended less than halfway down her thighs and a sleeveless tank top with her Greek letters. All in all, definitely meant for the eighty-degree weather outside, rather than the sixty degrees in the air-conditioned room.

Finally, Burkes seemed to be done and he had extracted many things from the cabinet. There was now a large black camera with a long lens that he had mounted on a tripod whose legs he had extended so it stood at about her height. There was also a folding table that was now filled with a paper-filled clipboard, a small whiteboard, and what she guessed was an inkpad, confirming her suspicion that she would be fingerprinted. Lastly, he pulled out a folding metal chair that he opened and sat down on in front of her.

The sergeant grabbed a clipboard and pen and spoke, "I'm Sergeant Burkes. I'm doing paperwork prior to entry to a holding cell until tomorrow morning. I'm not going to be asking you about your charges, but anything you say can and will be used against you, understand?"

"Yes," Heather said nervously. She wanted to blurt out the question about whether he was going to search her, but she didn't really want to know the answer. The twenty-year-old decided to just let it play out.

"Don't lie to me. I have your ID, so I'm going to double check your information, so make it easy on yourself and tell the truth."

"Ok," she mumbled.

"Then we are going to do fingerprints, mugshots, and a questionnaire. When we are done with that, I'll get you in to the holding cell and you can go to sleep, since you say you're tired," he said.

Heather nodded along, relieved that he didn't mention anything about a strip search. She was tired, although the adrenaline of the red and blue lights in her rear-view mirror had helped wake her up. She hoped that she would be able to sleep, but strange beds freaked her out at the best of times, so she wasn't confident.

"Name?"

"Heather Simpson-Scott. With a hyphen," she answered.

"Middle name?" he asked.

"Anne."

"Any aliases?"

"No, just Heather," she answered.

"Date of Birth?"

"January 17, 2001," she answered. She had just turned twenty, which was most of the reason she was in this situation.

"Is the address on your ID, correct?"

"That's my parents address," she answered.

"Do you live there, now?"

"No, I'm at university," she answered, before giving her apartment address.

"Brown eyes and brown hair, right?" the officer said, "Is that your natural color?"

"Yeah," she mumbled. She wore her brunette hair at shoulder length and with a middle part.

"Do you wear corrective lenses?"

"No."

"Any tattoos or large scars or birth marks?"

"Yeah, um, a butterfly tattoo, here," she said, before remembering that her hands were still cuffed behind her back and she couldn't show him, "On my left wrist. And an arrow pointing forward on my right foot."

"Ok," the officer said, still writing, "Do you take any medication regularly?"

"No," she shook her head.

"Ok," the officer repeated. He sat down the clipboard and picked up the whiteboard and started writing with a black marker. He wrote her full name across the top of the board and then a ten-digit number and the date and time. "Stand up and turn around please," he ordered.

Relieved to finally get her bonds off, Heather complied quickly and rubbed her wrists after he removed the handcuffs. She watched as Sergeant Burkes took the whiteboard with her information and pressed it onto the wall with, she guessed, some kind of adhesive. "Shoes off and stand against the wall," he grunted.

Heather kicked off her brown birkenstocks before going to stand barefoot with her back to the black lined wall with the white board positioned next to her left ear. She hoped that her sandals were all she was going to have to remove this evening. She kept telling herself it was so he could get an accurate reading of her height, but her stomach was sinking. If this scared her so much, how was she going to survive tomorrow with so many eyes on her?

The sergeant stood in front of her with the clipboard and she guessed he was scribbling her height. She looked to the side to see that she was sixty-four inches tall and did some quick math: five foot four inches.

"Look straight ahead, please," Burkes said as he pressed buttons on the camera. The long lens on the front opened and spun as it put her into focus. She scowled into it and heard a snap as he took a picture and heard the lens change focus and then another snap. A close-up, she guessed. He pressed more buttons and seemed to approve of the image, "Look toward the wall with the door." Another snap as he took her right-side profile. "Turn toward the back wall," the sergeant said before another click.

Heather hoped that he was done, but the Sergeant continued giving directions, "Stand to the side with your wrist tattoo near the white board." The camera snapped again as he documented the blue and purple butterfly on her wrist.

"Now, one last picture," Burkes said as he stepped forward and took the white board off the wall and set it on the floor, so it faced toward the ceiling. He turned his back to her and she wished she had the bravery to push him over and run. She knew that that wouldn't do anything. She'd get less than ten feet before reaching a locked door, but it was still her gut instinct to save herself.

She shook her head to clear her mind of such a stupid idea. That would be the best way to end up in real prison with real strip searches and no week of vacation afterward. At least that was one bright side, she told herself. The five of them had agreed that if any of them got caught up in the Bright Sky Beach judicial system, they were still going to stay the whole of spring break. For now, she still felt like that was the right idea and she would need some relaxation after all of this.

"Put your foot forward next to the white board," Burkes ordered.

Heather stood behind the board and put her right foot forward to present the expertly shaded three-dimensional arrow on the top of her foot. It had hurt like a bitch, but she liked the result of the tattooer's work.

Burkes unscrewed the camera from the tripod and held it freehanded as he knelt in front of her red painted, manicured toes. He steadied himself and pressed the button to complete the documentation of her identifying features. "Alright, up on the scale," he said as he straightened up in front of her.

Heather wasn't the type to worry about her weight, but she still wasn't looking forward to it. She stepped up onto the low platform and held her breath as she waited to hear her weight.

The sergeant stood to her right, reaching in front of her to manipulate the weights on the two parallel beams in front of her. Finally, the scale settled, and he muttered, "One forty-two. Sit back on the chair, please"

Heather returned to the faded red chair, annoyed that she had crossed the one-forty threshold. She would have felt much better at one thirty-nine, but she tried to put those thoughts aside. She knew it wasn't healthy to worry about it. Jason would say it was all in her ass like it was a good thing, but she couldn't shake the feeling that it was more in her thighs and belly, which were growing larger than she'd like.

Her stomach sank lower as she realized everyone would be seeing her cellulite and her stomach, which she wished was just a little flatter. She knew how to dress to make herself look nice, that's why she wore high waisted pants, but tomorrow there was going to be nothing to hide her imperfections.

As she sat and waited, Sergeant Burkes was writing on a clipboard and then opening an inkpad for her fingerprinting. He scooted the folding table toward her and spoke, "I'm going to be moving your hands back and forth between the ink and this paper here." He turned the clipboard to show her the single sheet of paper. The top three-quarters of the sheet had bureaucratic jargon and her personal information, ID number, and address. The bottom quarter had ten rectangles in a single row, one for each of her fingers. "Make your arms pliable and don't fight me. I don't want to have to start again," he warned.

"I will," she assured him.

"Ok," he said, moving to stand to her right. His left hand grasped her wrist, and his right hand took her thumb and guided it to the inkpad. "Close your hand... Yep, just like that. One finger at a time."

He pressed her thumb into the ink and make her wiggle it side to side. She didn't have much choice and focused on keeping her hand and arm loose so that he could control her. From the inkpad, he guided her thumb into the corresponding rectangle and then he moved on to her index finger and so on.

It took a few minutes, but Heather learned his rhythm and soon all ten fingers were covered in black ink. He pulled a wet wipe from the cabinet and handed it to her, "There will be a sink in the holding cell if you need more than that."

Heather proceeded to clean her hands as best she could until the moist cloth was mostly black. She wondered what was next as Burkes started to pack the information that he took into a manilla envelope. She watched as he carefully closed and sealed the package and wrote her name, her ID number, and the date.

"Alright, we are done here," the officer said, "You're gonna be put in a holding cell with your party."

"Thank you," Heather murmured.

"We don't want fights," he shrugged, "And we have all we need to prosecute."

Heather frowned. She knew that was true, between the fake IDs and the liquor in the car the case was open and shut, but she didn't like the intimation that the police sometimes played friends off against each other. Maybe they would have done that if nobody had claimed the bag with the weed.

"Let me talk a little about the process. Basically, I'm going to go write up my report of your arrest and recommend charges," Burkes continued. "At about five tomorrow morning, well," he looked at his watch, "It's not quite midnight, so five tomorrow, the magistrate is going to arrive, and you'll be officially charged, and he will make a preliminary punishment recommendation."

"Ok," Heather said, nodding along.

"From there, someone will deliver my report, the charge, and the punishment rec to you. That's usually about 6:30 or so in the morning. You'll be given the opportunity to speak to a public defender or call a lawyer after those are delivered to you. You'll also be able to plead guilty at any time and accept the punishment recommendation."

"Is that what most people do?" Heather asked aloud.

"Yes, and I suggest you talk to a lawyer if you are considering fighting the charge," he said, "There can be an extra charge for wasting the magistrate's time, so I wouldn't go into court unless you have a real argument for your innocence."

"Which I don't," Heather spouted, unable to keep the realization to herself.

"That's up to you," Burkes answered.

"Ok, take me away, then," Heather said, resigned. Regret and self-loathing rose in her, combining to create defeatism. There was no way out, logic told her that, but for a moment, her brain told her she deserved what was coming for her.

Apparently, she had swerved out of her lane, though she didn't really remember doing it, and she'd been pulled over. That she didn't realize she had done it was probably good evidence that it was true. Her friends might have been stupid and started drinking in the back seat, but it was her driving that got them pulled over. She knew this was a bad habit, but when the going got tough she spiraled into deep self-hatred. It had started when Jason was taken to the other side of the prison and got worse when she learned her weight and imagined everyone staring at her thighs.

"Sure, that's about all I had anyway," Burkes said before ordering, "Stand up, turn arounds, hands behind your back."

Her stomach dropped again. Usually, when she felt like this, Jason or her mom or dad or friends would try to cheer her up to drag her out of her pit of despair but Burkes saw no reason to make her feel better.

She stood, but before she turned around, she whimpered, "N-no, I sh-should have questions or something." She sniffed and tears came to her eyes. She hated that having her fate spelled out to her--she had no choice but to plead guilty in the morning--broke her like this. She thought she was doing ok and then she just broke down. Suddenly, she couldn't catch her breath and she felt like she couldn't breathe.

"Sit back down and collect yourself," Burkes said, gruffly.

"W-what's wrong with me?" she asked, aloud.

"You're nervous. Be quiet and breathe," he told her.

Heather fought to catch her breath, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's just... I don't know."

"Be quiet and calm down," he said.

"I'm sorry," she stammered, as she tried to prevent tears from staining her makeup.

"It happens a lot," he said. He waited, "Do you have any questions before we go?"

Heather sniffed and caught the last of her tears on her smudged fingers before they ran down her cheeks. She wracked her brain for any questions she wanted to know. If nothing else, she felt like he would judge her for not asking a question, "Um, uh, um, you get to recommend charges, right? What are you going to say?"

"Possession of a fake ID, possession of alcohol by a minor, possession of an open container of alcohol by a driver to start. Anything else depends on if we find anything else in the car," he said.

Heather added it all up. Those three were all true so at least he wasn't going to charge her with something she didn't do. In all, it was less than what Maisie and Charlotte faced.

"Anything else?" Burkes said.

"What do you think they'll give me?" Heather said.

"It will be a Judicial Code."

"I know that. You can't tell me which?" she asked, trying to sound pitiful.

"Not my decision to make," he said, unmoved.

She wasn't surprised. He had been curt and professional the whole night. "Ok," she said, resigned to the mystery until the morning, "Let's go, I guess."

She stood up and let him pull her arms from her sides to the small of her back where he secured them again with metal cuffs. The sergeant swiped an ID card over the door handle and the door unlocked. He led her by the arm back into the hallway and toward an elevator. She noticed that he took her up and when the elevator door opened, she was met with a cream-colored hallway. The walls were cream, the tiles were cream, and the many doors on either side of the hallway were cream except for small windows that just barely stood above Heather's head. "Is the color supposed to be calming," she wondered.

Burkes took her most of the way down the hallway, passing past the dark-skinned guard who shared Burkes's car. The two partners nodded to each other as they passed and soon the sergeant stopped her and looked through the window that she wasn't tall enough to access. He banged on the door, and shouted, "Back up! Away from the door!"

He waited for the occupant to comply before reaching behind Heather to release her cuffs. Keeping a hand wrapped around her wrist he opened the door halfway and pushed her toward the opening. Inside, she saw Amelia, her back against the far wall, and the two of them exchanged smiles as the heavy door closed behind her. Behind her, Burkes tested to make sure the door was closed but Heather was busy greeting her friend.

"Oh my god, are you ok?" Heather asked. She hadn't been able to speak to her friends for more than an hour since she was removed from the car for a sobriety test.

"I'm fine," Amelia said, "They didn't touch me. I was so scared. I just got here."

"Same. Yeah, I just saw the other cop go down the hallway. I was so scared too," Heather said, racing through her words. The two friends hugged with Amelia, nearly six feet tall, stooping to embrace her friend. They held each other for a long while before Heather spoke again, "I'm sorry I got you into this."

"It's not your fault," Amelia said, "I should have stopped them from drinking or at least said something so you knew."

Heather laughed, "No, I was tired and should have made Jason drive."

"It's ok. We can just blame Maisie and Charlotte," she joked.

It was crazy how Amelia made Heather relax so easily. "Don't tell them that," she said with a giggle.

"Oh, I know," Amelia said, sitting down on one of the beds and looking around, "So, nice room, I guess?"

"Yeah, I guess," Heather said.

She took in the room. It was a little bigger than she imagined a jail cell, perhaps twelve by fifteen, but there were two bunk beds so there was room for four and then it might get crowded. There was a metal bunk bed against each of the side walls each with two thin mattresses with white sheets and a dingy greenish-gray blanket. There was a ladder on the sides nearer the back wall that allowed entrance to the top bunk and against the back wall there was a metal sink and a metal toilet jutting from the wall. Other than that, it was sparse, and she couldn't believe it was possible to live in a cell like this for years. She hoped it wasn't and actual prisoners got a table or a dresser.