By the time I got off the phone, a solid curtain of snow was falling in front of the sheriff’s department. Where was Tom? I wondered. No, no, I wasn’t going to bother him again. He might not approve of my visiting Patricia, and I didn’t want to get into an argument about it. I took a deep breath, snagged two bags of cookies, and traipsed through the slushy muck to the imposing entrance to the jail.
When I told the desk sergeant I wanted to see Patricia Ingersoll, he said, “You’re her attorney?” He sounded dubious. Undoubtedly my caterer’s shirt and pants, printed with pictures of flying pots and sauté pans, and now spotted with salad dressing and who knew what else, did not make me look very lawyerly.
“Just a friend.”
The desk sergeant rang up someone and talked in a low voice. After th
