Hell, no. He's read about jailhouse snitches

He opened his mouth to explain what had happened, then snapped it shut. His ex-wife had been a huge fan of true crime podcasts and he'd ended up listening to more than a few of them when she couldn't be bothered with earbuds. One consistent thread had been that everyone in jail is a snitch, willing to sell out their cellmates for a few bucks, a lighter sentence, or just to be owed a favor.

"Well, hopefully I'll get out of here before mealtime then," Rick said.

"Looking like you do, I'm betting you never get out."

That was comforting. Not. He leaned against the wall and waited. They did have to let him make his phone call, didn't they? Before all of the terrorist things, he thought the rule was they had to charge you or release you within 48 hours. He remembered hearing that might have changed... that they could lock you up almost forever if they used the 'terrorist' word as an excuse and who knew, maybe being covered with blood, even if it was his own blood, would be deemed sufficiently terrorist-like to...

"All right." A jailor opened the cell door and gestured at him. "Mr. Peters. You want to make your phone call, let's go."

They'd taken his phone and he was sure he wouldn't remember his sister's phone number but all of a sudden it was there at his fingertips.

"If it's long distance, you need to call collect."

Yeah, he remembered that too. Local police departments supplement their budgets by imposing huge markups on prisoner phone calls. Rick had never been a bleeding heart liberal. He'd believed the company when they'd said unions were bad. He'd gone along with increases in property taxes to pay for more cops. This experience was not exactly confirming his earlier beliefs.

Fortunately, his sister answered. Even more fortunately, she agreed to pay the collect charges.

"All right," she said when he told her where he was. "I'll get someone to come down there. Maybe they can get you out, maybe they can't but I'll try."

"Thanks, Milly," was all he could say.