Pleading guilty to a state crime was one thing, but a federal crime? That was something else altogether.
First of all, the sheer amount of paperwork required by the feds was intimidating. Alice sat in the waiting room of the federal probation office with a stack of papers on her lap, waiting to be interviewed by a probation officer about the man she lived with, William Casey Battle. Billy had pleaded guilty to three counts of intent to distribute ten kilos of opioids and was being held in jail pending sentencing. The purpose of her interview was to talk with Agent Riley, who was preparing the presentencing report for the judge, about Billy’s character.
That was another thing about the feds—the probation officers were a far cry from the doughy, indifferent social workers who handled probation for the state courts. Federal probation officers were trim, neatly dressed FBI agents with close-cropped crew cuts and good posture. When Agent Riley introduced himself, Alice had straightened her shoulders, discretely sucked in her belly, and cursed herself for not wearing control-top pantyhose.
