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AT ELEVEN, A GENERAL wave of discontent swept the bull pen, causing Taka to lift his head from the new Excel sheet he was building from what they knew of Adam Ward to better compare his timeline to Billie Mae’s. Taka frowned when he saw faces turned his way. Dan Cozner came through the door from the hallway and straight to him at a fast walk. Taka stood up, cold heat surging into his veins, blood rushing in his ears. His cell phone rang on his desk.
“Taka,” Cozner said. “It’s Zach Taylor. He’s dead.”
Glancing down, Taka picked up his phone. Carson. He thumbed it open, waited for the line to open. “I know.”
“You want to get out of there?” Carson asked.
Cozner looked like he was waiting for Taka to do something, be upset, turn his desk over? But Taka was a soldier before he was a cop and he’d been a cop for eleven years now. Even as a kid, he’d been trained never to point a gun at anyone or anything you weren’t prepared to kill. He felt bad, but the kid had made his own choices. What he needed to do now was come clean to Carson. “Yeah. Garage.”
They drove through the heavy mid-day traffic to Adelphia’s and scored the back booth. The chatter of the swelling lunch crowd, talking over the canned music while they eyed the games playing on the TVs hung everywhere, created nice cover for a quiet conversation. Carson ordered them both burgers although Taka didn’t want one. He spun an extra coaster around and around on the table while he gathered his thoughts. First scrolling through his phone and then beating out texts or an email or whatever with his thumbs, Carson let him stew.
They played poker once a month and Carson’s partner Bobby never failed to suggest strip poker with a sidelong glance at Taka. He could be a little sharper than Carson at times. The waitress came back and slid their meals onto the table. Carson set his phone aside. Taka stalled for a few minutes longer by slathering mayo on his burger and shaking out ketchup on his fries.
“Just tell me what you’re thinking, Taka,” Carson finally said. “It’s okay if you don’t feel as bad as you think you should. Zach Taylor committed murder before he fired a gun at you. He constituted an imminent danger to your life.”
Taka shook his head and pushed his plate away. “It’s not that. It’s Dewey Sanderson.”
“One good thing about the County investigating is that it puts Dewey in a tighter corner. He’ll have more trouble messing with you without his relationship with Taylor going public.”
“That’s just it.”
Carson took another big bite of his burger. Taka watched him chew. Carson said nothing after he swallowed, just took another bite. Taka sighed, noticing that his hands had found the coaster again. Silence was a great tactic in interrogation and Carson did it well.
“Bobby’s not wrong, y’know,” Taka tried. Maybe Carson already knew, or had guessed.
“’bout what,” Carson asked around a mouthful of fries.
“Me.”
Exasperation crossed his face and then Carson was wiping his hands and tidying his space although half his burger remained. “You know Sanderson from the gun club. You were young. You got some kinda long term grudge against each other. We know he’s definitely pissed at you now. What’s that got to do with Bobby?”
“Look, Carson, you aren’t stupid. You’ve heard the rumors about me. They’re true.”
Carson did a good job controlling his expression, but he was clearly surprised.
“I have a hard enough time being a multi-ethnic POC. I don’t want to be CPD’s... hell, West Virginia’s first openly bi cop.”
Carson held his gaze, but Taka could see the lawyer in his eyes, calculating and discarding responses until he hit the one that mattered most.
“Are you ashamed?”
“No, I’m a cop. In West Virginia.”
Carson nodded. “And Andrea?”
“She’s always known. Dewey’s the only substantial relationship I’ve had with a guy.”
“Oh.” Surprised again, Carson didn’t catch himself before those familiar damning words that Taka hated escaped. “You’re one of Dewey’s boys.”
“That’s what I’m ashamed of.”
******
NODDING AT CARSON WHEN he stopped at the elevators in City Hall, Taka took the stairs to the third floor for a quiet moment by himself and a deep breath before traipsing into PSD’s hallowed suite at one sharp. O’Malley, from the prosecutor’s office, was waiting with Carson, who was repping CPD in this meeting, the first of several informal meetings and formal hearings to come once Taka’s Shooting Board was fully assembled. In this setting, Taka was contractually required to answer questions or lose his job. They all shook hands.
Greg Stack, head of Pro Standards Division and an automatic member of Taka’s Board, strolled in and ushered them towards the conference room. “Let me grab my file, be right back,” he said.
A box of glass walls partitioned the small conference room off from the main room. Taka knocked the glass twice seating himself on the far side of its wooden rectangular table. It sat eight. He couldn’t imagine being wedged in with seven other people. Just the three of them had his triggers bristling. He rolled his shoulders and his head, listening to his neck creak.
Carson poured two glasses of ice water from the pitcher on the table and slid one Taka’s way.
O’Malley studied his face and then said, “Admin leave not agreeing with you, Taka?”
Taka shrugged, reminding himself that O’Malley was good at his job. That didn’t mean he had to like him, though.
“Look,” O’Malley offered in a conciliatory tone that didn’t ease Taka’s mood one bit. “I read the reports, but I still gotta follow up. Zach Taylor was Councilman Miller’s nephew. His sister’s screaming in his ear every day. Swears up and down her son wasn’t doping.”
Stack walked in, smiling. He slapped his files down and dropped a handful of pens onto the table. Taka wondered if there was some deal in the offing or if Stack just liked to be prepared. He must’ve frowned at the pens because Stack laughed and said, “The last bid on office supplies must’ve been cheap; most of the pens don’t work and we went from twenty-bond paper to ten. Bureaucrats.”
Carson snorted. O’Malley fumed. Taka laughed in surprise.
“What’s up, O’Malley?” Stack continued. “Our guys say the shoot was good.”
“The councilman’s all over me. Wants us to wait while the family arranges a private autopsy.” He slid a file to Stack. “Just got this. Bloodwork’s clean. No drugs in his system according to the hospital. ME’s going to waive it.”
“Shit,” Carson whispered under his breath.
Taka’s chest closed. That boy was high as a kite. He took a breath so he could speak. “He was shooting at us, O’Malley.”
“He was a diabetic,” O’Malley said, measuring each word out for maximum effect as he leveled his gaze on Taka. “Didn’t eat, had just come from playing flag football. He was hypoglycemic.”
Carson shook his head.
Taka leaned forward. “He was shoo—”
Carson grabbed his arm, cueing him to shut up.
Stack made a thoughtful sound deep in his throat. “The gun was his.”
“Legally permitted,” O’Malley agreed, turning his focus back to Stack.
“Do you know if he was wearing a med-alert bracelet?” Stack asked.
Taka tensed. What difference would it have made? The boy was firing on multiple officers, Taka fired back.
Carson shook his head. “You can’t expect officers in danger to check for a med-alert.”
“He was shirtless,” O’Malley said. “His bracelet was clearly visible. It was removed from his wrist by the ME and entered into evidence.”
Taka racked his brain. Had he seen it?
“O’Malley, the courts are clear on this.” Still standing, Stack rested his weight on both fists and leaned across the table, glowering at the asshole, who appeared unruffled by the pose. “Officers can counter lethal force with lethal force. They can’t be held accountable for this shooting, even if the kid was having a medical emergency. They had no reasonable way to know that was the case.”
“They have to take every measure available to them, Stack, before they use lethal force. As lead officer, Detective Taka should have taken more time to assess the situation.” O’Malley was really going to take the investigation down this rabbit hole. The kid was irresponsible, period. It killed him. Period. Taka wanted to feel sorry for him, for the circumstances that led to his death, but he didn’t.
Glancing at Carson, Taka said, “Did he have a concealed carry permit?”
“Wouldn’t have mattered,” O’Malley immediately objected. “He couldn’t be denied for a non-mental illness. The gun was visible when officers arrived on the scene.”
“I’ll take that as a no,” Taka said, as Carson squeezed his arm and Stack, dropping into his chair, said, “No, he didn’t.”
“We just wanted to give you a heads-up that the County’s interested and we’re giving the family some leeway to run with their own exam.” O’Malley lowered his head to catch Taka’s glare, aimed at the tabletop. Taka met his eyes. “It isn’t personal, detective, I know I come across as a hard ass, but I’m just doing my job—”
“Yes, sir,” Taka interrupted, knowing that was the only answer he was allowed.
Greg Stack tapped the table with one of his pens. “I don’t like this. So far we’re seeing a good shoot. We’ll look at the time line, but I think you’re keeping a good officer off the streets just to placate a politician, O’Malley, and we need him out there.”
O’Malley spread his hands in a “what do you want me to do about it” gesture.
“I’m taking it up with your boss,” Stack continued. “See if we can move things along.”
“Your privilege,” O’Malley said. “This was a courtesy call.”
******
“MRS. HOOPER?”
“Yes?”
After a morning spent with a researcher from West Virginia State who needed specifics on crop rotations in a certain county between the years of 1760 and 1780, Andrea introduced herself to Etta Robbins’ sister-in-law and Steven’s guardian. She told her about meeting with Etta and about the research she was doing to document Etta’s case. “Could I speak to Steven?”
“I don’t know, Miss Kelley.”
“Andrea, please. I’d really like to get his thoughts. Maybe not even about Billie Mae, if he’s uncomfortable with that. I’d really like to know how he feels about it all now, about his mom, and what he remembers about the days before Billie Mae died, when she left the house. Her mother wasn’t clear about why she was running away or why she’d gone out in the yard the next day.”
“That sounds like a lot of questions about Billie Mae to me.”
Andrea quailed. “Yes, it does, doesn’t it? I thought I’d be happy with background, what he remembered doing, but I guess I really do have a lot of questions specifically about her after all.”
“Steven’s spent years in therapy. I just don’t know that he’d want to speak to you.”
“Has he ever spoken to you about those days surrounding her death? Would you talk to me?”
“No, he hasn’t. But I know he remembers them quite clearly for his age at the time.”
“I’m especially interested in why Billie Mae went into the yard that day, and where exactly Mrs. Robbins found her”—Andrea caught herself before she said “body”—“laying.”
“Did she tell you that? That Billie Mae was laying out in the yard?”
“Yes,” Andrea agreed, cringing a little, but hoping Mrs. Hooper would confirm what Mrs. Robbins had not.
“She told me that as well, after the trial, but it was too late by then. Steven’s never told me anything. I used to ask, but I haven’t in years now.”
“Was he ever interviewed by the police? There’s not a witness statement from him.”
“He wasn’t. They tried, of course, but he wouldn’t say a word. He didn’t talk at all for nearly eighteen months afterwards.”
“At all?”
“Wouldn’t even ask for water, or new shoes, or... anything. We stopped talking to him about Billie Mae a long time ago.”
“Oh.” Andrea was nonplussed. She wasn’t sure what to do with that info. Steven technically an adult, but she could still offer to have a therapist sit in on the interview?
“I can...” Mrs. Hooper stopped. After a long moment she sniffed and cleared her throat. “I can ask him, if he’d like to talk to you. He hasn’t seen his mother in five years. He might want to talk to you about her at least. I can ask if he’ll talk to you about Billie Mae. The therapist he was seeing said he might talk about her more as he got older.”
“I’d appreciate that, I really would. It would be really helpful to me to have his insight. I’m not convinced that Mrs. Robbins was rightfully convicted.”
A long breath came down the line, ending in a little hiccup. “I’ve never believed she did a thing to that child. I never have.”
“Even if Steven won’t talk to me, will you? I’d like to know more about Mrs. Robbins.”
“Etta was a dear sweet girl all her life. It’s so hard to believe that we’re here talking about this. I never would’ve thought this is the way it would turn out, Etta locked up in that place and Steven here, with me. Etta didn’t kill that girl. She didn’t.”
Andrea didn’t know what to say. “I’d like to prove that, Mrs. Hooper. With your help and Steven’s, if he’ll talk to me.”
“I’ll ask him, I surely will. What was your number again?”
Andrea repeated it and hung up. She took a deep breath and realized she was shaking. It was true. She didn’t believe Billie Mae’s mom had killed her.