4

MARCH

“Why didn’t you wait for officers who were equipped with radios and ballistic vests before confronting the subject?”

“How can you be certain he was trying to remove Officer Barnes’s gun?”

“Is it protocol to enter a possibly dangerous situation so ill equipped?”

“It was dark; you couldn’t clearly see what he was pointing at you—why did you fire?”

“How do you know he wasn’t trying to help Officer Barnes?”

With a few of the grand jury questions still torturing her thoughts, Tess felt like she’d followed a rabbit down its hole, falling into a nightmare wonderland. Instead of the Queen of Hearts calling for Alice’s head, a cacophony of angry voices was calling for Tess’s. It was only rule #9 that kept her from screaming on this, the ninth day of grand jury deliberations.

She knew the truth. The officers who arrived on scene immediately after the shooting knew the truth and so did the investigators handling the incident. She’d learned the hard way that in this nightmare, backward world, the truth didn’t seem to matter. People made up their own truth.

Connor-Ruiz kept writing provocative headlines while JT worked his way through rehab, only to learn that he’d never be 100 percent again. Motor skills and some cognition had been affected by the injury. He certainly couldn’t ever be a cop again. And the three people who ran away the night of the incident still hadn’t been identified.

Yeah, Tess clung to rule #9 like it was a life preserver. Trouble was, quoting it wouldn’t work on the grand jury or the multitudes of angry people who seemed convinced she was a cold-blooded baby killer.

After a couple weeks of quiet, when the grand jury finished its work and began deliberating, the protests started to ramp up again. Downtown hotels filled with journalists, TV people, and what Tess and a lot of her friends believed were paid protesters.

A group formed at the east substation where Tess worked, but when they learned she was still on leave, they gathered at the main station downtown. Nasty signs and graffiti continued to appear outside her gated community. At one point protesters formed a human chain and blocked the 710 freeway, a major trucking artery. They wanted Tess’s head.

From an administrative perspective, over the months preceding the shooting, she’d watched a frightening anti-cop sentiment ripple across the country after a few high-profile incidents back East and in the South. She never thought such a poisonous flame would catch in Long Beach, but it had. It became a raging bonfire fanned by Connor-Ruiz with the news of the boy’s age and the fact that he did not have a gun. There was no video of the incident, just Tess’s account, and despite physical evidence supporting her version of the incident, the mayor and the DA wouldn’t take a stand, leaving everything up to the grand jury. And now Tess’s fate was in their hands.

Tess had lived and breathed police work her whole life. Her father and grandfather had been cops. In her baby pictures she was posed between her dad’s badge and the LBPD shoulder patch. She’d worn the uniform with pride for seventeen years, had never fired her weapon outside of the range before that night, and truly loved her job. She knew it was often popular to vilify cops for simply doing their jobs, but the personal vitriol directed her way hit like a sucker punch with brass knuckles.

The door to the DA’s office, where she waited to hear if the deliberations would end today with a recommendation, opened, and Tess turned, holding her breath.

“How are you holding up, Commander?” Detective Jack O’Reilly joined her and she exhaled temporary relief. She was here and not holed up at home because rumor was they were close. It was getting toward the end of the day’s session; she should know soon if a decision had been reached or if this would go on another day.

“I’m feeling powerless, but I’m okay.” Powerless didn’t begin to describe the weak, helpless, impotent feeling inside, but it was the best Tess could do.

“They can’t ignore the evidence no matter how loud those protesters scream.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“I am.” He held up his fist for a bump. “Us gingers and O’s got to stick together.”

The comment made Tess smile, and she bumped his fist, working hard to be as optimistic as he was. She’d worked with Jack years ago when they were both new on the job. That had been their nickname, the ginger and O unit. O’Rourke and O’Reilly, both redheads. Now Jack and his partner Ben Carney were the team investigating the shooting for the department. And she knew even weeks later they were still working tirelessly to locate the three unknown subjects who’d been with Cullen Hoover that night and clarify every moment that led to the shooting.

“We’re on tactical alert tonight?” Tess asked. The pattern with past shootings influenced the police response now. If Tess was exonerated, it was likely the crowds would shift from peaceful to violent and the department would not want to be caught flat-footed. And Connor-Ruiz never stopped the poisonous rhetoric on his blog and over social media in anticipation of a grand jury decision he didn’t agree with. She knew the department wanted to be ready no matter what the decision was. Ever since the Rodney King riots in the nineties, the city had a firm, comprehensive emergency operations plan. Tess had helped fine-tune the plan and been to many simulations over the years. Now she was watching it in action.

“Yeah, all days off canceled; everyone’s been issued riot gear. And the fire department is also at the ready. We’ll keep everything contained.”

“I just hope no one gets hurt,” Tess said as she got up to refresh her coffee, even though she felt like she could float away in a river of caffeine. When the office door opened again, this time it was Deputy Chief Ronnie Riggs, her immediate supervisor and her father’s old partner. He’d never swayed from supporting her. Tess knew that behind closed doors, when the brass was meeting, Riggs was her advocate, and that buoyed her.

He looked at Tess, his smooth coffee-brown features completely unreadable. “They’ve made a decision. It will be made public in about an hour. They recommend against filing charges, Tess. They view the shooting as in policy and unavoidable. No criminal charges.”

Jack gave a whoop and grabbed Tess in a hug. But even though she should have been elated, she couldn’t help but feel as if she were still swirling down the rabbit hole, straight to the waiting axman.