Chapter 13
chapter thirteen
easton
“We are not here to start a fight with the sheriff, Ron,” I said in the sternest voice I could manage.
“Dialogue. Starting a dialogue.” That was Cindy; she’d shown up at the parking lot this morning, pissed that we hadn’t consulted with her about the meeting.
Now she was in my car after refusing to go home, and according to her, she was here to make sure we “kept it cordial.” I’d never thought of Cindy as anything other than a fighter.
When it came to domestic violence and sexual assault cases, she’s always been fearless.
I’d seen her call up the chief of police in the middle of the night to yell at him for not making an arrest fast enough.
And yet, with this, she seemed almost tentative.
My sister’s words kept ringing in my head.
Was Cindy’s plan really to wash her hands, and by association the DA’s office, from this?
I wasn’t sure what to even do with that if it was the case.
As we all got out of the car, I saw Ron pursing his mouth before answering Cindy’s admonishment. He looked a lot like I felt.
“Cin,” Ron said tiredly. “Believe me, I don’t want to start a thing with Day; you know he and I go way back.
I was his mentor when he started at IPD for fuck’s sake, but I am not going to sit there and let him feed me excuses about what some of his deputies have been up to.
” He looked over to me, barely restrained frustration all over his face.
“He’s been ghosting Easton, and from the looks of it, has done nothing to deal with any of it. ”
I looked over at Cindy who was definitely still not up to high stress meetings yet, and bit back the curse that was on the tip of my tongue. “Cindy, we are not here for a social call. Day has to give us some straight answers about what’s been happening on his watch.”
Cindy whispered to me as we walked and headed to the front desk area. “I just don’t want us to get into a place where we can’t work together.”
I looked around and spoke to her in a low voice as Ron let the deputy in the front know what we needed.
“I’m aware. Corey and Tony are invaluable in the sexual abuse cases, hell they’re two of my strongest witnesses for the trial going on now.
We still need to have a word about these bullshit stops on county roads.
” I ran my hand over my head as I followed Ron to Day’s office, trying to control my annoyance.
I was getting tired of Cindy implying that us asking Day do something about these stops was equivalent with declaring war.
“I don’t want this to become a public pissing match any more than you do, but I don’t think I need to tell you that if Day can’t hear our concerns about this, then we really need to be worried. ”
I almost told her about Ari, because I needed her to understand, to hear, that this was something happening to real people.
Our work sometimes got so stressful and there was so much of it that we forgot we were not just responsible for what escalated to crimes.
It was our duty to respond to situations like this, especially when it was becoming clear that these stops were not just random.
Before Cindy could get a word in, Day came out of his office to greet us.
If you could use a word for Whitney Day, it would be strapping.
He gave off a no-nonsense vibe that kept people on their toes.
He was tall and strong, with piercing blue eyes that could make you squirm if directed at you for too long.
His blond hair was getting lighter as some grays came in, but still… he was a very handsome man.
Day had been a notorious bachelor, but no one knew much about his personal life until he’d unexpectedly come out during his run for sheriff.
It almost cost him the election, too. Regardless, he was so well liked, he’d been re-elected.
At thirty-five, he’d been the youngest and first openly gay sheriff ever elected in Tompkins County, and until this bullshit started, it seemed like he was running his department well.
“Archer.” I stretched my hand to Day after he’d gone in for a backslap with Ron and kissed Cindy hello.
“You’ve been a hard man to pin down lately,” I said as we followed him to his office.
Like my own, it was sort of an ode to the seventies. Lots of wood paneling and bright carpeting, but it was large enough to accommodate us. Day’s office unlike mine was scrupulously clean, everything in its place.
He sat down on the small round table in his office and leaned in the chair with his arms crossed on his chest. I wasn’t sure what vibe he was giving off, and I didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot, so I thought about how to best get the conversation going.
This type of situation was always tricky for me.
In a courtroom, there were no holds barred.
I would come in guns blazing and do what I needed to do; I never hesitated.
But when it was colleagues, I had the tendency to let myself get mowed down.
I didn’t want to hedge on this though, but before I could speak, Ron did.
“So how are we going to get these little fuckers to realize they’re too stupid to know their implicit bias is making their decisions for them?”
“Ron!” That was Cindy.
Day’s face barely moved, but his neck was getting redder by the second. I put my hands out trying to get people to calm down, knowing I couldn’t afford this meeting to go off the rails before we even started.
“Whitney, there’s a problem,” I said with the most conciliatory tone I could come up with after Ron’s outburst.
Day just looked at us, his expression inscrutable.
I was starting to get a bit on edge from the stare down he was aiming at me when he finally opened his mouth.
“I got a couple of young deputies who are a little overzealous and obviously need a little more training, but I’m not ready to call this a race problem.
” He looked genuinely puzzled, and even a little hurt.
“I don’t recruit racists. The minute I hear anyone’s been using slurs or anything like that, there will be consequences. ”
Ron’s mouth flattened at that and Cindy looked like she was really close to having another cardiac episode.
I suppressed a sigh before I spoke again. “Whitney, we can’t just ignore the fact that the stops in the last few months have increased and that the drivers were overwhelmingly men of color, mostly Black and Latinx. Just because people are not using hate speech doesn’t mean there’s not an issue.”
Day leaned in then and his face did not seem to be indicating that we were going to make any progress on getting him to at least admit that this bullshit was in any way related to race.
“I have things under control; the guys will be disciplined. They don’t need to be putting people in the community on edge because they can’t keep their shit together on a shift.
But things are way too heated right now.
Some local activists have been up in arms about this and I just don’t think me getting in there is going to do anything.
” Him using the word “activist” brought me up short, because he wasn’t just talking about an anonymous person, he was talking about Patrice.
This was not just some people trying to start trouble, it was people in our community who were fearful for their safety asking us to do our jobs.
I was going to say exactly that when Ron spoke again.
“Activists are up in arms because people are scared, Whit. Actually stepping up and saying this is an issue could show the parents of black kids who can’t sleep at night since this shit started, that this community cares about their kids.” Ron’s angry voice boomed in the room.
If possible, Day tightened is arms even more tightly against his chest, and he did not look like he was going to budge much from his position. “It’s not the right time.”
Ron scoffed and that angled his head toward the sheriff. “What would be the right time for you, Whit? After one of these kids gets shot on their way home from school?”
Cindy looked like she finally realized that she’d made a bad call by coming to this and stood up. “I’m going to get some fresh air.”
Sheriff Day’s eyes widened as if only now realizing that Cindy was only a few weeks out of surgery.
“If Lorraine knows you’re out here, she’s going to have all our heads.
” Cindy’s partner had been a teacher in the Ithaca school district for twenty years and most knew her well and respected her.
We also knew she was not anyone to mess with, especially when it came to Cindy.
Cindy glared at all of us as she walked to the door. When she had her hand on the doorknob, she turned around. To my surprise, she finally seemed to have lost her patience.
“Whitney, I’m old and don’t want to have another heart attack. Can you please stop acting like there’s not a problem? Fix this, for fuck’s sake. Do we want all your hard work blowing up because a kid gets shot?” With that, she left, leaving us all in tense silence.
“If it were a matter of one person fixing this, it would already be over. I know you can’t fix all of it,” Ron said exhaustedly. “But you need to do better than a slap on the hand.”
Day twisted his mouth to the side, and when he spoke, I had to refrain from sitting on Ron.
“It took a year to get this department back on track after I came out. Easton, you know that. It seemed like half the county was suspicious of me. If I take sides on this…” He trailed off, but his meaning was crystal clear.
Ron leaned in then and the menacing look in his eyes made me think that we’d be lucky if this thing didn’t end up in a brawl. “Please tell me this isn’t about your fucking popularity, Whitney. Do you know what it’s like to have two black teens about to get licenses with this mess going on?”
Ron’s emotional words seem to finally sink in.
Day’s usually unaffected face went from realization, to concern, to finally what looked like genuine empathy for Ron’s distress.
He uncrossed his arms and clapped Ron’s shoulder, before he spoke.
“Ron, I’m not trying to say this is simple, I just don’t know what to do. ”
Ron’s shoulders relaxed a fraction, but he looked to me to respond.
“I’m not saying any of us have all the answers here, but we need to find them.
This is our fucking job. We promised to do this.
If people are scared for their kids, we are failing at our jobs.
To start, we need to let this community know, in no uncertain terms, that we do not think what is happening is acceptable. ”
Day let out a long breath and turned to look at me.
“I’ve made an active effort to recruit more minorities.
” I sighed at his words because he just wasn’t getting it.
“You know I even had that LGBT training last year, and how much shit I got for it. We’ve got a lot going on, with the opiates addiction wreaking havoc in the rural areas. ”
I sighed, well aware of all the shit he was dealing with, because our office had to deal with all those drug charges, but it irked me the way he was talking like he wanted us to commend him for doing the bare minimum.
“But hiring minorities is not exactly groundbreaking.” He flinched at that, but I needed to make it clear that I was not patting him on the back for doing what labor laws required him to do.
“I know you have your hands full, Whitney.” I leaned in, looking straight at him.
“But we cannot just kick the can down the road on this. If something terrible happens, what are we going to tell ourselves then?”
He nodded and let out another long suffering breath. “Fine, I will make sure this is dealt with, but I will appreciate it if I’m given some time to deal with this internally. I’m not ready to crack heads just yet.”
It wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear.
I wanted Day to push for an anti-racism training for recruits.
I wanted him to publicly talk about implicit bias training, to say that we didn’t want to become another town where young black and brown men had to be scared for their lives just because of the color of their skin.
But I knew I couldn’t make Day do it, and now he was asking me to keep my mouth shut, too.
I looked over my shoulder at Ron, who’d been standing since Cindy had left the room.
He twisted his mouth to the side, and I knew, like me, he wasn’t impressed by Day’s answer, but also knew it was probably all we were going to get.
I spoke up before Ron could. “We can give you time, but I can’t promise we won’t have to respond to this at some point. I will not let this county be another one in the long list of towns in this country that sweeps shit like this under the rug.”