by Gerry Boyle
“Body cam doesn’t change the shoot,” Brandon said.
“Halsey pushed for the things. You didn’t use it. It’s like you were dissing her.”
“I forgot.”
“I know.”
They sat. The guy in the kayak had turned back, almost flipped coming around. Brandon didn’t feel like saving him, leave it to Kat the triathloner. He didn’t feel like saving anyone. He was done.
“There’s a lot of pressure on her. That comes down on Garcia.”
“I know. You should see my phone. Estusa put my cell number online.”
“That little weasel.”
“Yup.”
“You know it’s got very little to do with you and Rawlings,” Kat said. “It’s like you’re the scapegoat for all of the shootings all over the country.”
“Timing is everything,” Brandon said.
“Plus the failure to report the Shakespeare thing.”
“I know.”
“Lay it all out there. You had good intentions. You’re a good cop.”
“What’s the line? When bad things happen to good people?”
“A reprimand, maybe. Thirty days suspension,” Kat said.
“What happens to the bad cops?” Brandon said.
“Like Dever, always the last one in? Three guys pounding you and it’s ‘Where’s Dever?’ He was just here? That coward. People like him, they skate. Until they don’t.”
The kayakers were both running past the boat ramp, the wind blowing them upriver toward Back Bay. Smart. Don’t beat your head against the wall.
“I got a text this morning,” Brandon said. “Somebody said they knew Thatcher Rawlings. Something I need to know.”
“You can’t talk to anybody.”
Brandon didn’t answer.
“I’m telling you, Brandon. Don’t make a bad situation worse.”
“What if it’s important? What if he told the guy he was going to go get killed by a cop? What if it was all planned?”
“Playing with fire, Blake. It could all go fine without it. This could cause the whole thing to blow up on you, you go nosing around. You’re on leave. You can’t be working.”
She looked at him, held his gaze.
“You’re as tied to this as me,” Brandon said.
“Maddie’s not.”
She dropped him in the police lot, which was quiet between shift changes. A slap on the shoulder and Brandon went to the door, buzzed himself in. He heard voices, saw no one. Walked down the corridor toward the voices, but they were coming from upstairs. He went up the stairs, homing in on them. Steeled himself. Stepped into the room
They were drinking coffee. Charlie Carew, the shop steward. That was Brandon’s team. The department side: Sergeant Perry, Chief Garcia, Lieutenant Searles, a detective named Broward. She didn’t like O’Farrell and he’d brought Brandon in. Broward said the hotel shooting was a deal breaker. O’Farrell said if that’s the case, what do we do with all of these cops who fought in Afghanistan? Broward lost. She and Brandon hadn’t hit it off.
The group went quiet when Brandon walked in. Carew broke the silence, said, “Hey, Brandon,” and came over and shook his hand. The others followed, Broward bringing up the rear, her handshake as tepid as her expression. They went to the table, where legal pads and yellow pencils had been set at each place. Carew motioned to the seat on the end, like Brandon was the dad at Thanksgiving. He’d never had one, but he’d seen it on TV.
They sat, said they might as well start at the beginning. He asked Brandon to walk them through the events of Sept. 6, 2017.
“Starting when?”
“When you started your shift,” Searles said.
Brandon looked at him, thought of how Searles and his wife did ballroom dancing, won competitions. You never knew about people.
He took a long breath, focused on the day. First coffee. Then a call on Forest Avenue, a woman from Burundi complaining she’d been harassed by a passing driver. Her description of the car was that it was big and black. Or maybe blue. Kat and Brandon said they’d keep an eye out. A domestic at a condo in Deering, two guys, one with a bloody lip and a swollen eye, the other with ice on his hand. A summons for domestic assault, ice man told to leave. He started to pick up stuff piece by piece. A sock. A lamp. A dog dish. Passive aggressive. Kat told him to move his ass and vacate the premises or they’d lock him up. He did.
Kids on a stoop on Sherman Street, not their house. They moved on. A drunk in the road at Monument Square. She was unconscious on arrival, vodka pooled in the gutter from the bottle still in her hand. Medcu hauled her off. Traffic stop on Mellen just up from the park. An empty syringe in the ash tray of the pickup, the passenger, a big guy in paint-spattered coveralls, starting to nod. Medcu again. Kat saying, “Are we the only ones in this goddamn town who aren’t messed up?”
Dinner. The salad bar at Whole Foods. Kat was training for a triathlon in Vermont. She had a big dish of lentils, some chickpeas and cottage cheese thrown in.
And then the shooting.
“We don’t need every detail, Officer Blake,” Broward said.
“Right,” Brandon said.
“Let’s cut to the chase,” Searles said. “Literally.”
Brandon did. Told it again. The call. The guy coming out of the pub. The foot chase. The shoot. They had questions.
Searles: “The gun was clearly visible?”
Brandon: “Yes. In his right hand.”
O’Farrell: “Foot chase was the best option?”
Brandon: “There were a bunch of fences.”
Broward: “Okay, let’s get right to it. Why no body cam? Didn’t you complete the training?”
Brandon: “Yes. My mistake. I forgot.”
Broward: “I heard your partner tried to call to you.”
Brandon: “I was running. I didn’t hear her.”
Broward: “You didn’t think of turning it on later?”
Brandon: “I was thinking of the guy in the alley with a gun.”
Broward’s eyebrows twitched and she wrote something on her legal pad. Her handwriting was neat and very small. “The shooting, again,” Searles said.
Brandon nodded. Swallowed and took a deep breath. Everyone else sipped their coffee, their eyes looking over their mugs, except for Broward and Carew, who were still writing.
“You chased Thatcher Rawlings, or the suspect who would later be identified as Rawlings.”
“Yes.”
“Go on.”
Brandon did, leading them over the fence, down the alleys, ending up behind the sports pub. Going into the alcove sort of thing, not seeing anyone, backing out. Checking under the cars and looking up to see Thatcher standing behind him.
“So he was in there,” O’Farrell said.
“I don’t know. I would think so,” Brandon said.
“You told him to drop the weapon,” Searles said.
“Several times. I said, ‘Just toss it, dude, and we can go home.’”
“Where was the gun at that point?”
“In his right hand, pointed at the ground.”
“How many times is several?” Searles said.
“I don’t know. Three? Four?”
O’Farrell shook his head.
“What did Rawlings do?”
“He started to raise the gun, said, ‘Bang, bang. You’re dead and so am—”
“He didn’t finish the sentence?” Searles said.
“No, because that was when I shot him.”
“How many times?”
“Three.”
“He was neutralized at that point?”
“Yes. Three shots. He went down.”
“He still had the mask on?”
“Until I took it off him. I was going to try to apply first aid.”
“But you didn’t?”
“His heart blew out, all the blood came up and out of his mouth.”
Brandon paused.
“He was gone.”
Another silen
ce, the other cops eyeing Brandon closely. None of them had ever killed anyone in the line of duty, except Searles, the ballroom dancer, when he was serving in Iraq.
“The GoPro,” Broward said. “Did you touch it?”
“It came off when I took off his mask. It was strapped onto his head.”
“Did you touch it otherwise?”
“No,” Brandon said. “I didn’t touch it at all.”
“You know there was no card in it?”
“I do now. I didn’t know it then.”
“You didn’t remove the card,” Broward said.
That one drew a dirty look from O’Farrell.
“No. I told you I didn’t touch it. It fell on the ground.”
“Was it turned on?”
“There was a red light on it, but I don’t know if that meant it was running.”
A pause and Searles said, “You’re aware of the department policy regarding use of body cams. Any interaction with the public. Any time the lights or siren are activated.”
“Yes.”
“Wouldn’t you say that this fell within those guidelines?” Searles pressed.
“Yes.”
“But you—”
“Jesus,” Carew said. “He’s a young patrol guy. Somebody runs, it’s like a dog chasing a squirrel. They just go. You’ve all been there.”
“We don’t put policies in place so they can be ignored,” Garcia said.
“Did you think of waiting for the K-9?” Broward said. “Could have saved a lot of trouble.”
“I did think that. Brandon said. “Later.”
“How old are you, Brandon?” Broward said.
“Twenty-four.”
“And you’ve never seen a GoPro?”
Brandon looked at her, shook his head. “Not up close.”
There was more, the chief saying there were two purposes for the internal investigation. Find out what Blake did, and if he screwed up, how they could avoid that happening again. Failure to activate the body cam was a serious mistake.
“It wouldn’t have changed the shoot, sir,” Brandon said. “Camera or no camera.”
“It unnecessarily exposed the department to serious liabilities.”
“How are we liable if it was a clean shoot, sir?” Brandon said.
“Fuckin’ A, Blake,” the chief said. “You were out there. It’s called the court of public opinion.”
“They’ve already found you guilty,” Broward said. “And don’t think that doesn’t spill over into the courts. Good luck with that jury. Failing to report the assault attempt in South Portland? Pattern of lying? They’ll be talking high six figures.”
Brandon looked at her, bit his tongue.
“Why did you fail to report the assault by Amanda Shakespeare?”
“It was barely an assault. She was upset. She couldn’t hurt me.”
“That’s not an answer,” Broward said.
“I felt bad for her. Putting something like that on her record, seemed unwarranted.”
“You know that’s not your call,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Do you withhold evidence all the time?”
Brandon swallowed.
“I’m serious,” Broward said. “It’s not our job to decide whether somebody deserves to be punished. It’s our job to decide whether they’ve broken the law. If everybody—”
“Jesus, what are you? The D.A.?” Brandon said. “I thought you were a goddamn detective.”
“Easy,” Carew said.
“Sorry. I was thinking I’d already wrecked one kid’s life,” Brandon said. “I didn’t want another one.”
“Enough, Blake,” O’Farrell said.
“I know what my job is. I did it when I pulled the trigger, for Christ’s sake.”
“It’s not the shoot, Brandon,” O’Farrell said. “It’s the camera thing.”
“K-9 would have hauled him out of there,” Broward said.
“What ever happened to trusting your fellow officers?” Brandon said. “I told you what happened out there. He was warned. More than once. He wouldn’t drop the gun. It looked real.”
“And he made threatening statements and actions,” Carew said. “If anything, Brandon waited way too long.”
“And I didn’t take any card from his goddamn camera. He was vomiting blood all over me. That’s what I was thinking about.”
“Enough, Brandon,” Carew said.
“Blake,” the chief said. “You’re out of line.”
“This,” Broward said, looking at O’Farrell, “is what I’m talking about. Judgment.”
The chief stood up. He raised his arms like he was about to bless the table. He said, “All of you. Shut the fuck up.”
“Blake, my office. Charlie, you can stay or go.”
He turned and walked out the door, left it open behind him. Brandon got up from his chair. Carew did the same. They followed Garcia down the corridor. Just outside the door, Brandon heard Searles say, “Good kid, but he’s digging a deep hole.”
The chief’s office, his diplomas on the wall, certificates from the FBI school, some crude drawings from a school visit. Thank you, Mister Police Chief. Garcia behind the desk, hands on his hips.
“I’m sorry, chief,” Brandon said.
“He’s under serious stress,” Carew said.
“We all are,” Garcia said. “Freakin’ demonstrations. People marching on the department. Making Rawlings to be the victim, some kind of Boy Scout.”
“Exactly,” Carew said.
“But you screwed up, Blake. We put the body cams out there to prevent just this sort of thing. No room for doubt. Gun in your face. You say, ‘Drop your weapon.’ He says, ‘You’re dead, cop.’ End of demonstration. One story in the newspaper. Nip it in the bud. Let some lawyer take the parents’ money but we don’t have half the city on our asses.”
Brandon started to respond but Carew reached over and grabbed his arm.
“Look. City Hall is looking for blood,” the chief said. “Halsey is salivating. Thinks this will make her governor. First cop in the state to be prosecuted for a shooting.”
“Christ,” Carew said. “All we need.”
“I’m gonna have to throw her a bone,” the chief said. “Give her something to think she won.”
“Throwing Blake to the wolves?” Carew said. “You shitting me? He’s out there risking his life every goddamn night.”
“Not throwing him to the wolves. Just playing it by the book,” Garcia said.
“For the camera?” Carew said.
“Yeah. And South Portland.”
“Kill the kid and then arrest his distraught girlfriend? How is that good PR?” Carew said.
“None of it’s good PR,” Garcia said. “That’s why these dipshits are marching down the street with signs.”
“So what are you thinking? Letter in his file? Suspension?”
Garcia looked away, then back. “Don’t know.”
“Any of that will screw Blake in civil court. You know that.”
Garcia didn’t answer.
“Are you firing me?” Brandon said.
“Won’t let that happen,” Carew said.
“He pointed the gun right at my face.”
“Shoulda shot him after the first warning,” Carew said. “Gun still pointing at the goddamn ground.”
“I’m not disagreeing,” the chief said. “Suicide by cop? Sure sounds like it. But it’s your word, Blake. One guy against a world that’s turned against cops. Buncha bad apples left you holding the bag.”
“He can’t help that,” Carew said.
“A lot of things we can’t help,” the chief said. He leaned down, shuffled papers on his desk. “Let’s call it a day, gentlemen. I’ve got other shitstorms to deal with. We’ll be in touch.”
Carew and Blake went out into the hall, cops’ voices coming from somewhere. Carew led Brandon ten feet, turned and stopped him.
“You’ve got to keep control of yourself.”
/> “I’m trying. It’s hard with all of this crap. And then the girl kills herself. I’m thinking—”
“Don’t think. Stop it. Watch the Patriots. Go for a run. Paint your boat, or whatever you do to the goddamn thing.”
“Will I lose my job?” Brandon said.
“No. I don’t know. Department is behind you, everybody is. Just caught in a tough spot. The politics. The camera. The kid. The girl thing, I don’t know how that will play. Make you seem more human?”
“To her mother? The Rawlings parents? I don’t think so,” Brandon said.
“Probably say you were propositioning her,” Carew said.
“Jesus,” Brandon said.
“I know, but it’s the public. When it comes to cops, there’s a big part of the population wants to think the worst.”
“Let them do this job for one night,” Brandon said.
“I know.”
“Think I liked shooting him? Think I like living with that the rest of my life? I’ll never forget him looking up at me. Dying. Right there. His last second on earth and he’s—”
“I know, Brandon.”
“Then why can’t they—”
“Hey, will you listen to me? Just take it easy.”
Carew guided Brandon down the hall to the stairwell. He led him downstairs, turned him to face him and said, “It’s gonna be fine. It’s just gonna be a bit of a process. Don’t worry. Get out of town. Turn your phone off. Just find a way to put it out of your head.”
Brandon looked at him.
“Yeah, right,” he said.
“I’m going back in there. I’ll talk him down. I’ll be in touch.”
Carew hurried back the way they’d come. Brandon took a deep, long breath and put his hat on. Shouldered his way through the door. Estusa was standing there. He raised his phone and started recording.
Fifteen
“Disciplinary hearing, Brandon? How did it go?”
Brandon started walking. Estusa sidestepped, the phone still up.
“Are you going to be suspended? Do you think that’s fair?”
Now Estusa was backpedaling in front of Brandon, headed for the steps and Middle Street.
“Failure to activate the body cam. That’s serious, right? And what about reports that you didn’t report an interaction with Amanda Shakespeare, the girl who jumped from the garage? What did she say to you, Brandon? Was she looking for answers? Asking why you killed her boyfriend?”
