Policed

by Alana Terry

  “Have a seat.” He gestured to a small couch and then sat in a folding chair across from it. “My name’s Dominic.”

  Strange. She would have expected him to call himself Officer So-and-So. Why the informality? Why the plush seat, the lounge room with a fruit basket and bottled water on an ornate coffee table? Why wasn’t he bringing her right to Reuben unless ...

  Her whole body stiffened as if someone had frozen each of her muscle fibers with liquid nitrogen. This explained everything. Why the triage nurse wouldn’t tell her directly how to get to Reuben. Why the officer was using his first name. She glanced around the room, half expecting to see advertisements for funeral homes and pamphlets lying around on how to deal with the loss of a loved one.

  She had to know. Had to ask, but her whole body was numb. Is this how Reuben would have felt right before ...

  “I just got back from seeing your friend.”

  Kennedy held on to his words like a drowning lab rat would clutch at a floating island.

  “In case you were worried,” Dominic continued, “he’s doing fine. Getting a few stitches, and then it’s home.” He glanced at his notebook. “Well, back to his dorm, I guess. He’s from ...” His eyes scanned the page.

  “Nairobi,” Kennedy answered.

  “Nairobi?” Dominic glanced at his pad of paper, but even when he wasn’t looking right at her, Kennedy got the feeling he could read her mind. He stared at her with the same intensity her therapist showed when she first mentioned she was the daughter of Christian missionaries. “Right. So.” He clasped his hands to his knees and leaned forward. “Do you want to tell me what happened tonight?”

  Reuben was fine, but confusion clouded Kennedy’s relief. Why was the cop asking her? Did he doubt Reuben’s story? Warning signals zinged through Kennedy’s cerebrum. Hadn’t her dad warned her about cops who make it hard for people who rat out other cops? Is that what this was? Is that why she couldn’t visit Reuben, why he brought her all the way down here to some secluded room ...

  “I’d really like to check on my friend first, if that’s all right with you.” Why did she add that last part? Shouldn’t she be more assertive? What made this officer think he had the right to isolate her, intimidate her ...

  “You’re welcome to check with the nurse when we’re finished,” he said, “but last I heard, he was refusing visitors.”

  That probably only referred to cops like you. Kennedy knew better than to speak the thought out loud. She ran through the entire encounter on Arlington. She didn’t remember the details of the fight itself, but she recalled something about jumping on the officer’s back. If she was going to get in trouble for that, why hadn’t Bow Legs arrested her himself? Why did he just run away? Probably because he was a coward who knew he was in the wrong.

  He’s the one who punched Reuben. The one who kicked him when he was down. Kennedy was only trying to help, and Reuben wouldn’t have given the officer any trouble if he hadn’t tried to grope Kennedy like that. Reuben was defending her. She was defending him. She was sure the public would see it that way, but of course her phone had betrayed her with its stupid memory. Why hadn’t she taken the time to erase some of those dumb photos of lab results or lecture notes leftover from last semester?

  Kennedy hadn’t done anything wrong. The more she replayed the entire encounter, the more firmly she believed in her innocence. But would other policemen see it that way? Somewhere in the back of her mind, she remembered a campy cop movie she’d watched with her dad back in Yanji. A jaded long-time officer was explaining departmental policy to his new rookie partner. “You take a swing at one of us, there’s no way you’re walking into the police station on your own two feet. Not by the time we get done with you.” At the time, she’d just thought the threat was for dramatic effect, but after her dad’s warning, she wondered if that same unwritten code persisted even in a city as supposedly progressive as Boston.

  She studied Dominic’s face, trying to read him. If this was some kind of a good cop/bad cop routine like in TV shows or detective novels, he seemed better suited for the part of the good guy. The friendly one. The one who’ll make sure you’re comfortable and offer you bottled water and keep his expression open and engaged, like he’d taken hours of departmental training in active listening.

  What would happen if she didn’t comply? Would he turn into a raging maniac, threaten her with every single punishment he could legally throw at her? Or maybe there was a partner hiding in another room ready to take over if this nice-guy performance failed.

  Kennedy fidgeted with her phone in her pocket, wondering what she should do. Could she ask him for a chance to call her dad first, or would that just make her look guilty?

  Dominic leaned forward. “So, you ready to talk about it?”

  No, she wasn’t ready. In fact, there was a decent chance she would never be ready. Not like this. For the briefest second, she wondered if he was even supposed to be asking her questions without a lawyer present.

  Please God, she begged, show me a way out of this.

  Her phone vibrated in her hand and then let out a little beep. She glanced at the screen. It was a text from Reuben. If the police ask you any questions, I haven’t told them anything.

  She slipped her cell back in her pocket.

  “Who was that?” the officer asked.

  “Just my roommate.” Kennedy tried to meet his eyes. Wouldn’t most cops be able to tell when someone was lying? “It was her car I was in tonight, and she was just ...”

  “Yeah, the car,” Dominic interrupted. “Maybe we can start there.”

  Kennedy stared at her lap as if the answers to all his questions might magically appear on her jeans. Why was this so difficult? Her dad had told her to wait before complaining to the police. He didn’t tell her what to do if they stopped and questioned her. Why had she thought it’d be a good idea to come here at all? She could be on her third cup of tea at the Lindgrens’ by now.

  Dominic let out a loud sigh. “How about this. Let’s start with me telling you what I know, and then you can tell me what you know.”

  Yeah, he was definitely taking the good-cop angle.

  He leaned back in his chair. “All I know is I’ve got a patient back there with injuries consistent with what you’d see in an assault. He gets in the ambulance, refuses to answer any questions, won’t tell anyone why or how he got hurt. Let’s call that exhibit A.” He gestured with his hands. “Then over here, we’ve got exhibit B. Exhibit B is two calls we got from drivers very concerned when they saw a white police officer kicking a black male on the side of the road.” He leveled his eyes. “What’s really interesting is the drivers were calling from Arlington, and one of the very next calls our operator got was for an ambulance to pick up an injured black male from that very same stretch of road.”

  He crossed its arms. “So that’s what I know. Would you care to take a turn?”

  Kennedy was too busy praying for some sort of deliverance to put her thoughts into any coherent order. She stared at the floor and wondered what kind of baked goodies Sandy would have made tonight. She fidgeted with her hands in her lap. “We got pulled over.” She couldn’t bring her eyes to his. “The officer made Reuben get out of the car. Put him in cuffs.” She willed her body to keep as calm as possible. If the story had to come out, it would do so without the interruptions of tears and dramatics.

  Dominic still leaned forward. Did he believe her?

  “And then I tried to stop him, said we hadn’t done anything wrong, so he made me get out of the car too, and ...” Her throat clenched shut, her mind reeling with the sensation of the officer’s hands sliding up and down her hips and sides. The putrid stink of his stale breath. The heat from his whispered words, venomous like a hissing snake.

  The trembling that had settled into her core all the way back at Arlington now found its way to her limbs. There was no way to hide this kind of reaction from the cop. He’d believe her or he wouldn’t. Either way, he’d know h
ow upset she was by the entire ordeal.

  She couldn’t bring herself to talk about Bow Legs’ groping hands slithering up and down her body. She shook her head as if that might convince her brain the entire thing was fictional, the results of an overactive imagination coupled with the exaggerated stories she’d studied in Professor Hill’s class. Tears spilled down her cheeks. It was a good thing she hated the caking feel of mascara and never wore the stuff.

  If Dominic was surprised or annoyed by her behavior, he didn’t show it. “So he made you both get out of the car, put your friend in cuffs, and then?”

  Kennedy wanted to go home. Go back to her dorm, take a hot shower, and change her clothes. Forget how degraded she’d felt. Forget how scared she’d been for Reuben’s safety.

  “Reuben was trying to help me.” She was close to sobbing now, but she’d stopped caring. Someone was here, listening to her story, someone who had the power to free Reuben from any charges and punish the real culprit. “He hadn’t done anything wrong. He was just trying to help me.”

  Dominic’s open expression turned downward into the slightest trace of a frown. “Protect you from what?”

  In a flash, the memory became suffocating. Bow Legs, with all his offensive slurs and leering looks, loomed larger in her mind than he could have possibly been in real life. She couldn’t shake him off. A loud gasp. A desperate attempt to suck in air after her lungs had already decided to clench themselves shut. If she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t feel. If she couldn’t feel, she’d forget the humiliation. The filthy, slimy shame that seeped through her clothes by osmosis, poisoning her bloodstream.

  Dominic had crouched beside her and was holding an open bottle to her lips. Twelve ounces of glacial water would never be enough to wash away the hot searing trauma of tonight’s events. The entire Bering Glacier wouldn’t be enough.

  She took a delicate sip, forcing her lungs to calm down enough that she could swallow the tepid liquid. There was a small fraction of her brain — five, or maybe ten percent if she felt like being generous — that was replaying all the information from those self-help websites, all that mumbo jumbo about cleansing breaths and diaphragm engagement. The rest of her mental energy was focused on projecting an increasingly odious image of Bow Legs throughout her entire consciousness, an image that only grew larger as it fed on her fear.

  Dominic was rubbing her back. “Hey, you’re safe now. Nobody here wants to hurt you.” She was glad he didn’t offer the usual barrage of senseless advice: Don’t worry. Just calm down. You’re ok.

  She wasn’t ok. She was glad he didn’t feel the need to convince her otherwise.

  Her back and shoulders heaved as her lungs wheezed air in and out. Tears splashed on Kennedy’s lap and on Dominic’s hand that still held out the bottle of water. She wanted to apologize to him, but what would be the point?

  “Are you a person of faith?” It was a strange question to ask in the middle of a conference room behind the ER.

  She nodded. “I’m a Christian.” She was almost ashamed to admit it. What kind of testimony was she offering while blubbering like this?

  Dominic slid beside her on the couch. “Me too. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but I was wondering if I could pray for you. I can tell you’re shaken up.”

  In different circumstances, she might have laughed at his polite euphemism.

  “Would that be ok with you?”

  She didn’t have much faith that a simple prayer from a stranger would do anything to ease tonight’s trauma or cure her anxiety, but at least it would give her a break from this interrogation. It could give her the chance she needed to collect herself before the interview proceeded any further. She nodded her consent and bowed her head.

  Dominic didn’t jump right into a prayer like she expected. He sat beside her quietly for what felt like several minutes. She wondered if she’d misunderstood him. Maybe he just wanted to pray for her silently. Oh, well. As long as it meant she got a break from answering his questions or feeling like a fool while she blubbered away on the couch, she’d take it.

  Apparently, however, he wasn’t planning on remaining silent the whole time. He didn’t begin with any formal opening, no flowery greeting to make sure everyone in earshot knew who he was talking to. But the words that flowed out of his mouth were almost like Scripture itself.

  Powerful. Majestic. Inspiring.

  She recognized a few Bible verses woven into his words, but it didn’t feel forced or artificial. And the way he prayed made Kennedy wonder if he knew all about her. Had he read about her in the news after the kidnapping last fall? Maybe he went to Carl’s church and she just hadn’t ever seen him there.

  Kennedy had lived her whole life hearing Christians pray for healing. Lord, help Tyson’s hurt tummy. Give the doctors wisdom when Aunt Lilian goes in for her biopsy. God, please help Grandma not die from cancer. But she’d never experienced a prayer like this. It was as if Dominic were a surgeon, searching out the sickness, zoning in on each individual injured spots. He began broadly, praying for Kennedy’s peace of mind, for comfort from whatever had made her feel afraid.

  And then it grew more specific. Prayers for her mind. Prayers for wholeness. For healing. Dominic interrupted his petition to ask Kennedy if he could put his hand on her forehead. She surprised herself by agreeing. Something in her was hungry for the faith, the power she experienced in Dominic’s prayer. Her body tingled with an inexplicable electric power, and when he rested his palm against her skin, the whole area radiated heat and energy.

  He asked God for soundness of mind. Asked God for freedom. At the mention of freedom, a quiver coursed through her being. Dominic must have felt it too. He prayed even more fervently for release. Deliverance. Hope surged up in Kennedy’s chest. Swelling. Like the giant ocean breakers crashing into the Hispaniola when Jim Hawkins set sail with Captain Smollett, Long John Silver, and his crew of mutineers in Treasure Island.

  Dominic spoke against fear. Spoke against anxiety. He prayed against the trauma of Kennedy’s past, and for the first time she understood what Christians mean when they call somebody a prayer warrior. Up until that moment, Kennedy assumed it was an honorary title given to people who really liked to talk to God. Tonight, she realized that prayer wasn’t just a discipline. It wasn’t something like flossing your teeth that you’re supposed to do because it’s good for you.

  Tonight, she understood that prayer was a battle. At first, she had compared Dominic to a doctor. Now, she realized he was also a soldier. And not just an enlisted man who could follow orders and carry a gun. He was a warrior, a warrior who for some reason or other had decided to go to battle for her in a way nobody else in Kennedy’s entire life ever had. Growing up in the church, Kennedy had sat under a dozen Sunday school teachers or more. Why hadn’t any of them taught her to pray like this? Nobody she’d ever known prayed like this, not even her own parents, faithful missionaries by anyone’s definition of the term. Maybe if Kennedy had spent more time in her family’s prayer meetings instead of shopping the Yanji clothes stores with her friends she would have heard intercession like this, but she doubted it.

  Dominic took his hand off Kennedy’s forehead, and she realized the prayer was over. Her skin no longer burned where he had touched her, but a halo of warmth and peace settled around her. She didn’t know what she was supposed to say but realized she was breathing evenly again. She couldn’t recall when or how the panic attack ended. She stared at Dominic, half expecting him to disappear from sight or transfigure into an angelic being while she sat watching. He looked so ordinary and unassuming.

  Who was this man?

  He was a cop. He belonged to the same department as the one who had accosted her and Reuben. But she’d never met anyone like him before. She’d never heard anyone pray for her like that. Not even Pastor Carl, the godliest man she knew in the States.

  What did Dominic have that every other Christian lacked?

  “You feeling a little better now?�
��

  It was strange to hear Dominic asking her a question. His voice, which just minutes ago had transformed itself into a weapon of spiritual warfare, was so normal now. He looked even more average than he had when they first met, a slightly tired expression clinging around his hazel eyes.

  Kennedy nodded. “Thanks for praying for me. It helped.”

  It was a lame thing to say, but how else was she supposed to respond? She still wasn’t quite sure what had happened to her. Had she just imagined that heat on her forehead when his hand touched her?

  Dominic smiled. Such a straightforward, unassuming smile. Did he know what he’d just done for her? Did he know what sort of power his soul possessed? “Now, about your story ...”

  So this was it. This was the part when the good-cop skit ended and he demanded to know why she jumped on the back of a uniformed policeman who was just out doing his job. She inhaled. At least her spirit still maintained a shred of the peace that had wrapped itself around her during his prayer.

  She was ready. As ready as she’d ever be.

  Dominic scratched at his beard. “So, you said earlier this policeman attacked you after pulling you over and cuffing your friend for no good reason whatsoever?”

  She didn’t want to meet his eyes. Couldn’t stand the thought of seeing the disbelief there. But there was an ounce of hope, too. Would he have prayed over her like that if he thought she was a liar? Thought she was a criminal?

  “That’s basically what happened,” she answered, fully aware of how incredulous the entire tale sounded. If she had the video, she could show him. Prove everything.

  He was frowning now. “And when he punched your friend and kicked him while he was down, that was also completely unprovoked?”

  Kennedy weighed her words. If she recounted everything, it would mean repeating the horrific slurs the man had thrown at her and Reuben. It would mean reliving the degrading search where he pressed his body against hers before Reuben jumped between them.