Page 49 of American Love Story

“You’ll be fine, P.” Nesto’s voice was so certain when he said that; I almost believed him. I would never stop being grateful for the people I had in my life, who never failed to show me the kindness it was sometimes so hard for me to show myself.

One thing was certain. I may not have seen many examples of couples growing up, but I could not say I didn’t have men around me who knew how to show love.

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. Startinga 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, barelyrestrained 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 wereallyneed 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 bestrapping. He gave off a no-nonsense vibe that kept people ontheir 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 moweddown. 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 thingsare 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.”