P Deutermann - The Cat Dancers

“The other thing I can’t believe is that she dismissed,” the sheriff said.

“It’s not like she didn’t give Steven the chance to nolle,” Cam said. “He got all wrapped around the axle.”

“He going to appeal?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Cam said. “I mean, I can see her tossing the confession, but dismissing the charges?”

The sheriff shook his head. “This-this was a big deal. Gas station burned up. Two innocent bystanders burned alive in their car. The store clerk shot and then cremated. I mean, damn, attaboy for finding these pricks, but aw shit for this mess. You know the rule.”

It was another one of the sheriff’s favorites from his days in the Marine Corps: one aw shit erased ten thousand attaboys. Cam thought it was time for him to defend his outfit. “This whole goat grab arrived in slices,” he said. “The incident originally came in as a bad fire. The fire investigators didn’t report bullet holes in the pump island until daylight. They had bodies from the fire, but nobody knew the clerk had been shot until the coroner called in his prelim. The district got the bullet holes repot from the fire department at about the same time as the street witness report filtered in, and then here comes the district, asking for a SWAT takedown. MCAT never officially rolled on it. In my view, Will Guthridge stepped into a Special Operations mess-up. It was Sergeant McMichael who popped the question without a warning, not Will.”

“God help us, we train and we train, and now this,” the sheriff muttered. “But why in the hell dismiss the charges? I mean, I know it was Bellamy, but damn!”

“Those shitheads are factory-programmed to screw up again,” Cam said. “Or maybe Klein can get around it, reconstitute the case-it’s not like we don’t know who did it.”

The sheriff stared down at his desk, probably calculating the degree of damage to his own professional reputation once Bellamy’s decision got some traction in the media. Cam, on the other hand, had two years and some change to go for full retirement eligibility, although he could walk right now if he was willing to accept a little less pension money. He was pretty sure he would survive the gathering shit storm, although one never knew with Bobby Lee. The sheriff defended his people vigorously, but he also could be ruthless when it came to major mistakes.

The sheriff seemed to have made a decision. “You’re right,” he said. “A judge doesn’t have to explain anything. Unfortunately, we do. Next Door is up in arms, as you can appreciate.”

“Next door” meant Triboro’s mayor and the city council, whose offices were in an adjacent building. Bobby Lee was always pointing out that he answered directly to the voters, but nearly two-thirds of those voters lived in Triboro. “The vultures were in the courtroom,” he said.

“Which is why I have the victims’ relatives in my conference room as we speak,” the sheriff said. “I need them calibrated before the media gets to them, if that’s possible.” He gave Cam a meaningful look.

Perfect, Cam thought. Absolutely perfect. “Any suggestion on what to say?” he asked. “Like, we’re going to work it some more? We’re going to appeal? Or should I just say we’re going to roll over, pat ’em on the ass, and just watch ’em go?”

“The charges are dismissed,” the sheriff said evenly. “That’s pretty final, the way I understand it. I assume Steven Klein is conferencing with the AG’s office up in Raleigh right now, but, yeah, I’d say they flat got away with it.”

“He should have nolle’ed,” Cam said, exasperated. He wanted to hit someone as the enormity of the injustice sank in. He wanted to tell the sheriff what Kenny Cox had suggested: trail the two bastards, then tell the victims’ family where they were. That dead woman’s husband-he’d been really quiet after the judge’s rulings. Cam hadn’t been able to tell if it was total shock at the ruling or the ignition of a slow fuse.

“So, what do I tell them?” Cam asked again. “Because otherwise, I’m just going to lay it out for them. Tell the truth.”

The sheriff shrugged. “Your box, Lieutenant. Paint it as you see fit.” He looked pointedly at his watch. “You’re not the only one with unpleasant duty-I’ve got to go Next Door.”

Okay, there’s no way around it, Cam thought. I’ll just go in there and tell the poor bastards the truth. Answer their questions straight up. There’s no official spin, so I’ll just tell them what we knew, when we knew it, what we didn’t know, and what we failed to do. If they took any of it to the press, so be it. He’d been policing long enough to know that telling the truth first time up was the best way to put the media vultures off their feed, because the truth left them nothing to uncover. Sounded good anyway.

As he left the sheriff’s office and headed toward the conference room, he saw Kenny Cox chugging down the hall, looking like the front end of a Peterbilt. Kenny was varsity front-line large. He worked out daily with some of the more extreme deputies in field operations and had the overlong arms of a gorilla, although that wasn’t feature a sane man would point out to Kenny face-to-face. When he was happy, he reminded Cam of a great big friendly bear. His game face, on the other hand, brought to mind a picture Cam had once seen of an East Berlin border guard, with that ruddy complexion, close-cropped blond hair, intense blue eyes under almost white eyebrows, a great beak of a nose, and a down-turning mouth.

“Sally said you were teeing up to face relatives,” he said. “Want some backup?”

Cam smiled to himself. He could always count on Kenny to know what was shaking down the hall. Kenny had Cam’s vote to step up to his job and lieutenant bars when Cam finally quit policing. The only fly in the succession ointment was Kenny’s run-in with the same Judge Bellamy who was now making headlines. “Backup’s good,” he said, eyeing the piece of paper in Kenny’s paw. “That the guest list?”

“It is,” Kenny said. “James Marlor, fifty-six, husband of decedent victim Vicki Marlor, soccer mom, and stepfather of decedent victim Trudy Anne Marlor, age nine. He works for Duke Energy, something to do with forestry. His sister, a Mrs. Becky Thomason, is here to provide some family support.” He frowned at the next name. “Jaspreet Kaur Bawa, thirty-five, niece of decedent victim Jasbir Chopra, the minimart night clerk. She’s some kind of high-priced computer wonk, works down in the Charlotte area. Plus Jasbir Chopra’s wife, Surinder Chopra, plus three more female relatives, whose names I can’t even pronounce.”

“Okay,” Cam said. “And no lawyers?”

“Correct. The sheriff restricted this briefing to humans.”

Cam nodded in appreciation.

“Is there a party line?” Kenny asked, handing Cam the list.

“Nope,” Cam said, and buttoned up his suit jacket. The. 45-caliber semiautomatic in his shoulder rig distorted the fabric on his left side, indicating that perhaps he needed to forgo the morning doughnuts in the MCAT office for a while. On the other hand, it was well known that suits did shrink. “Let’s do it,” he said, exhibiting lots more confidence than he felt.

They went in and introduced themselves to all those tight white and brown faces sitting around the table. For the next half hour, Cam briefed them on the sequence of events since the incident at the minimart. Then he took them through the DA’s current options, which weren’t promising. When he was finished, James Marlor was the first to speak up. He, too, was wearing a suit, but he definitely looked like an outdoorsman, with large, rough hands, a weather-burned face, and a determined, jutting jaw. Cam thought he looked a little like Kenny; they were about the same size. It had been seven days since the incident, and he could see the strain of the past week written all over these people. He didn’t feel so good, either, but he wasn’t burying relatives. It was a shitty deal all around.