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 handle 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.”

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

Easton

“Where are you running off to?”

I looked over my shoulder and saw Cindy coming after me as I tried to make my escape out of the courthouse. Things between us had been a little awkward since the meeting with Day, but I’d been too busy to give too much thought to it.

It was Friday, the end of the first week of the Suarez trail, and it was almost 7:30 p.m. We’d been debriefing for the three hours since the judge rested for the weekend. I was ready to call it a day. As always, in cases like this, it had been emotionally draining and combined with the stress of the fuckery happening with the sheriff’s department, I needed a break.

“I’m not running,” I answered Cindy as we made our way down the steps leading out of the courthouse.