“About the stop, I understand it’s not ideal, Easton, but we need to give it time. So far nothing else has happened, and we have to work with these people. Overzealousness won’t work in our favor in the long run. How are things going with the Suarez case? Are you going over all the stuff from his previous arrest?” She could not have been more obvious about changing the subject. I would let it go, for now.

I gestured at the enormous pile of papers accumulating on my desk and sighed. “Yes, I am and it’s already a mess.” She made a face at that. “His family already started a smear campaign on her and the grand jury barely gave the indictment. They’re going to drag her through the mud. After what that motherfucker did to her.”

Cindy shook her head in disgust. “I heard his mom remortgaged her house to pay for a defense attorney from Rochester. Like that’s going to help him. You have to nail him to the wall, Easton.”

I slumped against my chair, thinking about the horrific details of that case and how even with all the evidence it was still going to be precarious, because the perp was a “nice guy, who grew up in town,” and the woman was young and Latina and had only been in Ithaca for few months when he broke into her home and brutally assaulted her.

This case was going to be awful for everyone involved, but I would do whatever I needed to in order to get that asshole behind bars, even though there were people in town still defending him.

Sometimes it amazed me that things seemed so black and white to me were all gray for some people. That just made me go back to thinking about the stops. The niggling feeling that we were not doing nearly enough eating at me. This was new territory for me, feeling like my hands were tied.

“What?” Cindy’s voice snapped me out of my fretting.

“Other than the various fires actively burning in town, you mean?”

Cindy’s eyebrows dipped and she leaned in, trying to figure me out. “No. There is always a lot of shit going on. This place is a madhouse on a good day.” That was true, but this felt different. “There’s something up with you and it’s not just the work.” She attempted to scrutinize my face for another minute while I tried to keep cool under her stare and then her whole body perked up.