“No.”
Renee stopped beside him.
That was when the girls appeared at the window behind her.
His youngest pressed her face against the glass.
Darnell gave her a quick smile.
She waved.
He waved back.
Then the smile disappeared.
“I keep thinking about what happens if I’m not me.”
Renee understood immediately.
“You mean if you weren’t a cop.”
“If I didn’t know the questions.”
She nodded.
“If I got nervous.”
Darnell looked at the curb where Castellano had been parked.
“If I raised my voice.”
Renee touched his arm.
“If Franklin hadn’t come outside.”
He exhaled.
“Exactly.”
At East Division, Trevor Castellano sat alone in a small report-writing room staring at a blank screen.
His patrol weapon and department identification had already been temporarily secured.
The watch commander had not yelled.
That somehow felt worse.
Captain Renee Lawson—no relation to Darnell’s wife—had simply told him that because the complaint involved an allegation of discriminatory policing against a supervisory officer, the matter would be referred immediately to Internal Affairs.
Castellano had driven back to the station replaying the same four seconds over and over.
Sergeant Darnell Whitmore.
East Division Patrol.
He knew the name.
Everyone in the unit did.
Whitmore’s transfer had been announced at roll call.
Castellano had missed that meeting because of court.
He had skimmed the department email afterward and barely looked at the photograph attached.
Now the face was burned into his mind.
He opened the report form.
Incident type.
Suspicious person.
He stopped.
Was it?
He had responded to one.
But what exactly had he seen?
A man washing a sedan.
He began typing.
At approximately 0928 hours, I responded to the 2400 block of Maple Street regarding a suspicious Black male reported near vehicles.
He stopped again.
Reported near vehicles.
That sounded more specific than the call had been.
He deleted it.
He listened to the dispatch playback available through his mobile terminal.
The caller’s voice was distorted slightly by phone compression.
“There’s a Black guy walking around by cars. He doesn’t look like he lives here.”
The dispatcher asked, “What is he doing?”
“I don’t know. Looking around.”
“Is he trying doors?”
“I didn’t see that.”
“Did he take anything?”
“No.”
“Is he threatening anyone?”
“No.”
“What is he wearing?”
“I don’t know. T-shirt. Jeans.”
“Do you have a specific address?”
“Somewhere around twenty-four hundred Maple.”
Castellano paused the audio.
He closed his eyes.
That was worse than he remembered.
The dispatcher had actually asked better questions than he had.
Nothing in the call described a crime.
He had arrived already expecting to find the caller’s suspicious Black man.
Then he saw Darnell.
A Black man.
Near a car.
And his brain had completed the rest.
Castellano leaned back in the chair.
His father’s voice came to him.
Never let people argue you out of doing your job.
Frank Castellano had served twenty-two years before retiring.
Trevor had grown up believing police work was almost hereditary.
There were photographs of his father in uniform throughout the family home.