“Battery problem.”
Tomlin stared.
“Battery?”
“Cut out.”
“When?”
“Before the search.”
“That’s convenient.”
Brad shrugged.
Tomlin opened his phone.
Played part of Evelyn’s video.
“You seen this?”
“Yep.”
“This is bad.”
“People don’t have context.”
Tomlin stopped the video at the moment Brad struck Maya.
“What context explains that?”
“She was resisting.”
“Video says otherwise.”
“It doesn’t show what I felt.”
Tomlin exhaled.
He was not thinking like an investigator.
He was thinking like a supervisor watching a departmental crisis form in real time.
“Did you find anything in the car?”
“No.”
“Registration?”
Brad was silent.
Tomlin stared at him.
“Brad.”
“Matched her name.”
Tomlin cursed quietly.
“Then why did you arrest her?”
“She was obstructing.”
“By doing what?”
“Refusing.”
“Refusing what?”
“Search.”
Tomlin rubbed his forehead.
“That’s not enough and you know it.”
“She was confrontational.”
“Was she?”
Brad looked at him.
Tomlin understood the answer.
He sat down.
“Listen to me. The media is calling. County counsel is going to get involved. Internal Affairs will get involved. Whatever you write now has to stay exactly the same later.”
Brad nodded.
“Same story.”
“Exactly.”
“She was aggressive.”
Tomlin hesitated.
Then nodded.
“She resisted.”
Another hesitation.
“Fine.”
“The vehicle rolled.”
Tomlin looked at the video again.
He knew it was a lie.
That was the moment everything changed for him too.
Not because he created Brad Hollister.
Because he chose to protect him.
“Keep it simple,” Tomlin said.
Brad nodded.
Neither man knew that Daniel Ruiz was standing on the other side of the partially closed door.
He heard enough.
At approximately nine that evening, Maya was offered one phone call.
The deputy led her to a wall phone.
Maya stared at the keypad.
She considered Director James Coleman.
One call.
That was all.
Coleman would have federal agents at the station before Brad finished his coffee.
But Maya knew what would happen next.
Everyone would immediately understand the stakes.
Files would become difficult to locate.
People would begin consulting lawyers before writing reports.
Tomlin might order corrections.
Body-camera explanations would change.
She decided against it.
Instead she called the woman who had helped raise her after her mother died, her mother’s older sister, Lorraine.
Maya called her Aunt Lorraine in public.
In private, sometimes Mama Lorrie.
The phone rang twice.
“Maya?”
“Hey.”
“You all right?”
The question came too quickly.
Lorraine had always known.
“I’m all right.”
“Where are you?”
“Handling something.”
“Maya.”
“I’ll be late.”
“You sound strange.”
Maya looked toward the deputy.
“I’m safe.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Maya smiled despite herself.
“No.”