Tess lifted her head from the steering wheel and made a face. No, she wasn’t that naïve, but she’d try to have some faith in local law enforcement.
Starting with the sheriff’s deputy who had run faster than she’d believed possible in his futile effort to save Antonio Alvarez.
CHAPTER TWO
“YOU HAVEN’T BEEN with us very long,” Sheriff Brown said kindly, although his eyes were a lot less friendly. “I know you come from a large city police department. Different atmosphere. We don’t get much turnover here, and there’s a reason. We think of ourselves as one big family. Times of trouble, we stand behind one another.”
Zach’s primary emotion was disbelief.
His initial, brief interview yesterday with Paul Stokes had been direct, an appropriate opening to a serious investigation. His impression was that the undersheriff had been as disturbed as Zach had been by the situation.
The talk he’d had earlier today with Stokes had been different. The undersheriff had been a little more closed off, his questions sharper, as if he was trying to shake Zach. He had suggested they handle this “incident” internally.
Zach now had a pretty good idea who had been leaning on him.
Sheriff Brown had used the word “incident,” too, when he’d made it clear that he wanted it swept under the carpet. Zach was supposed to be the broom.
His disbelief progressed through pissed to full-on fury.
A few minutes ago, as Zach had arrived in answer to the sheriff’s summons, Hayes had swaggered out of the office. As they’d passed within a foot of each other, he’d given Zach a look dark enough to lift the hairs on the back of his neck.
“You’re right,” Zach said calmly now to the sheriff. “My experience is with a considerably larger police force. Professionalism was emphasized.” He paused, watching Sheriff Brown’s eyes narrow. “What I saw yesterday was a deliberate, brutal beating that led to a death. Maybe Deputy Hayes didn’t intend it to go that far. I can’t say. But the fact is, it did. What I heard gives me reason to believe the confrontation was over a personal issue, but Hayes was wearing the uniform when he instigated it, and he used his police baton as part of the beating. As far as I’m concerned, that takes him a step over the line from second-degree murder. He shamed law-enforcement officers everywhere.”
That hard stare never wavered from Zach’s face. Until now, he hadn’t made up his mind about the longtime sheriff. In his sixties, George T. Brown was mostly bald and carried forty or fifty pounds too much. His strength was a folksy, reassuring charm that appealed to voters.
Call him a cynic, but from his initial job interviews, Zach had suspected Brown was a figurehead, with the real decisions being made by Stokes, the undersheriff.
Looking into these shrewd, angry eyes now, Zach changed his mind. Brown was no figurehead. And he had to have been leaning heavily on Paul Stokes.
In his short time with the department, Zach had heard some sexist and racist jokes he didn’t like. There were only a couple of female deputies on this force. He couldn’t help noticing how few Hispanic deputies had been hired, too, considering the county population had to be a third Hispanic. One had risen to sergeant. Otherwise the command structure was Caucasian and male. Ditto for the detectives.
He’d heard the same kind of jokes on his last job, and the hiring of female and ethnic officers had lagged in most police departments. Here in Harris County, part of the problem lay in the fact that so many deputies were long-timers. Change would come, but only as those long-timers retired.
He wondered whether the prevailing attitude might have been a little different if the dead guy had been Caucasian. Say, the son of a local businessman instead of an uneducated farmworker who had turned out to be in this country illegally.
That meant the uncle and brother, presumably also illegals, had disappeared, unable to demand justice for Antonio.
The sheriff’s chair creaked as he leaned back. “Son, I’m going to give you a few days to think about this before you damage the reputation and career of a fellow officer. You go that route, I can’t swear anyone will buy in to what you have to say, anyway. Judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys...they all know and respect Andy Hayes. The man is a sixteen-year veteran of this department. You have any idea how many times he’s testified in court in those years?”