A Healing Justice Read online

  The man squatted next to her and lifted her bloody jacket off Justice’s side. “The poor dog,” he muttered. Andie read worry around the paramedic’s eyes.

  “Please, please, get him to the vet,” she said.

  The paramedic waved to his colleague and shouted, “Bring the gurney over here!”

  Helpless, Andie watched the men lift Justice and set him on the padding. As they covered him with a blanket and strapped him in, she stroked his neck to reassure him and lowered her face to his. “Be strong for me, Big Guy. I need you. I love you. I’ll get to the vet the minute I can.” She thought her heart might splinter into tiny pieces when he tried to lick her hand.

  The men wheeled him to an ambulance and put him inside. She had to fight herself to keep from climbing in with him—but policy required her to stay where she was.When the paramedics closed the doors, she swallowed against the sharp stone in her throat. Never before had Andie begrudged the force’s rules, but now her resentment chafed against her obligation. Then worry clouded them both.

  CHAPTER 3

  TOM

  Tom Wolski walked out of Pedro’s Grande Taqueria and climbed into his patrol car’s welcome silence. His head ached. His mouth was dry. Damn, what a night, and it isn’t even ten o’clock.

  He’d just answered a backup call. The bartender had tried to get some drunks to leave, but they hadn’t liked breaking up their party early. Thugs, all of them. Getting their attention had taken four police and Tom, a deputy sheriff—plus handcuffs to finish the job. Nothing like the click they made when closed around a bad guy’s wrists. Very satisfying.

  Eight years in the Nisqually County Sheriff ’s Department had led Tom to plenty of tussles like tonight’s, but his square jaw had not met many fists. He was a solid six foot four and barrel-chested. His muscular build fell somewhere between that of a tackle, the position he’d played at Oregon State, and that of a double-door refrigerator. He had powerful hands, hazel eyes, thick brows, and sandy brown hair in a Marine cut, though not shaved down to skin on the sides. Tom had been a Marine. Semper fi was in his blood. But now he was also faithful to the Sheriff ’s Department, Sammy, his golden retriever, and Lisa, his nine-year-old daughter, who lived with him most weekends.

  Grateful that he hadn’t had to take the drunks to the county jail and wait around while they got booked, Tom took a slug of his coffee, now cold, and stuck his key in the ignition. Usually, he worked in the homicide unit, but tonight he was on patrol to earn some overtime. With luck, for the rest of his shift he could cruise quiet county roads with owls for company at this time of night.

  Fat chance. Dream on. There’s always something. He started the motor, and the car spewed out a cloud of exhaust. As he was about to back out of the parking lot, his cell rang. Here comes the next “something.”

  “Wolski,” he answered, though colleagues often called him Polack, as if that were his last name. After forty-three years of Polack jokes, Tom hardly listened anymore: A Polack thought his wife was trying to kill him when he found her “Polish Remover.” Polish names end in “ski” because Poles can’t spell “tobbagan.” Real thigh slappers, those jokes.

  “Hey.” It was Tom’s boss, Sergeant Alan Pederson, supervisor of the sheriff ’s Investigation Unit. “Just got a call from Rex Malone. You know him?”

  “Yep.” Tom had met San Julian P.D.’s chief many times.

  “Big deal going on over there. A cop shot a neighbor kid in front of her house. She says he stabbed her K-9 and she was defending herself.”

  “Bad news,” Tom said. “Who’s the cop?”

  “Andrea Brady.”

  Oh. For a blink, Tom paused. “I . . . um—”

  “They need somebody from the outside for an OIS investigation,” Pederson interrupted. “I want you to head it up.”

  Tom had never taken the lead in an Officer Involved Shooting. A chance to prove himself. “Fine.”

  “I’ll put Murphy and Jackson on your shoot team and send them and some technicians over to Brady’s house. It’s at Six-Five-Seven Valley Road. Just off Highway Twenty-One.”

  Tom scribbled the address in his logbook.

  “You far from there?” Pederson asked.

  “Maybe fifteen minutes.” Tom could take the two-lane bridge to the island.

  “Good,” Pederson said. “The kid’s Christopher Vanderwaal. Parents are Franz and Jane. They live down Valley Road at Nine-Six-Six. You got that?”

  “Yep.” Tom’s writing looked like a palsied chicken’s scratching, but he could read it. “Is the kid on his way to the hospital?”

  “Should be.”

  “His parents?”

  “Don’t know where they are. The chief sent two of his people to their house a few minutes ago. The cops will stay till you get Murphy or Jackson to secure the scene.”

  “Right.”

  “Get over there. Let me know how it’s going. Call anytime.”

  Tom opened his mouth to tell Alan what he’d started to say about Andrea Brady. It was something he should probably explain: They had an awkward history. They’d almost gone out together.

  When she’d been a rookie on San Julian’s force, a friend had set them up for a blind date. But the day before they were supposed to go out to dinner together, she’d called Tom and said, “I can’t go out with you. I just broke up with someone. I’m not ready to get involved with anybody again.”

  Yeah, right. Why didn’t you bring that up when I called you last week? And how can you be so sure I’d want to get involved with you?

  From a mile away Tom could smell the get-lost-buddy line. She must have done some investigating and decided she didn’t want to go out with him. On the one hand, maybe he wasn’t God’s gift to every woman on the planet, but he was attractive enough, and most women liked him. To hell with her.

  On the other hand, maybe she’d done him a favor. Freshly divorced from Mia, Tom had no time for more grief from a woman. Still, Andrea Brady’s brush-off had chipped his pride, especially after he finally met her in person at a Homeland Security meeting. Though she was pretty, he made it a policy to avoid her. When they ran into each other once in a while on the job, he got away ASAP.

  Tom closed his mouth without revealing this humiliating situation to Pederson, but he wondered, was he wrong to keep quiet? If Pederson knew, he might take Tom off the case. The opportunity would slip through his fingers and be handed to someone else.

  Tom wanted to head this investigation. It would be tough; but if everything worked out, it could mean another success for his file. Another step on his path to making sergeant. He planned to take the three-striper’s exam next summer.

  Besides, he told himself, this business with Andrea Brady had happened more than five years ago. Since then, she’d married and, he’d heard, divorced. Lots of water had flowed under her bridge. His too. Their broken date was not worth mentioning. It wouldn’t be acting unethically to forget it ever happened.

  Eager to get to Valley Road, Tom turned on his siren and flashing lights. An OIS investigation sure beat patrolling empty roads. He told himself that he could handle Andrea Brady. He’d ignore the past and focus on the job. He sped toward the island.

  CHAPTER 4

  ANDREA

  By the time the ambulance had driven Justice away, all eight cops in Andie’s department, except Chief Malone, had shown up, on duty or not. They set up the incident command post and defined the crime scene and the path to it with yellow tape, then stood around, talking and waiting for the sheriff ’s team. Andie also waited, out of the way on the stone path to her house. She took deep breaths to calm herself. They didn’t work.

  Mario Capoletti, the department’s disheveled part-time psychologist, walked around the crime scene’s perimeter and greeted Andie. “Terrible this has happened to you. I’m so sorry.” His eyes were kind.

  Ron Hausmann, the guild attorney, appeared in a coat and tie, odd for a Sunday night. Jingling coins in his pockets, he said, “I got here as fa
st as I could. We can meet tomorrow if you’re up for it.”

  How could I be up for it? Andie was thinking when, finally, Chief Malone arrived out of uniform and out of breath. He’d been at a cousin’s birthday party in Seattle, he told Andie, but on the ferry he’d contacted the Sheriff ’s Department. “They’ll be here in a minute. Everything’s on track.” He took her arm and led her to the porch.

  Malone was a galumphing Saint Bernard of a man—he didn’t walk, he lumbered, and his life’s purpose was to rescue people. He seemed friendly till someone crossed him, at which time he would raise his hackles and growl. Every time he got excited, bits of foam appeared in the corners of his mouth.

  “Brady, I wish I didn’t have to be the one to tell you,” he started slowly.

  “Tell me what?”

  “Christopher Vanderwaal died as soon as he left here. He didn’t make it to the end of your road. One of your bullets nicked his femoral artery, and he bled out.”

  Andie’s stomach dropped as if she were in an airplane, losing altitude. The news knocked the breath out of her. The porch seemed to distort and spin, like she was looking into a carnival mirror and everything around her was wavy and awry. Shock numbed her brain and shut it down.

  “I know it’s upsetting. It’s the last thing any cop wants to hear,” Malone said.

  Andie moved her lips to speak, but no words made their way through her constricted throat.

  “Are you all right?”

  An invisible puppeteer pulled a string and made her nod.

  “You don’t seem all right.” Malone peered into her face.

  Andie managed, “I’m okay.” A lie. She wasn’t okay by a long shot. The Chief had just shattered her world.

  “Look, Brady, I’m going to put you on administrative leave. Take some time off. You need to recover from tonight. You’ll still get paid.”

  Andie nodded again.

  “Everything’s got to be confusing to you now. Before you talk to anyone, you’ll need twenty-four hours to settle down. You’ll start to get a handle on what’s happened.”

  “Um . . .” Whatever she was going to say drifted off, out of reach.

  “On Tuesday morning the OIS team will need you to give a statement. And on Wednesday I want Capoletti to debrief you. I’ll assign Stephanie to be your peer counselor. She’ll help you through the process. That sound okay?”

  “Yes,” Andie whispered, though she hardly understood what she was agreeing to.

  “Do you have family to see you through this?”

  Andie’s parents were dead, and no one could count on her brother, Ray, who lived in New York. “Justice is my family. Do you know if he’s all right?”

  “I haven’t heard anything yet,” Malone said.

  “I want to see him.”

  “You have to go to the station first.”

  It isn’t fair.

  “Look, we’re here for you twenty-four-seven.” Beads of Saint Bernard foam were gathering on Malone’s lips. “I know you know this, but I want to remind you—don’t talk about the case unless it’s with Capoletti or Hausmann or the sheriff’s team.”

  Malone looked over Andie’s shoulder and beckoned to someone. “Come on over here, Wolski.” Malone said to Andie, “He’s a good guy. He’ll be heading the investigation.”

  She turned around and saw Tom. No. Surely not. The Chief couldn’t find anyone who thinks less of me.

  Tom ducked under the crime scene tape and took the porch steps two at a time. He and Malone shook beefy hands, but Tom did not extend his hand toward Andie. From his imposing height, he looked down at her and said formally, “Hello, Brady.” His face seemed starched.

  “I’ll leave you two. People are waiting to see me.” Malone patted Tom’s back and left.

  Tom watched him go down the steps, then said to Andie, “I want to talk with you about tonight.”

  “The Chief told me not to say anything till I have time to get my head together.”

  “Did you know Christopher Vanderwaal?” Tom asked anyway.

  “Not really.”

  “What does that mean? You either knew him or you didn’t.”

  I can’t handle this. Andie felt cornered. Her face flushed as survival instincts unsheathed their claws and warned: Be careful.

  She had every reason not to trust Tom. He didn’t like her, and now he had the power to ruin her career or, worse, get her sent to prison. On the rare occasions when she’d seen him since she’d broken their date, she’d felt nothing from him but disapproval. And she felt it from him now.

  “You can’t interrogate me tonight. I can’t think straight.” Andie rubbed her forehead, as if that could get her mind to work.

  Tom stared at her, perhaps trying to decide how hard to push. “Okay. I want the keys to your patrol car. You can’t drive it on leave. And your house key. Christopher Vanderwaal may have broken in earlier. We need to check it out.”

  Andie reached into her pocket and pulled out her key ring, from which dangled a silver German shepherd. “Here.” Docile, she worked off the keys and dropped them onto Tom’s palm. This must be how suspects feel when they’re under investigation. Required to follow orders. No longer in control of their own lives. A seasoned cop who’d chased down drug dealers and hauled perps to jail, Andie had been fearless. Now she was scared.

  CHAPTER 5

  TOM

  Tom gathered his team around him. There was so much to do at once. It had to be done right.

  “Okay, Murphy and Jackson, get over to the Vanderwaals’ house. If they’re there, persuade them to go to a hotel. If they refuse, keep an eye on them so they don’t sneak out evidence. Look for drugs, journals, photos, anything suspicious. Get the kid’s electronics. I’ll be over later.”

  “We’re on it.” Ross Jackson’s ruddy cheeks looked chapped.

  “Dawson, go to the vet clinic and take photos of the dog’s wounds, preferably before anybody sews them up. And, Sanchez, get pictures of the sole of every shoe that came through here tonight. Firemen. Paramedics. Cops. Andrea Brady. Christopher Vanderwaal.”

  “Done,” Dawson said. He and Sanchez picked up their camera gear and headed out.

  “Chan and Lindstrom, set up an outer perimeter of tape and keep everybody back. You can hear the press out there on Valley. Matter of minutes till they stampede down the driveway,” Tom said. “The rest of you know what to do, so get to work.”

  Tom stepped over to the incident command post and kept watch on the crime scene. As minutes crawled by, his technicians flashed cameras on footprints, Andie’s bullet casings, and Christopher’s knife in place. Diagrams were drawn of where he’d waited in the bushes, where his head and feet had rested on the dirt, and where Andie’s shells had landed. Distances between these locations were measured.

  Those calculations would be crucial. Everything has to add up if this case goes to court. Maybe not if—when. Even if the evidence showed that Andrea Brady had been justified to shoot, no way would Christopher Vanderwaal’s parents take his death lying down. Whether criminal or civil, a lawsuit was looming out there on the horizon.

  Tonight Tom had to make sure that everyone went slowly, took meticulous care, made no mistakes. There was no room for slipshod evidence collection or muddled computations. He had to be ready to defend his team’s conclusions against lawyers, reporters, and higher-ups. He’d be exposed, professionally on trial. He and his team would be pressed between glass slides and put under a microscope.

  Though grateful for the chance to prove himself, Tom felt the challenge weigh him down. Since childhood, a streak of hesitation sometimes showed up in him, a trait few would guess a sturdy man like him could have. Again tonight the streak presented him with stumbling blocks of caution, but Tom hooked his thumbs in his pants’ front pockets and mentally kicked them away. No room for self-doubt here. Get on with it.

  He thought of his coach at Oregon State barking at the team. “I want to see you fight!” he told them, circled around him,
their heads bowed before they ran onto the field for a game. As they left the locker room, he’d pat them on the back and shout, “Get out there and kick ass!”

  That’s what Tom would do for this OIS investigation.

  CHAPTER 6

  ANDREA

  Gathering evidence, Tom and his team took over Andie’s yard. They stomped through her chard and kale beds and snapped branches off her camellia bushes. The destruction didn’t register on Andie because her house now felt like public property. And whatever knife and bullet shells the team might find wouldn’t bring Christopher back to life or answer the most fundamental question: Why had he done what he did?

  Andie was too numb to think about it. But shock was a gift that flipped a switch inside her to protect her against debilitating guilt. Until she could face it, shock stored it away in her mind’s darkest corner. Shock also split her into two disconnected parts: the exterior Andie who did her duty even at a time like this; and the interior Andie who was immobilized, incapable of absorbing that she’d killed someone. The two parts allowed her to do what was asked, but she felt like someone besides her was going through the motions.

  Her only lucid thoughts were about Justice. When Tom asked one of his deputies, Tina Morrison, to drive Andie to San Julian’s police station for processing, she got into the patrol car itching with impatience to go to the veterinary hospital. More than she’d ever wanted anything, she wanted to get over there and see for herself if Justice was still alive. Not knowing was torture.

  Tina, clearly in no hurry, drove at the maddening speed of a three-toed sloth. She looked like one too. Her eyes drooped, her hair was shaggy, and her long nails curled under like claws. She talked slowly, as if sedatives were her closest friends. She might have spent the afternoon languid in a eucalyptus tree, munching leaves and shoots.