A Healing Justice Read online

Andie kept thinking, Hurry! As they inched through the intersection of Highway 21 and Puget Road—two blocks from the vet—she wrung her cold hands together and mentally begged her big guy to hang on.

  The station was built of concrete bricks soon after World War II. Inside were speckled gray linoleum floors, pea-soup-green walls, and smells of dust and age. There were no halls, so the rooms were a jumble; the force referred to their station as the “rabbit warren.” Tonight, to Andie, it felt more like the unfamiliar barracks of a foreign army. In her daze, she wasn’t sure she could find her locker or the restroom.

  Tina guided her past the station’s two jail cells to the back, where drunks took Breathalyzer tests and perps were lined up against a wall for mug shots. “We need photos,” Tina drawled.

  Andie stood against the wall, and Tina flashed the camera—face forward, then profile, then Andie’s full body, showing her uniform’s splotches of blood and Justice’s shed fur. The photos were supposed to record what she’d looked like when Christopher had run at her. No longer simply tired from a long workday, she was pale and bedraggled. Her blank expression informed the camera, Inside my head, nobody’s home.

  Investigator Stan Carson, who had a beanpole physique, took her gun for ballistics tests to discover whether its bullets matched those at the scene. He swabbed her hand for residue to document if she’d pulled the trigger. Finally, in the women’s restroom, Andie changed into a sweat suit that Tina found in her locker, and Carson collected Andie’s uniform to test whether the blood on it was Christopher’s and Justice’s.

  “Did you see those storm clouds? Sure looks like rain,” Tina said.

  “Give me snow in the mountains. The last ski season was the pits,” Carson said.

  “What do you think, Brady?” Tina’s sloth lids sagged over her eyes.

  I think we should stop wasting time. I want to see Justice. “What do I think about what?”

  “Earth to Brady.” Carson’s words sounded fuzzy, as if spoken underwater. “We’re talking rain.”

  Andie looked as if she weren’t sure what rain was. She said vaguely, “It’s fine.”

  Clearly, Carson and Tina were trying to distract her and keep the conversation light. If they talked directly about the “case,” as the worst night in her life had become, they would jeopardize the investigation and a possible legal trial.

  After Carson left to take the evidence to the Sheriff ’s Department, Tina handed Andie a use-of-force report form and settled her at Stephanie’s desk, which was behind an interior window just inside the station’s front door. Then Tina leaned back in a metal folding chair against the wall, leisurely flipped through a People magazine, and gave Andie space to collect her thoughts.

  Andie couldn’t focus. The form’s words seemed to sprout little fins and swim off the page. She needed all her concentration to understand the questions, much less to fill in the blanks with facts that shock had tucked away in her mental muddle. “Officer’s name”? “Suspect’s name”? “Weapon used”? “Location”? “Time of day”? “Lighting”? “Why was the weapon used?” “Briefly narrate the incident.”

  Andie made herself pick up the pen. As she started to answer, her handwriting looked like a stranger’s scraped into the paper rather than her own loops and swirls. Her words might have been written in Coptic or Urdu for all anyone could tell. But always responsible, even in shock, Andie tried to fill out the form.

  * * *

  “Hey, girl!” Stephanie bustled into her office, bent down and hugged Andie, and engulfed her in a cloud of perfume called Glow. “The Chief assigned me to be your peer counselor. That’s a new term for ‘friend,’ which I already was.” She chortled. “So you’ve taken over my desk.”

  “Just for a little while,” Andie said.

  “I don’t mind as long as you don’t muck it up with a glue gun or something.” Stephanie plucked a dead leaf off her desk’s ivy plant, which she was forever forgetting to water. “By the way, you look great in that nasty sweat suit. Did the Laser Lady’s cat drag you in?”

  Stephanie’s chipper talk didn’t fool Andie. It was meant to distract her, like Carson’s and Tina’s. Still, the presence of her friend reassured Andie, and a tiny spark began to thaw her inner ice.

  Stephanie should have been an actress. She wore only red, and she painted her nails scarlet, garnet, or rose. She also went through life like every moment ended in an exclamation point. On the stillest afternoon her hair looked wind tousled, and for now it was colored Beeline Honey, but who knew about next week? She set her red bucket bag on her desk and leaned back in a folding chair next to Tina.

  “She doing okay?” Stephanie asked Tina, referring to Andie, as if Andie couldn’t hear.

  “Traumatized, but she’s okay,” Tina said. “After she finishes the form, she can leave.”

  “Want to go home or spend the night with me?” Stephanie asked Andie.

  “I want to see Justice. I don’t know how he is.”

  “I just called the clinic. He’s in surgery,” Stephanie said.

  So he’s alive! Alive!! Thank you! With relief, Andie closed her eyes and exhaled from somewhere so deep that her shoulders lowered a couple of inches. Then she remembered he might still die. “Did the vet say anything else? Will Justice be all right?”

  “I don’t know. Everyone in that place is sure aware of him. Cops and deputies must have poured in over there,” Stephanie said.

  “We have to hurry.”

  Andie scratched her pen faster. When she finally finished, she set down the pen and handed the form to Tina. “Let’s go,” Andie said.

  As Stephanie drove toward the veterinary clinic in her red Toyota, Andie was quiet. Suddenly she heard herself ask, “What if Justice dies to punish me because I shot Christopher?”

  “That’s crazy. Life doesn’t work that way,” Stephanie said.

  Andie wasn’t so sure. Guilt was beginning to nibble at her barely thawing edges. It was waiting for the chance to chomp.

  CHAPTER 7

  TOM

  At the end of Andie’s driveway, neighbors and reporters gathered around Chief Malone. Blocked from the crime scene by a wall of firs, he stood on a makeshift platform and blinked against the TV cameras’ lights. A forest of microphones had been placed on stands in front of his chest, below which his stomach was locked into an ongoing battle with his belt. Malone’s slumped shoulders said, I don’t want to be here.

  I wouldn’t want to be there, either, Tom thought as he stamped his feet in the cold, away from the crowd.

  News had traveled fast. TV and newspaper reporters had scrambled to get to the island from Seattle and Bremerton and as far away as Olympia. By morning, national crews might show up to cover Andrea Brady’s use of deadly force.

  It was a sensational story, guaranteed to hook audiences. Dog lovers’ hearts would melt at Justice, whom Tom had heard could be a poster dog for law enforcement. And half the U.S. population would hope to see what they’d call a trigger-happy cop get hers. All police in America were aware of the negative sentiment against them, and it had only been getting worse. Cops were a hot topic. The use of deadly force was forever debated. Controversy sold newspapers.

  Tom felt sorry for Malone, facing down the wolf pack. Tom had seen the press chew up and spit out plenty of sheriffs and chiefs. But this press conference would be different because it was about his case. Pay attention. Lots to learn here.

  “I’m sorry to report that one of our officers has shot a suspect,” Malone began. “The officer was not injured.The suspect is dead. The officer’s K-9 is in critical condition at the veterinary hospital.”

  A reporter in a black down coat shouted, “Where did this happen?”

  “At the officer’s residence.” Malone did not mention that it was located in the woods behind him, but a reporter with half a brain could figure that out.

  A man with a dirty ponytail and a pen behind his ear asked, “Can you tell us about the victim?”

  Victim.
Already the word “suspect” had been shelved for a more sensational and biased term. Anyone could see where this was going. The train had left the station and was rumbling down the track toward a town called Gotcha. Inevitably, some of the media would twist the story against Andrea Brady.

  Avoiding the trap about the “victim,” Malone said, “The Nisqually County Sheriff ’s Department is taking over the investigation. You’ll have to talk with them for more details.”

  “Why did the officer shoot?” asked a woman reporter wearing a blue knitted hat.

  “As soon as more is known, the Sheriff ’s Department will give you information,” Malone said.

  “If the shooting took place at the officer’s residence, the officer surely knew the victim,” a reporter badgered.

  “I don’t want to impede the investigation by providing more details at this time,” Malone said.

  A woman at the crowd’s front raised her hand. “Is this the officer’s first use of deadly force? Or have there been others?”

  Probing for the bad. Looking for chinks in the armor, Tom thought.

  “Once the investigation is finished, the details will be available,” Malone said.

  “When?” she asked.

  “Hard to say. Could be as soon as three weeks. We’ll let you know.”

  Malone tugged at his collar as if it were too tight. The reporters kept pressing, and in a dozen different ways he repeated that he couldn’t give more information now. When bits of foam piled up in the corners of his mouth, he mopped a white handkerchief over his lips and forehead.

  Sitting in the hot seat can sure singe your pants, Tom thought.

  He warned himself that he’d have to be on guard. He’d need to run the investigation exactly right so these buzzards couldn’t pick his bones. They’d be circling for the chance to swoop down on mistakes. He damned well wouldn’t let them.

  In his time he’d faced down worse opponents than the media. Years ago as a Seattle rookie cop, he’d stood in a skirmish line, wearing a helmet, clenching a baton, and pitting his heft against an angry mob. They shoved and hit and yelled about the unjust Iraq War’s Operation Phantom Thunder. Tom planted his feet on the ground and warded off blows.

  “Bastards!” the cop next to him shouted. “My brother got killed in Baghdad last week. I have more reason to be pissed off than they do.”

  As Tom was being jostled and screamed at in the face, he managed only, “I’m sorry for your loss.” He was also sorry for the damned state of the world, all the anger and violence. His job might not be as dangerous as a U.S. soldier’s in Iraq, but every time Tom showed up for work some punk could hurt or kill him.

  Now as he surveyed the reporters on Andrea Brady’s street, he knew that coiled beneath their questions might be a mistrust of police, but journalists’ words couldn’t break Tom’s bones. Reporters didn’t throw bricks. They fired questions, not bullets. He’d seen far worse.

  CHAPTER 8

  ANDREA

  So that the island’s pets could always get medical attention, Drs. Vargas and Upton kept their clinic open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Their message was clear: We care about your animals. You could sense it when you drove into the parking lot, where a row of imitation fire hydrants encouraged canine patients to attend to their biological needs.

  Inside, the waiting room was a cozy houseplant jungle. Comfortable wingback chairs were placed around a diamond-patterned area rug, and café curtains hung on the multi-paned windows. Half walls enclosed most of a toy-strewn corner, over which hung a sign: TWO-LEGGED KID ZONE. Next to it were stations for coffee, tea, cookies, dog biscuits, cat treats, and the latest editions of Modern Dog, Popular Mechanics, Sunset, Outside, and the San Julian Review.

  Andie had brought Justice here many times, but never after one a.m. or for a life-and-death emergency. So late, the waiting room, though comforting, was missing its usual barks and meows. It felt lonely and off-kilter, as if the walls might fall in around her and pin her to the ground.

  “Want me to go see Justice with you?” Stephanie asked.

  “Maybe it’s better for him if I’m alone.”

  “Just let me know what you need.”

  Andie nodded but knew she had no idea what she needed, except for Justice to be okay.

  A technician in a dog-and-cat patterned scrub suit led her to an exam room where Dr. Mark Vargas, Andie’s friend and vet, was waiting for her, his arms crossed over his chest, each hand cupping an elbow. Covering his heart that way seemed like a self-protective posture. Maybe he had bad news he’d rather not deliver. Maybe veterinarians, like cops, had to protect their feelings from the outside world.

  Mark peered down at Andie through John Lennon–style wire-frame glasses. His rice-bowl haircut and bangs flopping to his eyebrows looked like a youthful Beatle’s too. Tonight, however, lines of fatigue surrounded his eyes and he seemed more formal than usual. His distance scared Andie.

  “Is Justice all right?” she blurted out.

  “Before you see him, I want to prepare you,” Mark said. “He’s sedated in an oxygen cage. His prognosis is guarded.”

  “You mean doubtful? You think he’ll die?”

  “I hope not, but he could. It’s too early to say. You need to be ready in case we can’t save him, Andrea. We won’t know if he’s out of the woods for a couple of days.”

  As if Andie hadn’t trembled a lifetime’s worth of trembles on this long night, her hands started shaking again.

  Mark pulled a paper cup from a nearby dispenser and filled it with water. “You’re white as a sheet. I don’t want you to faint on me.” He handed her the cup. “Want to sit down?”

  She took a sip. “I want you to tell me about Justice.”

  “Well, he was stabbed twice. You don’t have to worry much about the wound in his shoulder. It should heal okay. I’m more concerned about the one in his thoracic cavity. We’re lucky the knife didn’t go to his lung because that would have finished him off for sure.”

  Andie scrunched her eyes and fought back tears.

  “I promise we’re doing all we can. Justice lost a lot of blood, so we gave him a transfusion. We closed both wounds and sutured in drains.”

  “For what?”

  “To drain off fluids—and air if it builds up in his chest and presses on his lungs so he can’t breathe. We’ll keep checking his red blood cell count and oxygen saturation. My main concern is infection. We’re giving Justice IV antibiotics. Now we wait to see how this shakes out.”

  “I wish you had a magic wand. . . .”

  Mark put his arm around Andie’s shoulders and led her into his surgery, where he left her and Justice alone.

  No amount of preparation could have readied Andie for the sight of him lying in the Plexiglas cage. He was wearing a small oxygen mask over his nose and mouth, but what grieved her more were the huge shaved patches of his fur, the thick white dressings on his wounds, and the tubes bristling from his flesh like stems after a deer has munched off the flowers and leaves. The catheter piercing Justice’s front leg and bound with pink tape was the least of what had been done to him, and yet it was also painful to see.

  Still, the very worst was the sedation. Justice looked like he was dead. With no twitch of an ear or flicker of an eyelash, he was miles away, completely out of Andie’s reach. She was used to him sleeping on her bed, snuggling behind her knees’ crook, hogging up the space. Throughout the night, he snored or sighed or shuffled his paws while dreaming. Now he was immobilized. Silent. The sedation seemed like a prelude to death.

  Andie reached through an opening in the Plexiglas cage and petted his haunch. She wanted him to sense on some level that she was there—and if he died in the night he’d go knowing she loved him.

  Meghan often said that you had to imagine what you wanted, that a detailed mental picture was the first step in coaxing your wish to come true. So Andie visualized throwing Justice’s green, blue, and red Frisbees—and him dashing across her grass t
o snatch them from the air. A champion of Frisbee catching, he snapped one at a time between his teeth without dropping any he already held. When he had all three fanned out from his mouth like a hand of cards, he ran a victory lap around the yard until Andie tugged them away and threw them again and again. When he finally got tired, he ran up to the porch and dropped the Frisbees at the front door. Kerplunk.

  Andie had lived this scene with him countless times. Now she pictured it so hard that it felt engraved on her brain. If the sincerity of her imagining counted for anything, by tomorrow Justice should be bounding around the clinic, eager to go home to his Frisbees. But that was hardly likely.

  She rested her forehead on the Plexiglas above the cage’s opening, as close as she could get to his ears. Usually, they were raised at attention, like triangle sails on a toy boat beating into the wind. Now his ears flopped down from drugs.

  “I’m sorry Christopher stabbed you, Sweet Boy. If I’d had time, I’d have moved heaven and earth to stop him,” Andie whispered. “Don’t worry. Everybody’s rooting for you. Everything will be all right.”

  Even sedated, however, Justice was too smart not to detect a white lie.

  So Andie amended it: “Sweet Boy, we all hope everything will be all right.” That’s all she could do about the dismal mess that her and Justice’s life had become. Hope.

  CHAPTER 9

  TOM

  The hardest part of Tom’s job was knocking on a door and informing parents that their child was dead. Tom remembered every single person he’d had to shock that way. It had ripped out their hearts—and it would have ripped out Tom’s if he hadn’t blocked Lisa from his mind. Sometimes he couldn’t help but feel sorry for people—yet he couldn’t stop himself from feeling grateful that the kid had been theirs, not his.

  Relieved that Ross Jackson and Mike Murphy had been the bearers of the Vanderwaals’ tragic news, Tom stepped inside their barn-red clapboard house, removed his khaki hat, and hung it by the front door on a coatrack’s peg. He found Jackson poking around the living room. “The Vanderwaals here?”