Zach didn’t say a word.
“Nobody knows you.” He gestured, as if holding a weight in each hand. One sank while the other rose. “One thing for sure, I can guarantee you won’t be real popular in this department if you hold on to what looks a lot like a vendetta. You might find yourself deciding to go back to your big-city department.” The last was a drawl barely disguising a sneer.
Zach kept his expression from changing in any way. He held the stare long enough to make it plain he wasn’t intimidated and rose from the chair he’d been offered facing the sheriff’s desk. “Sir,” he said politely, bending his head and walking out of the office.
He knew he was in deep shit, made worse because he was the new guy. A couple other deputies had quietly expressed their support, but a number had urged him to retreat from his “story.” Andy Hayes was a fine officer, a good guy. He wouldn’t have just beaten a man to death for the hell of it. No, sir. Accidents happened. If the fellow’s head hadn’t happened to hit that concrete step... Damnedest thing, him stumbling back and falling in just the wrong place. But when a man went for a police officer’s gun? Well, he was asking for anything.
Zach was ninety-nine-percent sure Antonio Alvarez had not gone for Andy Hayes’s gun. Even if he had, Hayes had dominated the encounter from that moment on. He could have had Alvarez on the ground, cuffed and arrested without breaking a sweat. Zach couldn’t think of an excuse in the world for Hayes to have beaten the shit out of the guy. What’s more, he had a suspicion Alvarez had been dead before he’d hit the concrete. Maybe he’d only lost consciousness, but he’d looked like a dead man from the instant his head snapped back and his body collapsed like a puppet’s with the strings cut.
Nobody wanted to talk about why Hayes had been there in the first place—well out of his patrol sector. They weren’t talking about the results of the autopsy, either—if it had even been done yet. As was common in rural counties, the coroner wasn’t a physician. Zach wanted to believe he wouldn’t cooperate with a cover-up.
No matter at what point Alvarez had died, going for a police officer’s gun was not a crime deserving of the death penalty, not if the officer had the ability to control the situation. Which Hayes unquestionably had.
Zach had no doubt he’d already have been fired if the sheriff hadn’t been afraid of the repercussions. Whatever Stokes thought personally, publicly the undersheriff would have to bow to his boss. Right now, they controlled the contacts Zach could talk to. If they cut him loose, they had to know he’d go straight to the press, the county commissioners, activists representing the Latino community.
The killing of an unarmed Hispanic man by a red-neck white deputy had the potential to explode into a scandal of nationwide proportions. The sheriff and undersheriff had to be seeing Ferguson and Pasco in their nightmares.
Too bad no one had had a camera phone, Zach thought grimly.
The good news was that he hadn’t been the only witness. It was pretty clear the woman hadn’t backed down yet, at least. She hadn’t gone to the press, either, but if they pushed too hard, they couldn’t stop her.
Zach knew her name now. Teresa Granath. Ms. Granath, the detective had said with sarcastic emphasis.
Zach had just come in from patrol. The sheriff’s department couldn’t afford to lose two of them at the same time and, as was standard practice, Hayes had been placed on administrative leave since a man had died during an altercation.
The incident.
Having finally clocked out, Zach had decided to contact Ms. Granath. He’d been careful yesterday once Stokes had arrived at the scene not to make eye contact with her or to try to speak to her. He didn’t want anyone thinking he’d influenced what she had to say. He’d be in trouble if he was seen with her now, but he’d passed the point of caring. He wanted to know how much shit they’d been giving her and whether she could stand up to it. Whether he could depend on her.
He assumed she’d have left her workplace, which he’d learned was a home improvement store. He’d planned to pay it a visit one of these days, anyway, because he was only days from closing on a house that needed work. He’d be out significant money if he lost his job.