Laura put a takeout container on the table.
“Chicken.”
Marcus opened it.
“Thank you.”
She sat.
“Internal Affairs pulled Harlan’s complaints.”
“How many?”
“Fourteen in nine years.”
“External review said thirteen.”
“One wasn't coded formally.”
“Complainant withdrew.”
“After?”
Laura opened the binder.
“After meeting with Harlan’s lieutenant.”
Marcus stopped eating.
“Which lieutenant?”
Laura hesitated.
“Russell Dane.”
Marcus looked up.
Captain Russell Dane had been the loudest skeptic of Marcus’s appointment.
Twenty-six years on the department.
Currently commander of patrol operations.
Marcus closed the food container.
“What year?”
“Three years ago.”
“Complaint allegation?”
“Unnecessary force during disorderly-conduct arrest.”
“Disposition?”
“Withdrawn.”
“Any video?”
Laura slowly slid a drive across the table.
“Body camera.”
“You watched it?”
“And?”
Laura sat back.
“You need to see it.”
They played the footage.
A convenience store.
Middle-aged Black man.
Harlan ordering him outside.
The man asking why.
Harlan grabbing his arm.
The man pulling away.
Harlan forcing him against a freezer case.
Nothing catastrophic.
Nothing viral.
But unmistakably avoidable.
Then came the audio afterward.
Harlan speaking with Lieutenant Dane.
“He kept mouthing off.”
Dane laughed.
“Some people only understand pressure.”
Marcus paused the video.
“That sound like isolated misconduct?”
Marcus resumed.
A week later, the complainant withdrew.
“Find out why.”
The answer arrived the next morning.
The complainant was named Thomas Avery.
Fifty-two.
Owned an auto-detailing business.
Marcus called him personally.
Avery answered suspiciously.
“Ridgeport Police Chief.”
“The new one?”
“Man, you people work fast after the internet gets involved.”
Marcus accepted the criticism.
“I’m calling about a complaint you filed three years ago against Sergeant Wade Harlan.”
Long pause.
“I withdrew that.”
“Then why are you calling?”
“I’d like to understand why.”
Avery laughed without humor.
“You really want to know?”
“Your lieutenant came to my business.”
“Russell Dane?”
“That’s him.”
“What did he say?”
“That complaints became public records.”
“That officers talk.”
“That if I was planning to keep doing business in Ridgeport, maybe I should ask myself whether the whole thing was worth ruining reputations over.”
Marcus’s fingers tightened around the phone.
“Did he directly threaten your business?”
“He was smarter than that.”
“Did you interpret the conversation as pressure?”
“Chief.”