“He’s pretty fresh out of the academy. But I don’t know if that—”
“Feels to me like this is our strategy,” Brice continued. “Cameron is the bad guy here; he’s green, out of his league. He made a bad call. Sounds like you didn’t know him all that well, but did you ever hear him say anything against Blacks? Maybe he had a bias there. Some buzz around the district about him being a bad apple? Anything like that?”
“I don’t know. We didn’t talk that much.” Kevin shook his head; he clearly didn’t like where Brice was going with this.
“Okay, okay, well, we can dig into that more. But whatever the case, this could work. Cameron guilty, you innocent. You’d have to testify though.”
Kevin’s father had been silent until that moment, so we all jumped when he raised his voice. “No way!” The stroke had left half of his face and his right side completely limp, and sometimes his cheek twitches when he wants to say something, his jaw muscles straining to get his mouth to cooperate with his brain. Kevin’s told me stories about Frank’s extreme mood swings when he was growing up. One minute he was the most fun dad on the block, playing kickball with the kids until the sun went down, the next he was whipping off his belt and lashing Kevin for back talk. But since I’ve known him, Frank’s always seemed docile, like a bird with its wings clipped. Not in that moment, though: he was fired up, and his words flowed as forcefully and as easily as I’d seen.
“That’s not gonna happen. We don’t turn on our own. When we draw our guns we do it for a good reason, and we shouldn’t have to defend ourselves for defending lives. You have no idea what it’s like out there. I spent forty years on the force. I’ve been shot at, punched in the jaw. Some crazy son of a bitch tried to run me over with his car after we tried to arrest him for beating the hell out of his pregnant wife. When you’re on the streets long enough, deal with the criminal element long enough, you have instincts, and you can’t explain those instincts to anyone. We do what we do to protect ourselves and our partners. There’s a thing called loyalty in the force, and Kevin would never turn against another cop. Right, Kevin?”
My husband looked at me instead of looking at his dad. “I should tell the truth.” I watched the muscles in his back tense. All he’d ever wanted to do was make Frank proud of him. It was why he put on that uniform in the first place.
“I hear you, Frank.” Brice changed his tone when he addressed the man who was ultimately paying his bills. “We just have to figure out the best case for your son. And yeah, yeah, of course you need to tell the truth, Kev, it’s just there can be different versions of that, you know?” He paused here. “We also have to consider what the video’s going to show.”
I was already holding my breath as Brice threw all of that at us, and then a video? This was caught on camera? I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing, same as I didn’t know if it was good or bad luck that neither Kevin nor Cameron had body cams. Because of the limits of the department budget, they’re doling them out in waves, like the new vests, outfitting one unit at a time. Kevin’s wasn’t scheduled for a few months yet.
“There’s video?” Kevin asked, clearly just as surprised. It was hard to tell how he felt about this possibility.
“Oh yeah, yeah.” Brice seemed pleased that he was the one delivering this information, like he was already earning his absurd fees. “Pakistani guy who owns the liquor store on the corner rigged cameras in the alley after someone tried to break in through his back door. I’ll get it as soon as I can. Hopefully before it leaks. Without a body cam, this is a big deal. If a video does surface, it’s going to show exactly what you describe, right?” Brice asked. “No surprises? ’Cause if there are, I need to know up front.”
“No surprises,” Kevin echoed him, sounding like a toy that had run out of batteries.
Beyond that, Brice was spare on specifics. He gave us a rough sense of the timeline, but also said that it was impossible to understand what exactly would happen next and how fast it would happen. In the meantime, our future hangs in the air like a slow-motion coin toss.
The doorbell rings, and it’s time for yet another person to tell us what we can and can’t say, do, expect, hope for. I pick a piece of celery out of Kevin’s front teeth as Cookie walks to the front foyer. We sit in silence in front of the mile-high platter of vegetables and listen to her exaggeratedly enthusiastic greeting.
“Oh, look at you. You’re so pretty. Like a movie star. I didn’t expect someone so pretty. Come in. Come in.”
I glance from father to son. They look so much alike, especially as Kevin’s gotten older. The same dimpled chin, steel-blue eyes, and thick curly hair, though Frank’s is entirely gray now. They also have the exact same expression: beleaguered and exhausted. Particularly Frank. Julia Sanchez rounds the corner into the kitchen, a pint-size woman in sky-high heels. She wears a pin-striped suit and carries an expensive-looking bag, as if she’s headed to a sleek corporate boardroom and not sitting in a suburban kitchen with rooster wallpaper. Cookie clucks around her, making introductions, pouring sodas, arranging and rearranging the platters on the table. As usual, she nudges a basket overflowing with potato chips toward Kevin. She’s always thrusting snacks on him like he’s a toddler.
Julia looks a little overwhelmed by the aggressive hospitality as she settles on the banquette. But she doesn’t get much further than, “I’m sorry, I know you’ve been through a lot,” before the front door opens, bringing in a fury of noise.
“That’ll be the rest of the family,” Cookie explains, as Annie and Matt’s four-year-old son, Archie, comes tearing into the room pretending to shoot a plastic bazooka at everyone. I wonder if I’m the only one who sees the irony in this. When I catch Julia’s quick cringe, I realize that I’m not.
Cookie scoops up her grandchild, weapon and all, and pecks at his neck like a mama lion licking her young cub clean. Matt and Annie, my favorite Murphy besides Kevin, are close behind. They line up to kiss Cookie hello, and she puffs up at the attention. Nothing makes Cookie happier than having both her sons in her kitchen, even under these circumstances.
Julia waits patiently as drinks are poured and Archie is settled with a snack in front of the TV. When she finally has everyone’s attention, she clasps her hands on the table and begins. “So I’m here to help advise you. You’ve been thrust into the public spotlight, and I’m sure the attention is intense for everyone. I’m sure it’s been… challenging.”
“It’s been absolute hell,” Cookie says, wringing her liver-spotted hands.
“I can imagine. And I’m afraid it’s going to get worse before it gets better. You need to prepare yourself. You know the story is getting national attention already. And the local media is rabid. I’m sure you saw the piece this morning?”
“Of course we did,” Matt says about the viral op-ed in the Inquirer about how Philly’s racist police force needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. “All these cocky Ivy League assholes with their opinions on police and guns—I bet none of them has even met a cop.”