Julia eyes Matt warily. “I know it’s a lot to take in. I’m here as a resource to help you through this. The first thing you need to do is deactivate your social media accounts. You can’t give the trolls a platform, and you don’t want to be tempted to say anything yourself that could influence—or damage—public opinion. That’s really the key, no public commentary. Period. Your best bet is to wait until things die down.”
“It seems like an impossible dream that this will ever die down,” I say, almost to myself.
Julia nods at me, compassion in her eyes, compassion I wish I’d gotten from Riley.
“I understand. And it’s not fair to any of you, but the press and the public have already made up their minds that Kevin is guilty. Unfortunately there’s a lot of anti-police sentiment out there right now.”
“Who do they think is gonna come save their ass next time some junkie snatches their Prada purse or someone breaks into their Bimmer?” Matt says. “Not every cop is a racist asshole, but that’s what you’d think from watching the news, the way they spin the stories with half-truths and hyped-up headlines,” he finishes, drawing a long sip from his beer.
Annie nods in agreement. “I remember how when I first married Matt, I was wary of even telling people he was a cop—all the stupid assumptions they would make about him.”
“And now they’re protesting us like we’re bad guys,” Matt snaps.
“Julia, do we have to worry about this protest tomorrow? What can we do about that?” Cookie asks. “I hope it rains, a big old downpour so they have to cancel it. It’s absurd that the mayor thinks it’s okay to talk to them. He’s supposed to be on the side of law enforcement. I mean, for heaven’s sake, show some support. He keeps bending to those activists”—she spits the word as if she’d said “puppy killers”—“when he should be standing up for the people who are doing their jobs.”
I’ve lost track of how many times Cookie has delivered this rant. She’s been in a perpetual tizzy over the mayor and the police commissioner and how she thinks they’re bowing to media pressure instead of protecting the officers, and her son. The mayor issued a statement in support of the police department twenty-four hours after the shooting. Then, a day later, after the protests began, he dialed it back, saying, “The city will do everything in its power to make sure justice is served.”
“It’s a betrayal!” Cookie slams her fist on the table. “Those people trying to make my child out to be some devil just for doing his job. I won’t have it!”
“Come on, honey.” Frank’s jaw gives the telltale twitch. When Cookie gets worked up, her husband is the only one who can calm her down. “We know the truth. Kevin had to do what he did to protect himself and his partner.” Frank’s words ooze from the side of his drooping lips, but they don’t have their desired effect, judging from the red streaks across Cookie’s sallow cheeks.
“Exactly. He was protecting himself. It’s a jungle out there. A war zone—right, Frank? We know. You remember.” It seems to soothe her to say this again and again. “I mean, there are animals out there.”
For her part, Julia doesn’t seem fazed by Cookie’s outburst, or at least she hides it well, probably a necessary skill for her job. “I understand your frustration, Mrs. Murphy. I do. One of the things I need to remind you of is that you should feel free to express these really difficult emotions here in your own home. You should—you need to. But you also have to be very careful about whom you share your opinions with and the language you use to share those opinions. Everything you say can be misconstrued, and that is the last thing Kevin needs.”
Julia lets this sink in. I can tell she doesn’t want to have to say the obvious: How about you don’t call people animals? When Cookie nods, she continues.
“We have to count on the fact that both sides of this story will come out. When it comes to the march, try not to take it personally.” Julia pointedly says “march” instead of “protest.” “People are marching about an issue. It’s not about Kevin per se.”
“Well, it sure feels personal. They want to send my son to jail. For doing his job.”
“They’re gonna riot, you know they are. Set fires, break windows, punch a police horse. That’ll be good for us.” Matt again. No one reminds him that the one time someone punched a police horse in this city, it was a drunk white guy celebrating an Eagles win.
“Oh, shut your mouth, Matt, it’s a peaceful event,” Annie says, ever the diplomat and always quick to put her husband in his place. But he’s too worked up and skulking around the kitchen. Like mother, like son.
“First of all, whose side are you on, Annie? And mark my words, those people are ready to riot. They riot. That’s why they do. Hello, Ferguson? They’re going to turn Broad Street into Ramallah.”
If one more person says “those people,” I might lose my shit. Besides, I’m willing to bet Matt can’t locate Raleigh on a map, let alone Ramallah.
I try to catch Kevin’s eye, but his are squeezed shut. He leans his head back against the wall as Matt blusters on.
“March for Justice, my ass. How come they can’t see that? You asked him to drop his weapon. He went into his pocket. Better to be tried by twelve than carried by six, man. If you have to take the shot, you take the shot. You did the right thing Kev-o. You’ve got a baby on the way. Your job is to get out alive.”
I have a flashback to last May, standing in a hot banquet hall in Passyunk at the wake of a cop named Jamal who got shot Memorial Day weekend while trying to stop three guys from breaking into an ATM at the Navy Yard. Kevin hadn’t known Jamal all that well, but it had hit him hard; any officer’s death anywhere does. It hit me too, and again when Matt says it now. Your job is to get out alive. At Jamal’s wake, the officers stood in tight clusters, stiff and formal in their dress blues on one side of the room, while the spouses, mostly women, clucked over sweaty deli platters at the buffet on the other and passed around an envelope growing fat with cash—including the $100 bill that Kevin slipped in that we really couldn’t spare. One of the LEO wives set up two weeks of meal delivery for his widow, Denise, and three kids and I did my duty by dropping off a chicken casserole on my designated day. I left it on her doorstep though. I couldn’t face her knowing I was going home to my husband. That very night, I started researching bulletproof vests.
“I just wish I was on duty tomorrow,” Matt says. “If Annie wasn’t working, I’d happily volunteer for overtime and keep the knuckleheads in check.”
Matt’s normal beat is Rittenhouse, safest neighborhood in Philly; the other cops call it Hollywood, but you’d think he was battling ISIS to hear him tell it. As I watch him fume, a thought that has always hovered just out of reach crystallizes, like a camera lens clicking into focus: I hate my brother-in-law. He and Kevin are close, so I tolerate his bullshit, but suddenly, after all these years of stomaching his mansplaining tirades and moody tantrums, I can’t ignore the simple truth: Matt is spoiled, immature, entitled. And now that I’ve allowed this thought into my mind, the door slams behind it and I won’t be able to deny it any longer. I wonder, not for the first time, how Annie—lovely, funny, smart Annie—can be married to this man. They’ve been together since they were kids though, and in that time Annie got sober, lost her parents, had a baby and a miscarriage. Matt was her rock, her person, even if he’s an asshole to everyone else.