Then Mitchell crumpled the schedule and threw it into the corner.
“Get out.”
“Sir, he needs medical attention.”
“I said get out!”
Brooks stood there for one more second.
Then he left.
But before the door closed, he looked at Andrew.
Andrew gave him the smallest nod.
Not approval.
Not thanks.
Just acknowledgment.
The door clicked shut.
Wilson locked it.
Mitchell turned back.
“This changes nothing.”
Andrew wiped blood from his cheek.
“You keep telling yourself that.”
Wilson reached for an arrest form.
Mitchell began dictating charges.
Trespassing.
Resisting.
Assault on an officer.
Andrew listened.
Then he spoke.
“Your career ends tomorrow morning.”
Mitchell stopped.
Andrew’s voice was quiet.
“Unless it ends tonight.”
Mitchell stared at him.
“Who are you?”
Andrew raised his eyes.
“My name is Andrew Harris.”
He paused.
“And tomorrow morning, I become chief of police.”
Silence.
Then Mitchell laughed.
But there was no confidence in it.
Andrew continued.
“And the first thing I intend to do is reopen the investigation into the death of Brandon Harris.”
Mitchell stopped laughing.
Andrew leaned back in the chair.
“Your problem, Officer Mitchell, is that I know what happened to him.”
The room suddenly felt much smaller.
“And now,” Andrew said, “I know exactly what you’re willing to do to protect the truth.”
Brandon’s Last Seven Minutes
Mitchell backed away from the table.
Wilson stopped writing.
Neither of them spoke.
Andrew looked from one face to the other.
“You thought his name was gone, didn’t you?”
Wilson finally found her voice.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know he called 911 himself.”
Andrew’s voice softened.
“He told the dispatcher he was having a panic attack. He said he was scared. He said he didn’t want to hurt anyone.”
Mitchell stared at the floor.
Andrew continued.
“The first officers who arrived said he was cooperative. Frightened, confused, but cooperative. They called for mental health services.”
Wilson’s fingers tightened around her pen.
“Then you arrived.”
“Shut up,” Mitchell whispered.
Andrew heard him.
“Why? Does the truth hurt?”
Mitchell slammed his hand against the wall.
“Shut up!”
Andrew did not move.
For three years, he had carried the image of his brother into every meeting with investigators.
Brandon smiling at a family barbecue.
Brandon building a bookshelf for their mother.
Brandon calling Andrew after midnight because he had found an old song they both loved.
And then the final call.
Andy, I’m scared.
Andrew had been in Washington at the time.
By the time he arrived home, his brother was dead.
The police told him it had been unavoidable.
Andrew believed them for exactly forty-eight hours.
Then he began asking questions.
Why were Brandon’s ribs fractured?
Why did the autopsy photographs not match the written summary?
Why had the mental health evaluator disappeared from the official file?
Why did two officers suddenly change their statements?
Every question led to a locked door.
Every locked door led back to this station.
Back to Mitchell.
Back to Wilson.
And eventually, Andrew believed, back to someone higher.
The door opened.
“Deputy Chief Walsh is coming,” Wilson said.
Andrew smiled faintly.
“Of course he is.”
Mitchell looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you still think the people above you can save you.”
Andrew’s expression hardened.
“That’s what Brandon thought, too. He thought someone would eventually walk through that door and stop you.”
Mitchell looked away.
Andrew lowered his voice.
“Seven minutes.”
Mitchell’s eyes snapped back to him.
Andrew had never known the exact duration until eighteen months earlier.
A former dispatcher had secretly preserved an unofficial time log.
Seven minutes between Brandon’s last audible plea and the call for medical assistance.
Seven minutes.
Andrew had memorized every second.
“I timed it,” a voice said from the door.
Everyone turned.
The door had opened again.
Sergeant Wilson stood frozen.
For a moment, Andrew thought she had spoken.
But she had not.
The memory belonged to another day.
Another confession waiting somewhere in the future.
For now, Wilson only shook her head.
“You can’t prove anything.”
Andrew’s eyes moved toward the door window.
“Not yet.”
Mitchell followed his gaze.
The young officer, Brooks, was gone.
But his phone was still recording.
Somewhere outside, Tyler stood near the dispatch area, listening to the sound through the thin walls and wondering how much of his future he was willing to risk.
Then Andrew spoke again.
“Do you know what changed?”
Mitchell said nothing.
“I stopped asking your department to investigate itself.”
He looked directly at Wilson.
“The FBI started looking eighteen months ago. The Department of Justice joined later.”
Wilson’s face lost color.
“That’s impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible when enough people decide silence is no longer acceptable.”
Mitchell began pacing.
Three steps.
Turn.
Three steps.
“What do you want?”
Andrew’s answer came immediately.
“The truth.”
“That’s all?”
“No.”
Andrew looked at the blood on the table.
“I want accountability.”
Wilson laughed bitterly.
“You think becoming chief is going to change anything?”
Andrew looked at her for a long time.
“No. One person can’t change everything.”
He leaned forward.
“But one person can refuse to participate in the lie.”
A radio crackled outside.
The voice of dispatch filled the hallway.
“Deputy Chief Walsh to Interrogation Room Three.”
Andrew closed his eyes briefly.
He had expected Walsh.
Raymond Walsh had been one of the first names Andrew encountered during the investigation. Nothing had ever directly connected him to Brandon’s death.
That was the problem.
Walsh had built his career on never being directly connected to anything.
But records had patterns.
Evidence disappeared from cases connected to certain officers.
Complaints vanished.
Witnesses changed their stories.
And money appeared in accounts belonging to a deputy chief who earned far less than his lifestyle suggested.