"Wait," Beatatrice said quietly.
The entire room went still once more. Beatatrice stepped away from Lydia and walked slowly toward Higgins until he was standing mere inches from the disgraced officer.
Higgins flinched, instinctively bracing his arms as if expecting a physical blow.
"I am not going to strike you, Brad," Beatatrice said, his voice dropping to a whisper that only Higgins and O'Malley could hear. "That is the fundamental difference between you and me. I do not use power to inflict harm on the defenseless."
Beatatrice leaned in closer, his dark eyes locking onto Higgins's terrified gaze.
"But I want you to memorize this feeling. I want you to remember it every single time you submit a job application that gets thrown in the trash. I want you to remember it when you are sitting at a defense table in a court of law trying to explain to a jury why you brutalized an innocent man. You looked at me and thought I was a nobody. You thought I was trash you could step on without consequence."
Beatatrice leaned back, his posture straight and unyielding. "It turns out the man you tried to crush is the man who will ensure you never carry a weapon or a badge for the rest of your natural life."
Beatatrice turned back to Chief O'Malley. "Chief, I want the body camera footage from Unit Four Alpha secured immediately. I want the dash camera storage drives pulled and locked in evidence locker one. And I want a forensic medical team to document every mark on my body right now."
"Consider it done, Mr. Mayor," O'Malley replied instantly.
"And Chief?" Beatatrice added, looking back at the cowering officer. "I am pressing full criminal charges. Assault, battery under color of authority, false imprisonment, and official misconduct. I am not doing this as the Mayor of Oak Creek. I am doing this as a citizen of this country. Take him into custody."
Higgins let out a choked sob. "Please... no... I have a family... I have a mortgage..."
"You should have considered the sanctity of human life before you chose to act like a tyrant instead of a public servant," Beatatrice said coldly.
"Escort him to a holding cell," O'Malley ordered two nearby officers.
The two officers—men who had shared a table with Higgins in the breakroom just two days prior—stepped forward and grabbed Higgins roughly by his elbows. They offered no sympathy, pulling him backward through the double doors as his desperate pleas echoed down the hall until the steel door clicked shut.
The booking room returned to total silence.
"Beatatrice, we need to get you to an emergency room," Lydia whispered, her voice trembling with emotion as she held his arm. "Your ribs..."
"I'm alright, Lydia," Beatatrice said gently, though every breath felt like a needle pressed into his side. He turned his attention back to Sergeant Miller. "Sergeant."
"Yes, sir," Miller snapped to attention.
"I inspected the playground on Fourth and Elm this morning. The swings are severely corroded. The structural chains are unsafe for children. Officer Higgins claimed I was committing vandalism, but the hazard to the public is genuine. Put in an emergency work order to have the department of public works replace that equipment by tomorrow morning."
"Yes, Mr. Mayor. It will be taken care of immediately."
Beatatrice took a slow, painful breath, nodding once. "Thank you. Now, let us go to the hospital."
As Beatatrice leaned on Lydia and walked out through the front entrance of the station, he saw bright camera lights flashing through the glass doors. A local news van was idling at the curb, its broadcast mast extended into the sky. Mrs. Gable hadn't just contacted Lydia; she had sent her tablet video directly to the news desk of every major station in the county.
Officer Brad Higgins’s career was over, but his nightmare was only just beginning.
By Monday morning, Brad Higgins was no longer just a suspended police officer under investigation; he was the most reviled figure in the country.
Mrs. Gable’s video had gone viral within hours of being uploaded. The footage was slightly shaky, recorded from her elevated porch, but the high-definition audio picked up every single detail of the interaction. The clear, undeniable thud of Higgins’s fist connecting with Beatatrice’s stomach had been broadcast on a continuous loop across national news channels, accompanied by commentary from legal analysts, civil rights leaders, and law enforcement experts.
Higgins sat in the dark living room of his small suburban home, the blinds pulled completely shut to block out the swarm of photojournalists parked on his front lawn. The room was illuminated only by the flicker of his television screen and the glowing display of his smartphone, which had been buzzing continuously for twenty-four hours with death threats, media inquiries, and angry messages from former colleagues.
He stared at the television screen, where a legal commentator was dissecting his personnel file.
"...a textbook example of institutional failure. Higgins was allowed to resign from his previous department following an unrecorded excessive force complaint, only to be hired six months later by Oak Creek. If he felt comfortable punching the elected mayor of a city in broad daylight, one has to ask how many ordinary citizens suffered under his hands without a camera running..."
Higgins screamed in rage, lifting the television remote and throwing it violently at the wall. The plastic casing shattered into pieces, dropping to the carpet.
"They don't know the whole story!" he yelled at the empty room, his eyes bloodshot and unhinged. "He baited me! He was wearing a hoodie! He was acting suspicious!"
A heavy, measured knock sounded at his front door, making him jump. He grabbed a wooden baseball bat leaning against the couch, his heart pounding in his chest.
"Go away!" he screamed toward the door. "I have a weapon! Get off my property!"
"Brad, open the door. It's Frank Rizzo."
Higgins lowered the bat. Frank Rizzo was the chief field representative for the regional Police Benevolent Association—the union. He was known throughout the legal community as an aggressive, unyielding fixer. If an officer was caught fabricating an arrest report or failing a drug test, Rizzo was the man who found the technicality that saved their pension.
Higgins unlocked the deadbolt and pulled the door open a few inches. Rizzo slipped inside smoothly, carrying a leather briefcase, his tailored suit sharply contrasting with the mess of Higgins’s living room.
"You look like trash, kid," Rizzo said, stepping over discarded food packaging and sitting down on the sofa.
"They're going to indict me, Frank," Higgins said, his voice cracking with desperation as he locked the door behind him. "O'Malley stripped my badge. The prosecutor’s office is convening a grand jury on Tuesday. The Mayor said he’s pushing for maximum sentencing!"
Rizzo opened his briefcase, taking out a thick stack of legal documents. "Calm down and sit down. Do you think this is the first time a politician has tried to destroy a cop to score points with his base? It's all theater, Brad."