“I’m saying that’s not how it went down, sir.” I stood up a little taller. “I was the one who tried to protect the crew and not override your commands. DeStasio insisted he’d seen a boy’s face inside at the window, but I didn’t see anything. I tried to talk him into waiting for backup and a hose. I tried to radio you for orders. When it became clear that DeStasio was going in with or without me, and taking the rookie in with him, I made the call to go in as well, for crew integrity. I’m the one who tied the guide line. I’m the one who recognized the rookie’s cyanide poisoning. I dragged the rookie to safety, by myself, after the roof collapse. DeStasio did nothing today but lie, disobey orders, and put us all in danger.”
The captain looked concerned. “That’s exactly what his report says about you.”
“Fuck the report!”
The crowd gasped.Language!
Apparently, they were listening.
That’s when I got it. They knew about the report. They’d known when I walked in. The captain must have told Big Robby, and then things must have spread, like they do.
That’s what the silence was about. They thought Owen was in here because of me.
The captain already knew all that. He went on. “You expect me tobelieve you dragged the rookie out of a collapsed building by yourself? He must weigh two hundred pounds, and you’re one-thirty dripping wet.”
“You think DeStasio did it? A sad old man with a broken collarbone?”
“He claims his injury occurred after he got the rookie to safety.”
“How, exactly?” I demanded. “By slipping on a banana peel in the parking lot?”
The captain gave me a look.
I went on, determined. “DeStasio and the rookie were injured at the same time—when the roof caved in. I found DeStasio under an overturned checkout aisle shelf, and I found the rookie—by feel—under ceiling debris. Sir.”
But the more I talked, the worse I made things.
The captain was a reasonable guy, but I was calling his friend a liar, and the more I did it, the more he wanted to defend him.
“I’ve known DeStasio for almost forty years, Hanwell. We met at the academy, and I’ve seen him just about every day since. I was with him when he lost his son. I was the first person he called after his wife walked out. I have never known him to lie. About anything.”
The captain stared me down, but I stared back just as hard.
“There’ll be an investigation, of course,” the captain went on. “No matter”—he glanced in the direction of the ICU—“how this turns out. But I’ve got to warn you, Hanwell. Until we know the true story of what happened, I have to suspend you from duty. If DeStasio’s report checks out, we’re talking gross insubordination. And if the rookie…” He hesitated. “If the rookie doesn’t pull through, we might be talking manslaughter as well. You’ll have more to worry about than your career. Either way, you’re probably going to need a lawyer.”
A lawyer?How could this be happening? How did DeStasio’s lies become the truth? Wasn’t the truth supposed to set us free? A lifetime of movies where the good guys won in the end had not prepared me for this. How, exactly, did the liar get to be the authority?
Lots of reasons, of course. DeStasio was from here, and had lived his whole life here, and raised his own boy here. He’d been here forever, and he was fully involved in this world with all his boyhood friends andcousins. I was an outsider and a newcomer and an uppity girl. Any one of those reasons would have been enough to give his version of the story the edge.
But maybe more important than any of that: He got there first.
“It won’t check out,” I said. “Every detail in that report is false.”
“For your sake,” the captain said, looking tired to the bones, “I hope so.”
I took a few breaths. I felt woozy. “I will fill out my own report tonight—a correct one—and file it with you in the morning.”
“That’ll be fine, Hanwell.”
And now, at last, for the question that had brought me here. “Can I see the rookie?”
The captain shook his head. “Family only.”
I shook my head. “I need to see him.” And before I knew it, I was walking away from the captain, walking straight down the hall, back toward the crowd.
“They haven’t even let me in, Hanwell,” the captain said, following me.
“But I’m the one who saved him,” I said.
