Pretzel Logic

  But considering Ethan had her cell, people knew to call her house phone as a backup if they couldn’t get hold of her on the cell.

  When Ethan returned, she asked him about it. “Did you turn off my house phone?”

  “Yeah. I’ll check the voice mails periodically.” He sat on the couch so she could place her head in his lap. “You aren’t to answer a phone tonight. Period. You let me and Ed and Ross deal with all of that. You don’t need to be talking to the media.”

  “Where’s my cell?”

  “I have your cell.”

  His tone of voice was more than protective. He sounded commanding.

  Sir’s in the house.

  Even if she’d wanted to argue with him, she didn’t have the energy or desire. “Thank you.”

  “That’s my job, taking care of you.”

  “He’s a keeper,” Peggy called out from the kitchen.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he said.

  “Just sayin’,” she called back.

  * * * *

  Dave beat Ed and Ross, with Loren in tow, by ten minutes. Ethan had fielded several more calls on Brita’s cell from her friends—mostly law enforcement friends—and was trying to get people to hold off stopping by for at least two hours. He wanted Ed and Ross to get the statement put together as quickly as possible so he could change the voice mails on her home and cell to refer all media contacts to the attorney.

  Ed had his laptop balanced on his knees. He sat on one side of Brita while Ross sat on the other. Loren had jumped in to help Peggy in the kitchen, and had brought more food with her, as well as bottles of soda, ice, and paper plates and cups.

  The less Ethan had to think about, the better.

  He wanted his full focus to be on Brita right now.

  Ed had pulled up the same statement he’d used for June’s case and referred to it as he typed up one for Brita. As Brita went through what happened, he made more notes, amended some things with input from Ross, and then read through it aloud.

  “Today, while a chaperone to a large third-grade outing of nearly seventy children, retired Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office detective Brita Delgado was confronted by an armed assailant. Faced with an immediate decision to protect the lives of the children, she drew her legally concealed firearm and gave multiple orders for the subject to stop and drop what to all witnesses appeared to be a very large and very real knife. He refused to comply with her multiple orders to stop, or heed her warnings that she had a gun and would shoot. Proof of this was all caught on film by both the deceased and his film crew.

  “In fear for her own life and safety, as well as the lives and safety of the children and other adult chaperones, Detective Delgado was forced to fire after the deceased refused to comply with her multiple orders. Detective Delgado has a valid Florida concealed weapons permit, and is a licensed firearms instructor, as well as a licensed federal firearms dealer.

  “While Detective Delgado regrets the unfortunate outcome of this incident, and expresses her condolences to the friends and family of the deceased, she had a legal and moral obligation, both from her military and law enforcement training, as well as the state’s ‘stand your ground’ law, to take all necessary actions to protect the children in her care. Mr. Stankliskwi and his film crew knowingly, willfully, and recklessly endangered the lives of innocent children, when nearly half of them were scared out into a roadway, into oncoming traffic…”

  Once Ed finished reading it, he shook his head. “Dammit, I really miss Kaden in times like these. He was great handling media issues. Had them eating out of his palm. I hate dealing with them. Bunch of piranhas.”

  “Why do you keep referring to me as ‘detective’?” she asked.

  “Because that was your rank when you retired.”

  “PR,” Ross said. “To help quiet anyone who wants to claim you weren’t qualified to carry. A reminder to them that yes, you were both trained and qualified.”

  “Sounds like you’re blaming the victim,” she said.

  Ethan reached over and touched her knee. “We absolutely are blaming the victim,” he said. “Because he’s not a victim. He set himself up for this.”

  “I watched the videos myself,” Dave said. “The only reason I’m saying this to you all is because it’s you. As they were prepping before he ran at you, they were gloating about how funny the stunt was going to be, how many hits it was going to get them on their website, if it would go viral in twelve or twenty-four hours, and wondering if any of the kids would get so scared they’d wet themselves or not. They were actually discussing how to zoom in to see if kids pissed themselves. I’m not kidding. They were gloating. It was disgusting.”

  “This also helps set us up for the class-action lawsuit we’re going to file against the production company both on your behalf, and on the behalf of the kids and adults who were there,” Ed said.

  When Brita started to protest, Ethan overruled her. “Hear him out, baby.”

  “Idiots like him will keep pulling this extreme shit until someone else gets seriously hurt or dies. They need to understand there are consequences to their actions and tone it back. There might not be any money to be had, but it’s going to send a strong message to rein it in and tone it down.”

  “I don’t want any money from them.”

  “Then you can donate it to Jordan’s school,” Ethan said. “Or we can put it in a college fund for her. It doesn’t matter what happens to the money, but Ed’s right. They need to pay for this to send a message. What if any of the kids had been hit or killed by a car? They’d be entitled to full medical expenses, and the parents would be entitled to sue for pain and suffering for their loss if someone had died.”

  “Someone innocent did die,” Ross said, his tone dark. “We already reached out to the family of the driver. I know Coral’s husband from Rotary. Told him we were your attorneys and issuing a statement tonight. He’s already retained Ed. He and his kids are on board with a lawsuit. They’re angry and want to take every cent they can from these people. A family representative will be at the press conference tonight, standing with us. We’ll be drafting their statement next.”

  Ed removed his glasses and rubbed at his eyes. “Then we get to talk to the media.”

  “I’ll get you a list of the people who’ve already called her,” Ethan said.

  Ed handed him a couple of business cards. “Tell anyone else who calls to contact me there. E-mails, calls, et cetera. We’ll set up a presser to issue a statement at my office for tonight at nine. That’ll give the Tampa and Ft. Myers stations time to get crews there to film their packages for the eleven o’clock news. We’ll coordinate with whoever’s working the case about an actual press conference tomorrow.”

  “Tom Brown and Gary Reese caught the case,” Dave told them. “They’re the detectives working on it.”

  “I know them,” Ed said. “I’ll give them a call.”

  Ethan studied Brita’s expression. She looked aged, exhausted.

  Fragile.

  “Thanks for doing this, guys,” Ethan told them.

  “All part of the job. It’s just billable hours,” he joked. “But in all seriousness, don’t talk about the case yet to anyone you don’t trust. Even then, keep it limited. Remember that you could be secretly filmed by anyone. I’m not talking friends like Dave, or Bill and Gabe, people you know will stay silent, especially law enforcement.”

  She nodded, but Ethan wasn’t even sure how much she was processing right now.

  At least oversharing wasn’t a problem Brita ever had. If anything, trying to get information out of her was damn near impossible sometimes.

  Ross and Ed gave her hugs before they headed out, leaving Loren behind to help out.

  When Brita turned the TV on, to one of the local stations about to show the five o’clock news, Ethan took the remote from her and changed it to a cooking channel. “Sorry, baby. No news for you tonight.”

  Loren stayed out in the living room with he
r, to keep her company as well as to make sure she ate dinner, while Ethan followed Peggy back to the kitchen so he could retrieve the voice mails from the house phone and call the reporters from his work cell.

  At least he could fudge that. Refer them to Ed without divulging who, exactly, he was in relation to Brita. That was more for her privacy than his, because he didn’t give a shit who knew. Brita, however, would obsess over it, worried about outing him.

  When he went to check her cell phone, to see if any media had somehow gotten that number, he realized she had a flurry of alerts from her Facebook and Messenger apps.

  Frowning, he thumbed Facebook open first.

  She didn’t do a lot of posting on Facebook, mostly used it to keep track of Alisse’s postings about Jordan, or to converse with her parents, or with some of their friends.

  There were a flurry of comments on her last post from four days ago, a picture of the sunset she’d taken when they’d gone out to dinner Monday night on Longboat Key.

  Burn, you fucking bitch.

  Murderer.

  Fucking murdering cunt.

  Can’t you take a goddamned joke?

  You shot him in cold blood.

  Watch your back.

  We’re going to make you pay for killing him.

  Die, pig, die.

  Cold fury washed through him. His hands trembled and he was about to delete the comments when training took over.

  Evidence.

  He took screenshots before he went into her settings and locked down everything tighter than it already was in terms of privacy, and retroactively set all her posts to friends only.

  And she suddenly had thirty people requesting to be friends with her.

  He didn’t do anything with that list, knowing it was possible some of them could be some of the posters of the comments.

  He was almost afraid to look at Messenger, but he found more of the same there, all of them “message requests” from people she wasn’t even friends with.

  That was before he’d changed her settings so only friends of friends could contact her, but no telling how much information they’d gleaned from looking at comments Alisse or John or others had made on some of her pictures and posts.

  Knowing he’d probably regret this, too, he opened her Gmail app.

  Sure enough, there were already two nasty messages in there, as well.

  Dammit.

  He knew someone like PwnerInChief, his primary demographic was likely composed of predominantly young guys who had no problem being vicious, harassing trolls online, people lacking in empathy, keyboard warriors.

  People who would blame Brita, instead of blaming the man who’d truly been responsible for his own death.

  Guys who probably didn’t even have kids of their own to see the situation from her point of view.

  I have to get her a new phone number.

  That would likely be a battle, and one he’d put his foot down over. He wouldn’t let her be harassed.

  It’s going to be a long damn night.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ethan had Saturday and Sunday off already, and Gabe had volunteered to take two personal days on Monday and Tuesday, to stay with Brita. Ethan had already called Jim at the gun shop to let him know Brita wouldn’t be in for at least a week.

  She was in no shape to face the public.

  The Saturday morning press conference was crazy, with press coming in from all over, including digital-only media outlets. Ethan and Ed had discussed letting Brita go to it, then decided not to when Ethan showed Ed the threats she was already receiving.

  Media requests to interview her were flooding Ed’s cell and e-mail, so it likely would need to happen eventually.

  Ethan watched the presser live with Gabe, who’d come by to stay with them for the day, while Brita slept through it in the bedroom thanks to a full dose of her anti-anxiety meds.

  Tom and Gary had prepped several video clips, leading up to but stopping just short of the actual shooting. Every one of them clearly showed Brita ordering him to stop, warning him she had a gun. In the one taken from the victim’s body cam, they’d included extra footage, of him giggling and laughing just before he ran out, bragging about how “awesome” this prank would be and how it would make him even more famous than he already was.

  His last words before taking off toward Brita and the kids. “I can’t see shit with this cloth hood, man. I should have made the eye holes bigger.” He was also wearing a lycra hood under it to make him look even scarier and help disguise his race to make it harder to identify him.

  “We’ll do that before the next stop,” one of the crewmen said.

  He’d been loudly making noises as he ran, so between his reduced visibility, and his reduced hearing from the hoods, and his own yelling, it wasn’t until he was almost on top of Brita that he started yelling, “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait!” but it wouldn’t have been audible over her screaming at him.

  Then the knife came up, visible in his own camera shot.

  That’s where they cut his video feed off.

  The other angles had shown where it looked like maybe he’d tripped, but the result was a flying lunge that would undeniably appear to be him attacking Brita from her point of view.

  Tom took over. “After conferring with the state attorney’s office, who has reviewed all of the video evidence and witness statements, they are declining to press charges against Ms. Delgado and have classified it as a stand-your-ground case. Clearly, Ms. Delgado was acting in good faith and reasonably believed Mr. Stankliskwi was engaging in a forcible felony, as defined by law, that would have resulted in serious bodily injury or death.

  “However, more charges, including felonies, are pending against Alfred Kensington, Mark Schueffly, and Gerald Smith, for their parts both in the attack, as well as their actions leading up to Mr. Stankliskwi’s death, and the death of Mrs. Coral Iverson.”

  Then they’d let Ed read essentially the same statement he’d issued the night before, with a few additions. “My firm is currently coordinating with representatives from the school, as well as the families of the children, and Mrs. Iverson’s family. Any media requests can be directed to me and my firm.” He read off his contact information.

  Then he stepped back and Gary took over for the questions. He called on the Sarasota TV station first.

  “How did Detective Delgado come to be at Mote Marine with the children?”

  “Retired Detective Delgado was an approved civilian chaperone and was there with her niece in that capacity.”

  “Can you give us her niece’s name?”

  “Because she is a minor, not at this time. The family wishes to maintain their privacy and has requested it not be released.”

  It would only be a matter of time before Jordan’s name leaked, either through one of the kids talking about it, or one of the parents, or someone at the school, or maybe even a good old-fashioned FOIA request.

  Because Jordan wasn’t a victim of a sexual assault, and there were so many kids involved as witnesses, getting the trial records sealed might be tricky even though they were minors.

  “This is a real shit sandwich,” Gabe muttered. “How bad are the trolls getting?”

  “There were ten more e-mails this morning and several more friend and new message requests on Facebook.” He’d already told Gary and Tom about those. Because it was related to the original investigation, they would also be looking into them, but not until they had the immediate investigation completed and referred to the state attorney’s office.

  “Should probably have all her mail forwarded to a PO box,” Gabe suggested. “And get her a new e-mail account. Maybe download that Facebook account info, close it, and open her a new one.”

  “Right now, I’m going to put everything on hold and get her through the next few days.”

  “Did you get that list of shrinks I sent you?”

  “Yeah. Getting her to talk to one will be the problem.”

  “I don’t
envy you guys. Knock on wood, I’ve never had to use deadly force. Yet. I know telling her she didn’t do anything wrong isn’t going to help, because feelings.”

  “Exactly.”

  Friends dropped by throughout the day, but Brita was either asleep, or too sleepy, to do more than accept hugs and nod at them. Ethan took the step of calling her GP’s emergency number, and he sent in a prescription for a mild sedative for her, which Ethan ran to get while Gabe stayed with her.

  Ethan wished there were more he could do, but he knew the only way through the storm was to ride it out.

  * * * *

  Brita knew she was shutting down, and it wasn’t healthy, but she didn’t care. Between her emotional state, and the physical pain triggered by the encounter, Ethan kept her posted on what she needed to know, didn’t let her do anything for herself, and kept her away from social media as well as her phone.

  Alisse called to talk to her on Ethan’s cell phone. Jordan hadn’t had any nightmares overnight from the incident, fortunately.

  By Monday morning, Brita knew she needed to suck it up and deal, but was glad Ethan had taken the initiative to cancel her classes at the gun shop that week. She had the list of names Gabe had given him, but she hadn’t yet picked anyone to call and talk to.

  She didn’t want to talk.

  There’d likely be plenty of talking when the case went to trial.

  She also avoided the news and any channels on TV that might show news about the case.

  By the next Friday, Brita had stopped taking the sedative and had convinced Ethan she needed to spend the day alone, but made the mistake of listening to the voice mails on her home phone.

  From the look of the caller ID, the guy had spoofed his number and disguised his voice with a synthesizer app.

  “Gonna get you, bitch. You took out the Chief. Gonna roast us a pig.”