Andre sat across from him.
“It’s worse than the summary.”
Malcolm leaned back.
Andre explained that Ethan received a vague dispatch description: adult male, dark outerwear, carrying a bag near the staff parking area. There was no race given by the caller because the caller had only seen the person briefly from a distance. The specific suspicious behavior was trying vehicle handles.
Malcolm looked at him.
“I never entered the lot.”
“I know.”
“The officers knew that?”
“They knew you were near the employee entrance.”
Andre rubbed his forehead.
“They made location do the rest.”
Malcolm looked down at his wrists.
Andre noticed.
“I’m sorry.”
“You said that already.”
“As chief.”
Malcolm waited.
Andre swallowed.
“As your brother, I wanted to put that kid through the wall.”
Malcolm laughed once.
“That would have been inconvenient administratively.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
Andre shook his head.
Malcolm became quieter.
“Do you remember Dad?”
Andre stared.
“Unfortunately.”
Their father, Samuel Hayes, had worked thirty-four years at a steel plant on Cleveland’s east side. He raised Malcolm and Andre after their mother died when they were teenagers and remained suspicious of prestigious titles until the day he died. Samuel believed occupations were useful, uniforms were necessary, and anybody who allowed either to convince him he was better than someone else had become foolish.
“He’d be furious,” Andre said.
“At which one of us?”
“Both somehow.”
Malcolm smiled.
Then he leaned forward.
“Andre, those officers did not know I was your brother.”
“I know.”
“They did not even really believe I was a doctor.”
Andre nodded.
“That is the part that bothers me most.”
Malcolm looked toward him.
“No.”
“What?”
“The part that should bother you most is that none of it should have mattered.”
Andre frowned.
Malcolm continued.
“What if I was a custodian leaving night shift?”
“A delivery driver?”
“Somebody’s father who slept in the waiting room?”
“A homeless man standing near the heat coming through those doors?”
He paused.
“Would you be less angry?”
Andre said nothing.
Malcolm’s voice softened.
“I don’t want a department review built around the fact that somebody handcuffed the chief’s brother.”
“Then what do you want?”
“A review of why they kept going after the facts stopped supporting them.”
Andre nodded slowly.
Malcolm continued.
“And ask what happens when the person in cuffs does not have a nurse yelling his name, a hospital security director, forty witnesses, and a brother running the police department.”
Andre looked away.