Deputy Parker writes steadily.
When you finish, she asks, “Any firearms in the home?”
Daniel starts to answer. She lifts a hand without looking at him. “I asked her.”
You tell her there is one hunting rifle locked in the garage cabinet and an old handgun in Daniel’s nightstand, though he swore after Emily was born that he’d move it. Deputy Parker’s expression tightens at that. She makes another note, then looks at Daniel.
“Step away from the kitchen table and keep your hands where I can see them.”
“This is insane,” he says.
“No,” she says. “This is routine.”
Sometimes justice does not arrive with a speech.
Sometimes it arrives in a woman with sensible boots using a flat tone on a man who has always mistaken volume for authority. Daniel steps back. Michael crosses his arms and says nothing. Deputy Parker asks Daniel for the location of both weapons, then has him sit in the living room while she confirms them herself.
