By Public Consent
Copyright© 2026 by Megumi Kashuahara
Chapter 6
They were all three in the back booth at Delancey’s at three thirty on Thursday.
Nora with her folder. Joshua with his laptop. Both of them carrying the specific quality of people who have spent two days finding things and are ready to lay them out for the person who knows what to do with them.
Camika slid in across from them and put her notebook on the table and looked at both of them.
“Start from the beginning,” she said. “Everything. In order.”
Joshua opened his laptop.
Nora opened her folder.
They went in order the way Camika had taught them. Facts first. Source second. Implication third.
Jamal Wilkes. Clean record. Confirmed.
The reports. Henderson’s constructed. Carter’s inconsistent in ways that mattered.
The timeline. Three minutes that changed everything.
Raymond. Twenty two years on the desk. Henderson’s four calls before the shift sergeant arrived.
Josiah Butler. Thirty one years of bearing witness. Photographs that contradicted the official autopsy completely.
The wound characteristics. Consistent with a law enforcement engagement. Not a street shooting.
Lieutenant Gerald Marsh. Henderson’s direct supervisor. On scene that night. Fifteen year friendship with Dr. Franklin Webb at the medical examiner’s office.
One phone call between old friends.
One falsified autopsy report.
One fabricated ballistics report.
One innocent kid in a holding cell.
Camika listened to all of it without interrupting. Her pen moved steadily across the page. Small neat letters filling the lines the way they always filled them when the case was becoming clear.
When they finished she looked at her notebook.
Then at Nora.
Then at Joshua.
“Walk me through the night of the shooting,” she said. “What we know actually happened. Not the official version. What the evidence tells us.”
Joshua looked at his laptop. “Henderson was on patrol. Riordan and Fifth is in his sector. Something happened on that corner that night. We don’t know exactly what yet. But Tyrone Jamison ended up dead with a wound consistent with a law enforcement weapon fired at law enforcement engagement distance.”
“Henderson fired,” Nora said quietly.
“We don’t say that yet,” Camika said.
“But the evidence—”
“The evidence is consistent with it,” Camika said. “That’s different from saying it. We don’t say things we can’t prove in a courtroom.” She paused. “What do we know happened next?”
“Henderson called Marsh,” Joshua said. “Before the shift sergeant arrived. Before anyone official was on scene except Henderson and Carter.” He paused. “Marsh told him how to handle it.”
“Find someone,” Camika said.
“Find someone,” Joshua agreed. “There were kids in the area. Teenagers who had heard the shot and come to look. Henderson needed a face to put on the incident report. He needed someone who couldn’t easily prove they weren’t involved.”
“And Jamal was standing there,” Nora said.
“Jamal was standing there,” Camika said. “Not running. Not hiding. Just standing there the way his mother raised him to stand. And Henderson looked at him and made a decision.” She paused. “Then he called Marsh. Marsh called Webb. And by two seventeen in the morning the official record said something completely different from what actually happened on that corner.”
The diner was very quiet around them.
The kitchen radio playing something low. Dishes. The ordinary afternoon life of a place that had no idea what was being built in the back booth.
“We have Josiah Butler’s photographs,” Camika said. “We have Raymond’s testimony about the calls. We have Carter’s inconsistent report. We have the timeline discrepancy. We have the missing ballistic evidence.” She looked at her notebook. “What we don’t have is direct evidence of who fired the weapon.”
“The weapon itself,” Joshua said. “If we could find the weapon—”
“It’s a service weapon,” Camika said. “Henderson’s. It’s been logged and cleaned and put back in rotation or taken out of service. Either way it’s been handled by people who know how to handle evidence.” She paused. “We’re not going to find the weapon.”
“Then how do we prove who fired it?” Nora said.
Camika looked at her notebook.
At Tyrone Jamison’s name at the top of the page.
At Lieutenant Gerald Marsh’s name at the bottom with the circle around it.
At everything in between.
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.