She starts out by explaining who she is and why she is in this part of the state, saying, “The biggest reason is that my boss, the governor, is a politician who shares your pain.”
She waits a beat and then says, “But one thing that needs to be made clear, right here and right now, is that there is a new sheriff in town.”
Her eyes seem to take in all corners of the place.
“That sheriff is me,” she says. “And my first official act is going to be hearing fromyou.”
One of the waitresses from Scobee’s, a short, wide, white-haired Black woman named Ruby Mitchell, stands up in the middle of the room, not even waiting for the handheld microphone one of Mayor Larson’s deputies is prepared to pass around.
“Why should we believe things are going to change around here just because some woman from out of town says they will?” she shouts.
I feel myself smiling.
Welcome to Cross Rivers, Helene.
I see Helene is smiling, too.
“What’s your name?”
“Ruby.”
“Well, Ruby,” Helene says. “I can tell you that my first order of business will be making sure not to mess with you.”
Gets her a laugh.
“I already get the sense that you and I are a lot alike, Ruby,”Helene continues. “That neither one of us takes any shit, pardon my French. Or suffers fools gladly. So I’m going to try not to make promises that I can’t keep, about drugs or missing girls or any of the things that brought us here tonight. But just know that I’m not going to rest until I find those girls—or at least find out what happened to them. And what I can promise is that the drug dealers who feel as if they’ve had a free run at their customers for far too long? Well, I’m going to go right at them. I’m going to stop them in their cars and on the street. If they don’t like it, they can call their congressman. Except my backup is the governor, who I can assure everybody is somebody who doesn’t take any shit either.”
She tells the audience then about a version of WhatsApp that will be up and running in the morning, a system where people can anonymously send in tips or post photographs or videos without any fear of their address being tracked. It will be called SpyOn.
“That app has worked wherever I’ve been,” she says. “And it will work here. And make us feel as if we really all are in this together.”
She waits another long beat and then says, “Now, before we do throw open the floor to all of Miss Ruby’s friends, there’s one other thing I want everybody in this room to know: the Southern Mafia needs to be a lot more afraid of Chief Webb and me going forward than anybody here is afraid ofthem.”
When the applause over that line dies down, she adds this: “Damn. Straight.”
The rest of the night is the collective voice of Cross Rivers, loud and scared and defiant and just plain fed up.
One farmer I know, Huck Gushen, takes the mic and says, “This is all well and good. But I’m still afraid to speak my mind on account of Briar Crockett might be listening, even with Hader gone.”
“You just need to know, sir, that we’re the ones listening,” Helene says. “And trust me, we hear you.”
“But can you protect us and our families?” a woman in the backsays. “I’m the mother oftwoteenaged girls, and I’m scared to death these days every time they leave the house.”
“Gonna try our best,” Helene says.
“I know enough about this world to know there’s no medals for trying,” the woman answers her back.
“All I can tell you,” Helene says, “is that the methodology we’re going to put into play here really has worked everywhere else I’ve ever been. That app I told you about. More stops. More undercover cops. More CCTV cameras, because the governor has made sure to foot the bill for those.”
She smiles again.
“I know you’re just meeting me for the first time, but I’m asking you to trust me,” she says. “I’ve told you everything you need to know about how and why things are going to get better.” She shrugs, then grins. “Just not everything I know.”
A red-faced man in the first row stands up and is another who doesn’t wait for the microphone.
“All I’m hearing is talk, talk, talk,” he yells.
“Until my actions turn out to be even louder than you are, sir,” she says.
