Bluebird, Bluebird (Highway 59, #1)

by Attica Locke

just putting Mack’s name on an incident report, victim or not, was opening a door through which Mack might never return. Criminality, once it touched black life, was a stain hard to remove. But Darren was a cop, so he did his job. He’d followed the rules, and it had landed them all here—a grand jury deciding whether to charge the old man with murder.

Darren had seen the look on the cook’s face on other black men before: a weary impatience to get it over with—the frisking, the talking-to, the interrogation, the inevitable moment in the spotlight. What you always knew was coming.

Darren wished she’d put a ma’am on it or a thank you, wished she understood you’d do well down here to meet white folks with a hefty benefit of the doubt. You’d know their real colors soon enough, so it didn’t hurt to be civil up top, insurance against pissing off the ones who were on your side.