38
Too numb and shaken to drive, I dialed Detective Hardin’s cell phone.
“Not now, Ballou,” he said sharply. “s**t just hit the fan downtown.”
“I was there, Hardin. That’s why I’m calling.”
“Where are you?”
“In a parking lot. Monroe and Fifteenth Avenue.”
“Stay put. I’ll send a uni to pick you up.”
As I waited, I texted Becca and my brother to let them know I was okay.
Thirty minutes later, I was sitting in an interview room in the Phoenix PD Homicide Unit with Hardin after a patrol officer picked me up. He pulled out his notebook and asked me what I saw.
“When I was at the protest, I ran into an old friend. Peyton Dietz.”
“Why’s that name sound familiar?” Hardin asked.
“His father’s Barclay Dietz.”
He paused a moment, then nodded. “Barclay the Beast. He’s the one who assaulted
