already moving toward the back hallway. “Away from all this. We can get you looked at properly.””I’m fine where people can see me,” Monroe said. “Agent Vance told me to stay in view of the cameras.””The cameras are down.””Then I’ll stay in view of the room.”Because Monroe didn’t move, Kittredge didn’t push it. Not with Priya Anand already kneeling beside him, two fingers light against his cheekbone, her voice dropping into the flat, careful register of someone documenting rather than comforting.”Swelling here. Laceration about a centimeter, consistent with a closed-fist strike,” she said, mostly to herself, then louder to the room: “Somebody should be writing this down.””I’m writing it down,” Ruth said, and did.Doyle leaned in before Priya could finish. “You’ll want to say he came at me first. That’s closer to what actually happened.”Priya didn’t look up from Monroe’s cheek. “I’ll say what I saw, not what’s closer to anything.””Then say it slower,” Doyle said, “so it comes out right.”She finished her count of the laceration and stood. And for the first time since the punch, she looked directly at Doyle instead of past him. “I’ve written a hundred of these. Yours won’t be the one I get wrong.”That should have ended it. It didn’t.Kittredge turned back to Ruth instead, changing targets the way a man does when the first argument isn’t working. “This flag on his appointment… when did it go up?””Tuesday,” Ruth said.”Tuesday?” Kittredge repeated it like the word might come out different the second time. “And you didn’t think that was worth mentioning to me?””Why would I mention a records hold to a sergeant?” Ruth said. “It’s not unusual. We get them for subpoenaed material.” She paused, and something in her face changed—the pause of someone connecting two facts she hadn’t put next to each other until just now. “Actually, it is unusual. We’ve had exactly one other flagged appointment this year. Same category, same source.””What source?” Monroe asked.
“The Department of Justice,” Ruth said.
Her voice was entirely devoid of the tremble it had held ten minutes ago.
She looked past Monroe, aiming the words directly at Kittredge’s chest.
“Public Integrity Section, to be exact.”
Kittredge’s hand stopped shaking.
It went perfectly, unnaturally still.
“And the other appointment?” Monroe asked, his eyes never leaving the sergeant.
“David Corley,” Ruth said.
The name hung in the stagnant air of the lobby like a thrown stone that refused to land.
Doyle shifted his weight, the bravado slipping slightly from his shoulders, replaced by a sudden, jagged confusion.
Corley had been the lead evidence technician for Cedar Falls.
He had also been dead for six months.
A single-vehicle accident on a dry county road, the official accident report had claimed.
“Corley came to see me two days before his car went into the ravine,” Ruth continued.
She didn’t look at her monitor anymore; she was reciting from a memory that had kept her awake for half a year.
“He requested the chain-of-custody logs for the April narcotics bust.”
“The same logs I’m here for,” Monroe stated.
It wasn’t a question.
Ruth nodded once.
“His appointment triggered the exact same amber flag.”
Kittredge took a half-step forward.
“Shut your mouth, Ruth.”
The sergeant’s voice wasn’t loud, but it carried the weight of a loaded chamber.
“You are speaking of an ongoing local investigation and violating departmental confidentiality.”
“I’m speaking to the man holding the federal flag on my system,” she replied.
Monroe pushed himself up from the floor, ignoring the sharp wince of pain that flashed across his bruised cheek.
He stood to his full height, smoothing the lapel of his gray suit.
“The local investigation closed three days ago, Sergeant.”
Monroe finally pointed to the leather folio sitting untouched on the counter.
“If you had opened that, you would have seen the federal injunction.”
“You would have also seen my credentials.”
“I am not a lawyer, Sergeant Kittredge.”
“I am an auditor with the DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General.”
The lobby was so quiet the hum of the fluorescent lights sounded like a siren.
Hollis Grant folded his tow receipt one more time and slid it into his pocket, officially withdrawing from whatever crossfire was about to happen.
Priya Anand stepped back, putting distance between herself and the officers.
Doyle looked at his own knuckles, the reality of assaulting a federal agent slowly draining the color from his face.
“You hit a federal auditor,” Kittredge said to Doyle.
He sounded like a man desperately trying to build a lifeboat out of someone else’s mistake.
“That’s a federal offense, Officer Doyle.”
Doyle’s head snapped up.
“You told me to handle him, Ray!”
“I told you to manage a disruptive civilian,” Kittredge shot back, stepping away from the younger officer.
“I didn’t tell you to throw a blind punch.”
But Kittredge wasn’t looking at Doyle anymore.
His eyes were fixed on the reinforced steel door at the end of the back corridor.
The property room.
The lockdown hadn’t just sealed the lobby; it had sealed the evidence.