"He's been with the precinct for eight years."
"Complaints?"
"Seven formal complaints."
Isaiah looked up.
"Seven?"
"Most were dismissed."
"Why?"
"Insufficient evidence."
Isaiah stared at her.
"And the informal complaints?"
Brooks hesitated.
"There are more."
"How many?"
"I don't know."
Isaiah leaned back.
"Then find out."
Brooks nodded.
She turned toward the door.
"Commander?"
"Yes?"
"I'm sorry."
Isaiah looked at her.
"For what?"
"For what happened this morning."
He studied her.
"You didn't do it."
"No."
"But I knew people had complained about Sullivan."
Isaiah said nothing.
Brooks continued.
"I should have done more."
Isaiah nodded slowly.
"That's something we'll discuss later."
She left.
Isaiah looked through the window.
Rain was still falling.
He thought about the elderly woman in the lobby.
The mother with the toddler.
The delivery driver.
They had all seen him get slapped.
But he wondered how many other people had been treated badly when nobody important was watching.
That was what he wanted to know.
At 10:30, Isaiah returned to the lobby.
The atmosphere had changed.
Officers were quieter.
Civilians were watching him.
The elderly woman who had been waiting earlier stood near the complaint desk.
Isaiah approached her.
"Ma'am."
She looked nervous.
"Yes?"
"My name is Isaiah Carter."
She stared at him.
"I know."
He smiled slightly.
"I'd like to hear what happened when you came in."
She glanced toward the officers.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
She took a breath.
"I came because my grandson was arrested last week."
"Why?"
"He was with two friends. They were stopped. The other two were released. My grandson was kept overnight."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"Did anyone explain?"
She shook her head.
"They told me to come back later."
Isaiah nodded.
"Did you file a complaint?"
"No."
"Why?"
She looked embarrassed.
"Because I didn't think anyone would listen."
Isaiah looked at the complaint window.
"That's exactly why I'm asking."
She gave him the information.
He wrote it down.
Then the young mother approached.
Isaiah spoke with her too.
Her complaint concerned a traffic stop and a missing identification document.
The delivery driver had a different problem.
He had been waiting for a property report that had never been processed.
Three complaints.
Three different people.
Three separate incidents.
And none of them had expected anything to happen.
Isaiah returned to his office with a notebook filled with names.
He placed it on the desk.
Then he looked at the clock.
11:06.
He had been commander for two hours.
He had already found enough to keep him busy for months.
But the most important thing was still missing.
Why had Sullivan believed he could do what he did?
The answer came from a former officer.
His name was Marcus Reed.
He had served at Precinct 54 for eleven years before resigning six months earlier.
Isaiah found his name in the personnel records.
He called him.
Reed agreed to meet.
They sat in a small coffee shop several blocks from the precinct.
"You want to know about Sullivan."
Isaiah nodded.
"And Hayes."
Reed nodded.
"They weren't always like this."
Isaiah listened.
"Then what changed?"
"Nothing changed overnight."
Reed looked down at his coffee.
"It happens slowly."
"Explain."
"You get a complaint."
"You dismiss it."
"Then another."
"You tell yourself it's probably nothing."
"Then someone complains about the same officer."
"You say the first complaint was unfounded."
"Then a supervisor tells you the officer is good at his job."
Isaiah said nothing.
Reed continued.
"Eventually, you stop asking whether the officer is doing something wrong."
"You start asking whether the complaint is worth the trouble."
Isaiah nodded.
"That's institutional normalization."
Reed looked at him.
"Exactly."
He took another sip.
"That's how it starts."
"How does it end?"
Reed looked at him.
"When everyone believes the badge matters more than the person wearing it."
Isaiah leaned back.
"Who protected Sullivan?"
Reed hesitated.
"A lieutenant."
"Name?"
"Thomas Grant."
Isaiah wrote it down.
"Anyone else?"
Reed looked toward the window.
"The former commander."
"Who?"
"Daniel Mercer."
Isaiah paused.
"Mercer?"
"Yes."
"Was he connected to Sullivan's complaints?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"He closed several of them."
Isaiah wrote the name down.
"Where is he now?"
"Retired."
"Where?"
Reed gave him an address.
Isaiah closed his notebook.
"Thank you."
Reed stood.
"Commander?"
Isaiah looked up.
"There's something else."
"What?"
Reed lowered his voice.
"Sullivan knows how to make records disappear."
Isaiah's expression changed.
"Explain."
"Evidence logs. Complaint forms. Camera maintenance requests."
"How?"
"He's not doing it alone."
Isaiah stared at him.
"Who helps him?"
Reed shook his head.
"I don't know."
"Then why tell me?"
"Because I know it's happening."
Isaiah nodded.
"That's enough to start."
At 1:20 p.m., the internal review team discovered the first irregularity.
A complaint filed seven months earlier had been marked as resolved.
The original complaint described Officer Sullivan threatening a civilian during a traffic stop.
The closure code indicated insufficient evidence.
But the body-camera footage associated with the complaint was missing.
The system showed that the footage had been deleted two days after the complaint was filed.
The deletion authorization belonged to a supervisor.
Thomas Grant.
Isaiah stared at the record.
"Pull every complaint involving Sullivan."
The analyst nodded.
Twenty minutes later, another missing recording appeared.
Then another.
Three in total.
All connected to the same supervisor.
Isaiah stood.
"Freeze the deletion system."
"It's already locked."
"Good."
"Commander, there's something else."
"What?"
"The system shows that someone attempted to access the old files this morning."
Isaiah looked at him.