In staggering clarity, the room watched him lean into the car. They watched him check the glove box, his movements quick and careless, papers shifting, the rental agreement pushed aside. They watched him check under the seats. And then they watched his right hand slide into the deep pocket of his yellow rain slicker, pause there for a fraction of a second, and come out again with his fingers curled around something small.
Carter touched the tablet, and the forensic playback software zoomed in automatically, smooth and merciless. The image tightened until O'Grady's hand filled the wall. It clearly showed his fingers pulling a transparent plastic bag containing a white, rock-like substance out of his own pocket. It showed the bag catching the light from the cruiser. It showed him deliberately, almost casually, dropping it onto the floor mat directly beneath the driver's seat, tucking it just far enough under that a man pretending to search would find it on the second look and call it a discovery.
"Well, well, well," the recorded O'Grady sneered, pulling his head out of the car, holding the bag up into the glare of the cruiser's headlights. "What do we have here?"
The interrogation room fell into a graveyard silence. The only sounds were the hum of the precinct's air conditioning and the heavy, ragged breathing of Officer O'Grady, who was no longer smirking, no longer leaning back, no longer in control of the air in his own chest. Miller had taken a step closer to the projected image without realizing he had moved, his face lit by the frozen light of the wall. Doyle had gone very still by the door, his arms no longer crossed, his hands hanging at his sides as if he had forgotten what to do with them.
"That," O'Grady stammered, pointing a trembling finger at the wall, "that's fake. That's doctored. You Kirkland and Ellis lawyers think you can come in here with doctored AI trash? I know guys who can make fake videos. That's not what happened."
His voice cracked on the last words. He tried to make it sound like contempt, but it came out as panic wearing contempt's clothes. He looked at Miller as if the captain might rescue him with rank alone, and then at Doyle as if a nod from his partner might make the wall go dark. Neither man moved to help him. Miller's eyes were still fixed on the projection, on the hand and the bag and the name tag glinting in the same frame.
Carter tapped the tablet again. The video paused, freezing on that frame, O'Grady's hand holding the bag of drugs right next to his own name tag, the letters O'GRADY, T. sharp enough to read from the back of the room. He let the image sit there while O'Grady's breathing filled the silence.