"What are you doing, Frank?" Miller hissed.
"Logging what sits on my counter," Harris replied evenly. "State audit rules. It's my pension on the line, Dale."
Harris inked his stamp, slammed it down, and tore the carbon pages apart with a sharp snap. He slid the bottom yellow slip across the stainless counter toward my hands. "Sign for your keys, Vance."
Miller lunged, but my cuffed fingers snatched the yellow slip first. As he wrenched me toward the corridor, I stumbled on the linoleum, jamming the folded receipt into my boot beneath my sock.
Miller dragged me down the hall, kicked cell three open, and shoved me onto the concrete floor. The iron gate clattered shut, the deadbolt throwing home with a heavy mechanical thud.
Miller stepped close to the bars, breathing hard. He reached through, twisting his fist into my collar to yank me upright. The Hamilton watch was inches from my eyes, its cracked face catching the dim overhead bulb.
My grandfather had brought that Hamilton back from the naval yards in Bremerton, giving it to Thomas when he finished school. For five months, Miller had walked into our local diner, ordered coffee from my mother's counter, and worn that dead boy's watch while she poured his coffee.
"You think that slip of paper protects you?" Miller whispered, venom in his voice. "That case number was on that bag because Thomas was skimming impound freight before he went off that bridge. That powder came out of his car."
"You're lying," I whispered.
"Tomorrow morning, the prosecutor gets my report," Miller snarled. "You sign the five-year possession plea, or I release Thomas's full file to the press. I'll make sure your mother knows her son died a junkie thief. Sit in the dark and decide what his name is worth to you."
He shoved me back and walked away, his boot heels echoing down the hall until the outer door slammed shut.
I sat on the cold floor, listening to water drip in the pipes. My wrists were raw, but my fingers reached into my boot, feeling the crisp edge of the yellow voucher.
Miller hadn't just planted evidence to stop my questions. He was wearing my dead brother's watch, and the paper in my sock proved where the poison came from. Silence wouldn't protect Thomas's memory or keep me alive. The only way out was to tear their file wide open.
CHAPTER 2 CONTINUED
A metal chair scraped across the linoleum in the booking office. The heavy iron master door groaned open, and the slow, dragging footfalls of Sergeant Harris moved down the center corridor. He carried an aluminum clipboard and a paper cup of water. He stopped outside cell three, his brass keys jingling against his heavy leather duty belt. Through the round lenses of his wire-rimmed glasses, his eyes were sunken into deep gray pockets of skin.
"You should have stayed out of the freight yard, Jesse," Harris said, sliding the cup through the meal slot. He avoided my face, his eyes fixed on my wrists where the handcuffs had gouged raw skin. "Your dad ran clean timber down the gorge for thirty years without ever touching a precinct blotter. You’re wrecking whatever name he left behind."
"Miller is wearing Thomas's watch," I said.
Harris didn't take his hand from the meal slot. His knuckles turned white against the iron shelf. "Dale bought that timepiece at an estate sale down in Port Townsend. He told the commander three months back."
"Look at me, Frank," I whispered, stepping to the bars until I caught the scent of damp wool and stale tobacco on his uniform. "Thomas cracked that acrylic crystal across the numeral three with our father's drill press three years ago. The buckle pin is bent sideways because Miller’s wrist is two sizes too thick for the band. You gave Thomas his first ride-along when he was sixteen. You know whose wrist that watch belonged to."
Harris swallowed hard, his throat working above his unbuttoned collar. "Personal property on closed cases gets liquidated through county salvage after ninety days if the family doesn't claim it. That’s municipal code."
"My mother spent four mornings in your records office with Thomas’s death certificate," I said, holding up the yellow slip so the ink caught the light. "Your clerk handed her an unrecovered-effects voucher. They told her the river carried everything out into the shipping channel. If that watch went through county auction, where is the bill of sale? And how did a sealed narcotics envelope from Case 23-0411-B end up inside Miller’s tactical vest tonight?"
Harris stared at the yellow carbon in my fingers. He didn't reach for it, but his mouth tightened into a pale, bloodless line. He glanced back toward the empty corridor, listening for the front lobby chime. "Miller said it was a recycled packaging bag."