"You were standing there in a suit. You weren't threatening anybody. And he poured coffee on you because he thought you couldn't do anything about it."
She looked down.
"Then everybody laughed."
Ortiz continued.
"But the minute you opened your badge, they stopped."
Her voice trembled.
"And I kept thinking about all the people who don't have a badge to show."
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then she looked directly into my eyes.
"I don't want to become somebody who laughs."
"Then don't."
She took a slow breath.
And for the first time during the interview, her shoulders relaxed slightly.
The original black recording device was recovered twelve days later.
The operation was conducted under judicial authorization following the development of additional evidence concerning the missing property.
The storage suite in Westbridge belonged to a company associated with Harbor District Renewal Partners.
It contained old office furniture, archived project documents, several computers, and a locked cabinet.
Inside the cabinet, investigators found a black electronic recording unit.
Its external identification label had been partially removed.
But the remaining serial-number information was consistent with the device described in the original South Harbor inventory.
A more detailed forensic examination established the match.
The device had been opened.
Its storage drive was missing.
For a moment, I thought we had arrived too late.
Then our digital examiner discovered that the recorder contained a second memory component used for system metadata and selected recording segments.
The contents were incomplete.
Some had been overwritten.
Some could not be recovered.
But not everything was gone.
The examiner preserved the device, documented the recovery procedures, and began a painstaking reconstruction.
The process took days.
Then weeks.
I tried not to call for updates too often.
Evidence work required patience.
A rushed conclusion could damage the case more thoroughly than a delayed one.
Meanwhile, investigators examined the storage suite's access records.
They identified employees who entered the room.
Reviewed rental documents.
And traced communications involving the recovered device.
One message from Sloane's office referred to a "property-control unit" that needed to remain "off-site until the issue settles."
Another discussed removing storage media.
Those messages required contextual analysis.
But together with the physical evidence, they supported the conclusion that the recorder had been deliberately separated from its lawful evidence trail.
The missing hard drive remained a problem.
We did not know where it went.
We did not know whether it had been destroyed.
And we could not assume the incomplete recorder would reveal anything useful.
Then, one evening, Dana called me.
It was nearly nine.
I was at home eating reheated chicken over the kitchen sink.
My phone rang.
I answered.
Her voice sounded different.
"Marcus, you need to come in."
I set down the plate.
"What happened?"
"The examiner recovered an audio segment."
"From the recorder?"