I didn't hand it to him.
I shoved the plastic envelope into the narrow electrical conduit sleeve behind the cell's cold-water pipe, pushing it three inches down into the wall gap where no arm could reach without an offset pipe wrench.
"It’s in the wall, Vance," I said.
Vance’s face went slate gray. He lunged forward, his hands gripping the iron uprights with enough force that his knuckles turned chalk white. "You idiot. You just gave your brother twenty years for corporate manslaughter."
The basement door swung open with a screech of ungreased hinges.
Sergeant Lou walked into the corridor, his horn-rimmed glasses resting on his chest by a lanyard, carrying a leather-bound master ledger and an open green file folder. He stopped six paces back, looking from Vance’s soaked shoulders to my empty hands gripping the front bars.
"Vance," Lou said, his voice flat and completely devoid of the tired casualness he’d had twenty minutes earlier. "Captain’s on line one upstairs."
Vance didn't turn around immediately. He smoothed his uniform vest with two slow, precise movements, then turned his head. "Did you verify the locker number, Lou?"
"I verified the locker," Lou said, stepping behind the acrylic intake desk. He laid the green folder flat on the rubber mat, right where the brass key had been. "The Bell locker in the basement safe was unlocked. The county coroner's seal was cut with wire snips. And Lieutenant Miller’s desk phone just pinged the main console from his hospital room."
The corridor went dead silent, save for the water dripping from Vance’s cap onto the linoleum.
"Miller didn't authorize a sweep, Mark," Lou said quietly. "He called dispatch to report that someone used his digital security card to pull three industrial manifests from the bridge contract archive at four o'clock today."
Vance stepped toward the acrylic window, his hands held open, palms forward, in the automatic posture of an officer de-escalating a confrontation. "Lou, listen to me. The Fourth Street stop was an emergency interdiction. The hauler was already in motion. We needed the chain secured before the county transport ran the weekend line."
"Where is the packet, Mark?" Lou asked. He didn't look at Vance’s face; he was looking down at the empty property drop box where the brass lock hung open.
"The subject grabbed it through the pass-through," Vance said, pointing a steady finger toward my cell. "He reached through the bars while I was securing the perimeter outside. He’s got the whole envelope hidden in the plumbing stack."
Lou looked through the wire-mesh divider, his eyes landing on me. "Jesse. Did you take the evidence envelope?"
"The envelope is behind the water pipe," I said, my voice steady despite the hammer of my pulse. "Turn on the room recorder, Sergeant. Look at Detective Vance’s right boot."
Vance didn't move. He stood frozen in the center of the fluorescent light, the water from his uniform pooling around his feet.
"Pick up your right foot, Mark," Lou said.