"And Keller?"
"Keller took thirty minutes in an interrogation room to realize he was looking at five to ten years in state prison," Miller said dryly. "He gave up the armory logs, the timestamps, and the voice memo Julianne sent him at six-thirty ordering him to wedge the lower dog cams shut so your shift couldn't override her console. He's cooperating with the state attorney in exchange for a recommended plea. He’s done in private security, but he won't be taking the fall alone."
I looked down at the white gauze covering my knuckles. "The building can't be saved on the current bond."
"No," Miller agreed. "The DOT inspectors clocked eleven inches of lateral shear on the central river pier. The whole south wing has to be dropped with hydraulic shears before the November freeze, or the spring thaw will drop the ballroom directly into the navigation channel. Julianne didn't just ruin the party, Nathan. She destroyed thirty million dollars of public credit."
Miller left the folder on the truck bed and walked back toward his command car. I opened the tab. Inside were copies of the emergency inspection reports, the certified printouts from the bedrock telemetry sensors, and Gabe’s initial discharge summary from the regional trauma unit. Gabe had inhaled significant silt and suffered mild hypothermia along with extensive lacerations across both hands, but his lungs were clear of secondary infection. The attending physician had cleared him to return home under observation by late afternoon.
I closed the folder, started the truck, and drove across the river bridge to the brick apartment building where Gabe lived with his older sister.
The front hallway smelled of warm broth and damp wool. Gabe was sitting propped up on a worn plaid sofa, his chest wrapped in an elastic support bandage, drinking tea from a heavy ceramic mug. His dark eyes were bloodshot and ringed with dark shadows, but the trembling was gone from his shoulders. His sister, Elena, nodded to me from the kitchen doorway, wiped her hands on an apron, and quietly stepped into the other room to leave us the floor.
"You brought my pouch?" Gabe asked, his voice still hoarse from the river water.
"Your pouch is in the evidence locker at the county courthouse," I told him, pulling a wooden kitchen chair up beside the sofa. "The prosecutor had to enter the shift log into the public court record under certified seal. You won't get the canvas back until the trial concludes, but the clerk gave me a notarized copy of your log sheet for your union file."
Gabe leaned his head back against the cushion, his breath coming in a long, shuddering sigh. "Nathan, when that water hit my collar, I thought about my dad. He spent twenty years in the shipyards, and every time an engineer told him to cut a corner, he used to say that concrete and iron don't care who your family is. They just obey the load."
"Your father was right," I said. "And because you kept that book dry, nobody in this city can pretend the river broke that wall on its own."
"What happens to the company now?"
"Vance Marine & Civil is liquidating," I answered plainly. "Arthur sold their heavy dredge equipment to an outfit out of Portland this morning. The proceeds are going straight into an independent restitution escrow managed by the state. Part of that escrow is designated as a lifetime medical and disability settlement for you, Gabe. You won't have to worry about rent while your lungs heal."
Gabe looked down at his bandaged fingers, tracing the outline of his knuckles where the steel hatch had torn the skin. "I don't want Arthur Vance's charity, Nathan."
"It isn't charity," I told him firmly. "It's compensation for an industrial battery committed against an on-duty technician. Take the settlement, finish your night classes, and sit for your stationary engineer’s license in the spring. This city needs men who know how to keep water on the right side of the wall."
Gabe nodded slowly, the tension finally leaving his neck. He reached out with his right hand, his grip cautious but steady as we shook on it.
Two months later, the December frost had turned the river into a dark, steaming slate beneath the gray sky.
The grand ballroom of the civic pavilion was completely gone. Where the polished oak dance floor and the crystal chandeliers had hung, yellow excavators with hydraulic crunchers sat atop barges in the river, breaking the sheared concrete beams into truckable rubble. The south wing had been brought down in a controlled demolition three weeks after the hearing, stripping the building back to its original 1948 industrial framework.