"Thornton isn't just running people out of downtown to look tough for the chamber of commerce," Brenda said, her breathing shallow. "For three years, he's been taking twenty percent off the top of every cash vendor along the riverfront corridor. Nora Whitfield refused to pay the private security assessment he slipped under her door in August. He was using you this morning to scare her into signing the property over to his brother's development firm."
I looked down at the paper. It was a photocopied dispatch override log, marked with Thornton’s personal supervisor pin, detailing sixteen dates over twelve months where patrol units had their automated vehicle locators manually pinned to the municipal garage while the units were miles away. "You took this from the precinct server?" I asked.
"Two nights ago," she said, her voice trembling slightly. "The bureau sent you to build a case against a bad chief. But you need to understand something, Director Cole. Thornton doesn't keep his real records on the city network. He keeps them on an encrypted hard drive in the floor safe under his desk at home."
Heavy footsteps crunched across the gravel outside. The front handle rattled. "Put your hands back," Brenda hissed, stepping toward the hall. "He's coming back."
I locked my fingers together behind my spine, feeling the heavy cold of the blank yellow tag still hanging against my chest. The first piece of hard evidence was resting beneath my thigh, but Gerald Thornton was walking through the doorway with his service holster unsnapped."Still sitting quiet, Cole?" Thornton stepped into the office, his boots crunching over dried salt and grit. "That’s smart. The last thing a retired administrator needs is a fall against concrete while awaiting transport."
CHAPTER 4
"My wrists are numb, Chief," I said, keeping my posture rigid on the wooden bench, my fingers interlaced tightly behind my spine. Beneath the wool of my trousers, the folded ledger sheet Brenda had given me remained pinned under my thigh. "Standard procedure requires checking the ratchet spacing every fifteen minutes."
"Standard procedure belongs to guys who write memos in air-conditioned suites," Thornton said. He pulled a folding metal chair toward him with the toe of his boot and dropped heavily into it, three feet away. "In this county, we solve practical problems on the ground. Marcus is hooking up your sedan right now behind the bakery. By noon, whatever you brought from upstate is going to be sitting on a table in my garage."
"A vehicle seizure without a signed impound warrant voids any evidence collected from the search," I said, voice flat, measured, and stripped of defiance. "State criminal code section seven-fourteen."
Thornton smiled, leaning his forearms onto his knees. "You think you’re going to a suppression hearing, Aaron? A sixty-day trespass citation in town court doesn't need an inventory of your trunk. You pay two hundred bucks to the clerk, you agree not to cross the municipal line for twelve months, and you head back to whatever school district let you go. If you decide to make a speech in front of the judge, Brenda here testifies that you swung an elbow at her outside Whitfield’s door. Who do you think the magistrate believes?"
He glanced over his shoulder at Brenda, who stood rigidly against the door frame, her right thumb hooked in her utility belt. "He tried to pull away when we hit the curb, right, Sullivan?" Thornton asked. "He pulled his shoulder back toward the door frame, Chief," Brenda answered immediately. Her tone was sharp, flat, and completely devoid of inflection. "I had to brace him against the cruiser to maintain physical control." Thornton nodded, satisfied. He reached into his coat and produced a blue vinyl folder containing two carbon-copy forms. He tossed them onto the low wooden bench, six inches from my right knee.
"Sign the waiver on line three," Thornton said, extending a plastic ballpoint pen. "You agree that your detention was consensual, that you voluntarily surrendered your vehicle keys for off-street relocation, and that you waive any administrative review regarding municipal code enforcement in Ridgemont. You sign, Brenda drives you to the bus depot on Route Nine, and your car gets dropped off at the county line tonight."