Ray laid the manila envelope on the bench next to the dispatch override sheet Brenda had secured.
"We need the physical digital files before the municipal clerk’s office opens at one o'clock," Brenda said, stepping closer to us. "Thornton’s brother, Arthur, is on the downtown development authority. The moment word leaks that Gerald was picked up on River Road, Arthur is going to invoke emergency administrative privilege and pull the hard drives from the police administration servers downtown."
"Arthur can't touch the server room," Ray noted.
"He doesn't need to touch the precinct," Brenda countered, her voice tight with urgency. "The precinct network doesn't host the secondary database. Thornton set up an off-site terminal at the old water board pumping station on Third Street three years ago. He told the city manager it was a redundant backup for severe weather dispatching. That’s where the private property assessments and the unlogged surveillance feeds are mirrored. If Arthur hits the remote wipe sequence from his office, eight months of financial extortion records dissolve into an unreadable partition."
I picked up the manila envelope, breaking the blue seal. Inside were three carbon-copy vehicle releases, two handwritten receipts signed by Arthur Thornton's real estate partnership, and an inventory sheet detailing four parcels along the waterfront scheduled for municipal blighted-property condemnation at tomorrow night’s council meeting. Nora Whitfield’s coffee shop was listed as parcel seven. The appraised market value on the document was marked at barely thirty percent of the current county commercial assessment.
"We don't go to the municipal building," I said, making the call. "If we hit city hall with state vehicles, Arthur gets twenty minutes of warning while the front desk calls his floor. We take the water board pumping station first. Ray, call the state magistrate's clerk. We need an emergency administrative entry order under the Public Integrity Act served on the Third Street substation before noon."
CHAPTER 7
"I have the master entry fob for Third Street," Brenda said, pulling a brass key ring from her vest pocket. "When Gerald assigned me to verify the camera angles on the riverfront last fall, he had the locks keyed to the central patrol master. We can be inside the server bay before Arthur even knows Gerald’s phone is off the network."
We moved out to the vehicles. The autumn air across the river bottom was sharp, carrying the scent of damp timber and decomposing leaves. Two cruisers had already departed up the gravel hill toward the state highway, their lights off, carrying Gerald Thornton toward Cumberland. Ray took the wheel of the unmarked sedan parked behind Brenda's patrol car. I sat in the passenger seat, nursing my swollen left wrist, while Brenda followed closely behind us in her department vehicle.
Ten minutes later, we turned off the industrial perimeter into the narrow brick alley behind the historic water board facility. The building was an unassuming red-brick structure from the nineteen-thirties, sitting fifty yards from the riverbank, surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. A single brass plate beside the reinforced steel door read: Ridgemont Municipal Water Works - Station 4.
Brenda stepped up to the exterior panel, pressed her key into the lock cylinder, and entered a six-digit code on the worn rubber keypad. The electromagnetic lock released with a dull, heavy clunk.
Inside, the air was conditioned, cool, and filled with the low, continuous hum of twin server racks mounted in the center of the concrete room. Unlike the damp neglect of the River Road annex, this space was spotless. A steel workstation stood against the eastern wall, featuring three wide monitors and a commercial-grade flatbed document scanner.