The highway unspools ahead of them, empty. "You did everything right," he says. I know. A beat. "I was scared."
"I know that, too." She looks out the window.
The dark Georgia countryside moves past. Pine trees and red clay and the occasional light from a farmhouse set back off the road. After a moment, she says, "You're not going to let this go." "No," he says. "I'm not."
She nods. She had known that before she asked.
"What happens over the next 72 hours does not happen loudly. It happens through phone calls made before 6:00 a.m. through documents requested through channels that most people do not know exist, through a open-records request filed with the Havford County Police Department at 8:07 a.m. Saturday morning. that requests in precise legal language the following. All incident reports, dispatch logs, evidence intake records, body-camera footage, and internal communications related to the stop and detention of Demi R. Caldwell on the evening of October 11th.
The submission is filed by a law firm whose letterhead reads Voss, Tanner, and Cole LLP, attorneys specializing in civil rights litigation with a satellite office in Atlanta that has been involved in three pattern-or-practice investigations in the state of Georgia in the last 6 years. It also happens through a call placed Saturday afternoon to a journalist named Pria Meta at the Atlanta Courier whose beat is municipal accountability and who has sitting in her drafts folder an unpublished piece about traffic stop demographics in Havford County that she has been unable to run because she has not had a strong enough central case to anchor it. She does now. Duval learns about the FOIA request Monday morning. He reads the letter twice standing at his desk and then walks to the window and stands there for a while looking at the parking lot.
The letter cites OCGA section 50-18-70 Georgia Open Records Act. Response required within three business days. Failure to comply subject to penalty under section 50-18-74. He pulls up the incident reports from Friday night. Maul's report is timestamped 11:41 p.m. filed after Caldwell had walked out with the documents.
The report describes the stop as follows. Responding to a 911 call re suspicious vehicle matching description of vehicle reported in connection with organized theft ring operating from Fulton County. Vehicle occupant unable to immediately produce satisfactory identification. Occupant detained for questioning pending verification. Occupant released upon arrival of parent/guardian.
Duval reads it three times. He opens the dispatch log. The 911 call Maul referenced, the one that initiated the stop, was received at 8:22 p.m. The caller's transcript reads, "Caller states black Lamborghini at Havford Exxon believes vehicle stolen. No basis stated.
Duration 41-seconds. Dispatch classification suspicious vehicle low priority. Low priority. Not a confirmed report of a theft ring. Not a vehicle with plates flagged.
Not a call from a known informant with established credibility. A 41-second call from an unidentified caller who offered no basis for their belief. Maul's report says vehicle reported in connection with the organized theft ring. The dispatch log says caller believes vehicle stolen. No basis stated.
Those are not the same thing and Duvali has known it since Saturday morning. And the FOIA request means that in 72 hours so will the attorneys at Voss Tanner and Cole. He picks up his phone. He dials Alende. She filed.
Foyer, he says when Alende picks up a pause. The daughter or the father. The lawyers. Voss Tanner Cole. Another pause longer.
Okay. What does that mean, Marcus? It means get ahead of it. Pull Maul in. Pull Seldon in.
Get the reports aligned before the response deadline. Duval looks at the dispatch log on his screen at the word low priority in black type on a white background. The reports aren't going to align. The dispatch log is what it is. Then work with what you have. What I have is a 41-second anonymous call, a clean registration that Maul didn't read, a learner's permit stop that doesn't fall under the clock extension provision, and an unlisted evidence intake for a minor's cell phone.
He pauses. And a 17-year-old who was in that room for 2 hours and 14 minutes and can tell you the badge number of every officer she saw. The silence on the other end is the kind that happens when someone is recalculating. Who is the father? A Alende asks.
I told you DoD notation. What kind of DoD? Duval has not looked at this again since Friday night. He pulls it up now on the restricted terminal. The reroute notation, the Pentagon extension, and below it, something he had not seen on Friday because he had closed the screen before it finished loading.
A secondary flag added to the record in 2019 that reads in abbreviated federal notation. Everett G. Caldwell: retired; current Joint Chiefs advisory assignment; restricted clearance notation. He stares at it. When Alende says who is he "Four-star," Duval says. he closes the screen.
Retired currently joint chiefs. The silence that follows is longer than any previous silence. Councilman Reed Farwell hears about it Tuesday morning from a deputy city manager who heard it from a county commissioner who heard it from someone in the police department who was by that point considerably less careful about who they were talking to than they should have been. By the time the information reaches Farwell, it has acquired the quality of a story that has been told and retold until its edges have become smooth. a traffic stop, a teenager, a Lamborghini, a father with federal connections. Simple enough, manageable if handled correctly.
Farwell is 53 years old, third-term city councilman, chairman of the public safety committee, which gives him oversight authority over the Havford County Police Department's budget and by extension its internal review processes. He has held this position for nine years. He has learned in those nine years that most problems can be contained if you reach them early enough. He calls Duval directly. I've been briefed, he says, his voice carrying the practiced warmth of someone who has been briefed on how to sound calm.
I understand there was an incident Friday. I'm not at liberty to discuss an open complaint. I'm not asking you to discuss it. I'm asking you to hold off on any voluntary disclosures until we can get a legal review in place. The department has counsel.