"The more recent one, eighteen months. The earlier one, two years and four months."
The investigator set down the report she was holding. "And the businesses connected to those cases?"
"Three dealerships," the federal advisor said, "and a title processing company. All within the same county. All associated directly or through intermediary paperwork with one individual."
She waited.
"The businessman," he said.
She wrote the name down. She had not heard it before; she would not stop hearing it for the next seven months.
"I need to come in," the federal advisor said. It was not a request. "If what you're describing connects to what I've been sitting on, then this is not a corruption case. This is an organized criminal enterprise. And the traffic stop you're investigating may be the first piece of evidence in three years that nobody managed to make disappear."
The investigator looked out her office window at the city. She thought about twenty-three recordings on twenty-three phones. She thought about a retired civil engineer's steady hand and a phone with clear audio, and the look on a database screen that showed nothing wrong, and the officer who had looked at that screen and kept going anyway.
She thought about the fact that the evidence was still here.
"Come in tomorrow," she said. "Bring everything you have."
She hung up the phone. She opened a new case file. She wrote the date at the top. She wrote two words beneath it: The Network.