The IT specialist who examined the footage storage server reported that the files had been deleted, not corrupted, and that the deletion had occurred on a date that post-dated Wendell's original records request by 48 hours. The specialist report was included in the federal file. The identity of the person who performed the deletion was not established. The access log showed only a generic administrative login, one that was shared among four precinct personnel, including Granger.
And there was a memo. It appeared in the second batch of documents produced under the federal subpoena on page 31 of a 44-page production, a single-page internal memorandum dated March 15th, 6 days before Wendell's return to the country. The subject line read protocol override NG. The body of the memo was almost entirely redacted.
Black bars covered everything except the header, the date, and two partial sentences. The first partial sentence read, "Per the captain's directive, all field interview reports originating from Collier Ridge patrol assignments will be." The second partial sentence began, "Supplemental documentation to be completed by liaison officer prior to filing..." The rest was blacked out. The initials NG matched Captain Niles Granger. The reference to liaison officer matched Deputy Ross Embry's assignment.
The date preceded Wendell's return, which meant that whatever protocol override the memo described had been implemented while the investigation was already underway without the precinct's knowledge that it was underway. What the memo authorized, who requested it, and why it was redacted under a claimed exemption that the federal investigators had not yet challenged remained open questions.
The kind of questions that do not resolve in weeks or months. The kind that sit in files and grow in heavier with time and eventually, if the system works the way it is supposed to work, which it sometimes does and sometimes does not, produce answers that no one who wrote the original memo ever intended to be found. On a Saturday morning in late June, 7 weeks after the council session, Micah Kaine delivered newspapers in the Collier Ridge subdivision. He entered through the pedestrian gate at 5:18 a.m. He delivered 26 papers.
He was not stopped. He was not questioned. He was not followed. He finished his route in 34 minutes, walked back through the gate, and found Wendell leaning against the sedan, arms crossed, coffee in hand.
All good. All good. They drove home. Opal was awake.
The medication was on the counter. The kitchen smelled like coffee in the particular warmth of a house where someone has been up early enough to turn on the stove and let it heat the room before anyone else arrives. Micah sat at the table. Wendell sat across from him.