At ten-fifteen his phone buzzed. It was Shirlene Treadwell. He watched it ring through to voicemail. A minute later a text came in: Kurt I heard there was an INCIDENT in the package room today?? Mr Eckles called me. Please call me first thing before you talk to anyone. Very important. S.
He did not call her first thing. He walked to the leasing office at nine the next morning in uniform because he was working swing that afternoon and did not want to change twice, and she was already there, at her desk with her cardigan and her butterscotch jar, and she stood up when he came in and closed the door behind him herself, which she had never done before.
"Okay," she said. "Okay. Sit down. Tell me exactly."
He told her, more briefly than he had told Kalani. Shirlene listened with her hands folded on the desk and her face going through several careful arrangements, and when he got to the part about the marks on the girl's arms she closed her eyes for a moment, and when he got to the part about the badge number she opened them again and they were sharp.
"Did you file something?" she said. "With the department?"
"Last night."
"What did it say?"
"What happened."
"Kurt." She leaned forward. "Kurt, listen to me. I'm on your side here. I want you to know that. But you have to think about how this looks from the outside, and you have to think about it now, before anybody else does. That girl was in a secured room going through another resident's property. That's a fact. That's a lease violation all by itself; nobody's authorized to handle another tenant's deliveries without written consent. The father's been coordinating it. That's a fact too. They were tampering with an elderly resident's mail. I don't care how nice the reason was. You walked in on that, and you responded. That's what you're here for. That's what the addendum says. Respond to resident concerns."
"The addendum says I'm not private security."