Chapter 2 - Preserve Everything
Chief Angela Morgan arrived on Elmwood Drive sixteen minutes later.
She did not come alone.
Two supervisors followed her cruiser, along with Lieutenant Naomi Brooks from Internal Affairs.
Morgan stepped onto the wet pavement wearing a command jacket thrown over a dark sweater. Her short hair was slightly disordered from sleep, but nothing about her posture suggested fatigue.
Dunn stood beside his cruiser.
Sophia stood near her sedan.
The broken identification rested on the hood inside a clear evidence sleeve Naomi had provided.
Morgan’s gaze moved from the card to the puddle to the red marks around Sophia’s wrists.
Then she looked at Dunn.
“Your weapon.”
Dunn blinked.
“Chief?”
“Your weapon, your body camera, your department phone and your access card.”
“Am I suspended?”
“You are relieved of duty pending investigation.”
“Chief, she refused lawful commands.”
Sophia said nothing.
Morgan turned toward him.
“Did you verify her credentials before you destroyed them?”
Dunn hesitated.
“I had reasonable suspicion they were fraudulent.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“She was evasive.”
“Did you verify them?”
“No.”
Morgan’s expression tightened.
“Did you activate your body camera?”
“I thought it was running.”
Naomi stepped closer.
“It’s off.”
“I must have hit the button during the stop.”
Sophia finally spoke.
“It was off before he opened my door.”
Dunn looked at her sharply.
“How would you know?”
“I look for cameras during confrontations.”
Morgan stared at Dunn.
“So do competent police officers.”
Dunn flushed.
“My dash camera should show everything.”
Naomi glanced toward the cruiser.
“We’ll see.”
Morgan ordered another officer to secure the vehicle.
“No one touches that cruiser until the digital evidence technician arrives.”
Dunn gave a bitter laugh.
“You’re treating me like a criminal.”
Sophia’s eyes met his.
Morgan answered first.
“I’m treating evidence like evidence.”
Dunn’s union representative had not yet arrived, but his instincts were already shifting from aggression to survival.
He pointed at Sophia.
“She reached for something without permission.”
“You told me to retrieve my identification,” Sophia said.
“You moved fast.”
“I moved slowly.”
“You were argumentative.”
Sophia stepped closer.
“I told you exactly who I was.”
Dunn’s face hardened again.
“You expect special treatment because you’re FBI?”
“No.”
Sophia’s voice was calm.
“I expected you not to destroy identification before checking whether it was real.”
Morgan cut between them.
“Enough.”
She turned to Sophia.
“Agent Jenkins, I apologize for what happened tonight.”
Sophia’s expression remained unreadable.
“You don’t know what happened yet.”
Morgan glanced at the broken card.
“I know enough.”
“That’s dangerous too.”
Morgan studied her.
Sophia continued.
“I don’t want your conclusion because I’m FBI. I want the same investigation you would owe anyone else.”
For the first time that morning, something like shame appeared in Morgan’s face.
“You’ll get it.”
Sophia looked toward Dunn.
“So will he.”
Dunn scoffed.
“You really think this is going federal?”
“My badge is federal.”
His face changed.
Sophia was not threatening him.
That frightened him more.
A digital-evidence technician arrived and began examining the cruiser.
Ten minutes later he called Naomi over.
“There’s something strange.”
Morgan joined them.
“What?”
“The body camera wasn’t recording when we recovered it.”
Dunn immediately nodded.
“Exactly.”
The technician raised one finger.
“But newer units maintain a rolling pre-event buffer.”
Dunn stopped nodding.
The technician continued.
“When the officer manually activates recording, the system saves the prior two minutes of video, usually without audio depending on configuration.”
Morgan frowned.
“But he never activated it.”
“That’s the strange part.”
The technician turned the camera over.
“The system log shows recording was manually stopped at 2:13:41.”
Sophia looked toward Dunn.
Approximately twenty seconds before he reached her window.
Morgan’s voice became quiet.
“You turned it off before contact.”
Dunn shook his head.
“No.”
“The log says somebody did.”
“It could malfunction.”
Naomi took the device.
“We’ll send it to forensics.”
Dunn’s breathing quickened.
Sophia watched him.
Not the anger.
Not the denial.
The calculation.
She had interviewed enough suspects to recognize someone mentally rearranging a story.
A supervisor escorted Dunn away.
Morgan remained beside Sophia.
“You should have your wrists photographed.”
“They already were.”
“You work fast.”
“I’ve had practice preserving evidence.”
Morgan flinched slightly.
Sophia noticed.
Before she could ask why, Naomi approached holding Dunn’s department phone.
“Chief.”
Morgan turned.
Naomi’s expression had changed.
“What?”
“There’s an Internal Affairs alert connected to his employee number.”
Morgan frowned.
“What alert?”
Naomi showed her the screen.
It referenced a previous complaint.
Six months earlier.
Allegation: unlawful detention, destruction of identification, racial bias.
Disposition: administratively closed.
Morgan stared at the record.
“I’ve never seen this.”
Naomi looked at her.
“Your electronic signature is on the closure.”
The street went silent.
Sophia watched Chief Morgan carefully.
Morgan read the line again.
Then once more.
Her face slowly lost its color.
“I did not close this complaint.”
Naomi lowered her voice.
“Then somebody did it under your name.”
And suddenly Sophia understood.
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What happened at 2:14 a.m. might not have started on Elmwood Drive.
It might have started months earlier, inside the department itself.
