Chapter 16 - The Junior OfficerNothing else was stolen.
Not the television.
Not cash.
Not Carter’s expensive camera equipment.
Only the laptop.
Investigators photographed the forced window.
Carter sat on his couch with both hands shaking.
“I should’ve turned it over sooner.”
“You did turn over the copy.”
“What if they say I edited it?”
“The department has the forensic image.”
Carter looked unconvinced.
Levi sat across from him.
“Why did you back it up?”
Carter stared at the floor.
“Because I’d seen Jenkins lose footage before.”
“How many times?”
“Three.”
“And you never reported it.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Carter gave a hollow laugh.
“Same reason everybody gives.”
“Career.”
“Yes.”
Levi nodded.
Carter looked at him.
“You hate that answer.”
“I understand it more than I want to.”
Carter’s eyes filled with shame.
“At the highway, when he grabbed you…”
He stopped.
“What?”
“I knew it was wrong.”
Levi waited.
“I could’ve stopped him.”
“Could you?”
“I could’ve told him no.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t.”
“Yes.”
Carter rubbed his face.
“I keep replaying it.”
“So do I.”
Carter looked at him.
“You think I’m like him?”
“No.”
Relief appeared too quickly.
Levi continued.
“But being different from Jenkins is not the same thing as being innocent.”
Carter’s face fell.
“You helped handcuff me.”
“Yes.”
“You heard him invent the assault.”
“Yes.”
“You stayed silent until my identification changed the stakes.”
Carter swallowed.
“Yes.”
Levi leaned forward.
“That is what you have to live with. Not whether you are a good person. Whether you did the right thing when it cost something.”
Carter nodded slowly.
The next day he gave investigators everything.
Texts.
Old emails.
Names.
One message from Jenkins became especially important.
Six months earlier:
JENKINS: Camera’s acting weird again.
CARTER: You mean turned off?
JENKINS: Same difference.
CARTER: Not funny.
JENKINS: You’ll last longer when you learn what is.
Another thread involved Mercer:
MERCER: MidState needs two tonight. No warnings on suspended registration.
CARTER: Isn’t tow rotation automatic?
MERCER: Stop asking software questions and police.
Carter had never understood the significance.
Now prosecutors did.
The stolen laptop also produced an unexpected clue.
The intruder had cut his hand on the window.
A small blood smear remained on the frame.
DNA analysis would take time.
But the building camera captured a figure wearing a hood entering through the rear alley.
The person walked with a slight limp.
Naomi recognized it instantly when Levi showed her the footage.
“Dennis Jenkins.”
“How do you know?”
“I interviewed him two years ago.”
Levi looked at her.
“For what?”
“A labor story. MidState had drivers suing over unpaid overtime.”
“You never mentioned it.”
“You never asked about my work.”
Another tiny wound.
Levi did not defend himself.
Naomi added, “He injured his left knee. Motorcycle crash. Walks exactly like that.”
Investigators obtained a warrant.
At Dennis Jenkins’s house they found Carter’s laptop.
They also found three boxes of MidState ledgers that Dennis apparently intended to destroy.
Inside one ledger was a separate payment category.
Not towing.
Not storage.
“Claims management.”
Beside dozens of entries appeared initials of police personnel.
One set repeated more than any other.
FD.
Frank Dwyer.
And beside one payment from eleven years earlier was a notation:
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T. HARRISON — CLOSED.
$7,500.
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