“Possible.”
“Yes.”
He sounded almost annoyed by the question.
Then:
“But I photographed everything.”
That mattered more.
“You?”
“Usually.”
“Did you that night?”
“If photos say I did.”
“Who took supplemental photograph three days later?”
Silence.
“What supplemental photograph?”
There was one.
The jacket on property-room counter.
Timestamp three days after arrest.
Metadata identified county camera.
The retired deputy did not remember.
So still no proof.
Then seal issue.
The jacket bag bore a preprinted security number.
I obtained procurement records for evidence packaging.
That batch arrived twenty-one days after the jacket was supposedly packaged.
Could the number have been manually misentered?
Yes.
Could bag have been rebagged later?
Yes.
Was there documentation?
No.
The sergeant had signed a continuity certification stating the jacket remained sealed from collection until laboratory submission.
That certification could not be true if the recorded seal number was accurate.
One of two things was wrong.
We needed more.
The second case involved a firearm.
A Black man had been convicted of being a felon in possession.
Police stopped his car for an equipment violation.
Search produced marijuana and later, according to supplemental inventory, a revolver beneath passenger seat.
Body-camera footage from arrest showed officer kneeling beside passenger seat and saying:
“Nothing here.”
Not dispositive.
Maybe gun deeper.
But the property receipt for gun was created four hours after arrest.
The receiving clerk’s login had been used.
The clerk told me:
“I don’t remember case.”
Again, normal.
Then I showed her receipt.
She stared.
“That isn’t my signature.”
“It’s digital.”
“I know.”
She pointed to terminal ID.
“I never worked Station Three.”
“Who did?”
“Sergeant used it sometimes.”
That was not proof.
Shared terminals are common in older systems.
Then access records.
The sergeant had logged into the property system twelve minutes before the gun receipt was created.
His username.
Could he have walked away leaving session open?
Yes.
Did others know his password?
Unknown.
Pattern.
Not proof.
Third case involved narcotics.
Two ounces of cocaine became three and a half between roadside seizure estimate and lab submission.
Street weights vary.
Packaging.
Scale calibration.
Again, there were explanations.
But original bodycam showed two bags.
Lab received three.
Supplemental report:
THIRD PACKAGE LOCATED IN VEHICLE EVIDENCE container during secondary inspection.
Signed by sergeant.
Vehicle had already been released from impound before date of secondary inspection.
That was a problem.
I checked.
Maybe date wrong.
Tow company records.
Release signed.
Vehicle gone.
So where did third bag come from?
Nobody knew.
By month two, my whiteboard held red lines across six cases.
Not red for guilt.
Red for unresolved.
The federal investigator who supervised my contract visited hotel office.
She stood before board.
“How bad?”
“Depends on whether these are six mistakes or one method.”
“Can you tell?”
“Not yet.”
“What do you need?”
“Original paper.”
She nodded.
“That means courthouse.”
“Yes.”
“That means him.”
“Yes.”
The sergeant supervised records and property coordination from courthouse annex.
Not every archive.
But enough.