Drivers needed assistance after accidents.
Disabled vehicles required removal.
Police sometimes needed dangerous obstructions cleared from roads.
But the business also profited from impoundments.
Storage charges accumulated daily.
Administrative fees added to balances.
And vehicles that were not reclaimed could eventually be sold under applicable lien procedures.
Bellamy understood every step.
He also understood that motorists under financial pressure often paid charges without challenging them.
The audit notice concerned recordkeeping, dispatch assignments, fee schedules, and vehicle disposition procedures.
Bellamy read it twice.
Then called his operations manager.
"Get me the old contract files."
"Which years?"
"All of them."
The manager sounded surprised.
"All the files?"
"Yes."
"What happened?"
Bellamy stared at the letter.
"Somebody's looking."
He ended the call.
Then opened a locked drawer beside his desk.
Inside was a thick folder containing handwritten notes and copies of payment records.
Some entries were ordinary business expenses.
Others were harder to explain.
Bellamy had kept them because he distrusted everyone, including his own employees.
He believed records gave him leverage.
Now those same records threatened to become evidence.
His phone buzzed.
A message appeared from Derek Malloy.
We need to talk.
Bellamy stared at it.
Then typed a reply.
Not by phone.
He hesitated.
Deleted the message.
And put the phone face down.
For the first time in years, he wished he had kept fewer records.
Bellamy did not sleep well that night.
At two in the morning, he walked downstairs, poured himself a glass of water, and stood in the kitchen staring at his reflection in the dark window.
He had spent years convincing himself that Cedar Valley Recovery was simply a business operating within a difficult industry.
Cars had to be towed.
Storage space cost money.
Employees needed wages.
Insurance premiums increased every year.
And if customers failed to retrieve their vehicles, the company could not keep them forever.
Those statements were individually true.
Bellamy repeated them whenever someone complained.
But there were things he rarely said aloud.
He had negotiated unusually favorable dispatch arrangements with officials who later received private benefits.
He had approved charges that employees could not explain consistently.
He had allowed vehicles to remain in storage while owners struggled to obtain release information.
And he had grown accustomed to the fact that certain officers generated especially profitable impoundments.
One of those officers was Derek Malloy.
Bellamy remembered their first conversation.
It happened nearly eight years earlier, after Malloy called for a tow involving a driver whose registration status was disputed.
The driver protested.
The vehicle was removed.