“My academy class had thirty-one people.”
“Six are still here.”
Marcus frowned.
“Why?”
“Some left for normal reasons.”
“Better pay.”
“Family.”
He swallowed.
“Some got told they weren’t team players.”
“For?”
“Writing honest reports.”
“Refusing searches.”
“Backing civilians instead of supervisors.”
Marcus asked quietly, “And you stayed.”
Porter’s eyes filled with shame.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I have a wife.”
“Two kids.”
“Mortgage.”
He looked toward Marcus.
“I kept telling myself I could do more good staying.”
“Did you?”
The question hurt.
Marcus did not soften it.
Porter whispered, “Sometimes.”
“And other times?”
The officer looked away.
“I looked down.”
Marcus thought about the lobby.
The almost-warning.
Nothing.
“Then start looking up.”
Porter nodded.
Marcus did not absolve him.
He did not threaten him either.
“Write everything you know.”
“Dates.”
“Names.”
“Things you saw personally.”
“Things you heard secondhand, label them that way.”
“Do not improve the story.”
Porter nodded.
“And Officer Porter.”
“Yes, sir?”
“If you lie to protect yourself now, I cannot protect you later.”
Porter met his eyes.
“I understand.”
By the third day, seven officers had come forward.
Then eleven.
A dispatcher.
Two records clerks.
One evidence technician.
Not every disclosure was explosive.
Some were petty.
Supervisors altering schedules to punish disliked officers.
Favors in assignments.
Tickets fixed for friends.
But patterns formed.
Then the evidence technician, Samuel Briggs, brought something bigger.
He had worked in Riverside’s property room for twelve years.
Quiet man.
Late fifties.
Glasses.
He carried a banker’s box into Marcus’s office.
“What’s that?”
“My insurance policy.”
Marcus looked toward Alvarez.
She was present.
Good.
Briggs placed the box down.
“I started copying access logs four years ago.”
“Why?”
“Because evidence went missing and they blamed me.”
“What evidence?”
“Cash.”
“Guns?”
“No.”
“Mostly narcotics.”
He opened the box.
Printed logs.
Some handwritten notes.
USB backups.
“Who accessed them?”
Briggs hesitated.
“Vice.”
“Then command.”
Marcus read names.
Lieutenant Rourke.
Sergeant Caldwell.
Two detectives.
Deputy Chief Vance.
Marcus looked up.
“Why would Vance personally access evidence?”