"Did you know which officer came here?" Marcus asked.
"Captain Holt. Three days ago. I knew him because he had introduced himself at the community safety meeting last winter. He said he'd hate to see a widow spending her last years dealing with police trouble. Less than an hour later, a man from Vision Heights knocked on the same door."
Marcus asked her to explain the sequence again while he wrote the dates. Mrs. Carter opened a drawer and retrieved correspondence left with her by the Robinson family before they moved. Their son had been cited for a variety of minor offenses, and inspectors had threatened increasingly expensive repairs. Eventually the family sold its house at a price well below the county's earlier estimate of its value.
"They told me to save this," she said. "Mrs. Robinson cried when she gave it to me. She said she didn't know which part was worse, losing the house or having everyone think they'd simply chosen to leave."
Marcus arranged the papers chronologically on the table. The pattern was clear enough to justify closer scrutiny, but he resisted the temptation to call each document proof of a conspiracy. A legitimate inspection could happen near a property sale; a neighbor could sell cheaply for personal reasons. What mattered was whether the same officials, companies, and money movements appeared together often enough to establish deliberate coordination. That would require records Mrs. Carter could not provide alone.
"Will you be safe here today?" he asked.
The elderly woman looked toward Herbert's photograph. "They've wanted me frightened for months. I am frightened. But that doesn't mean I'm leaving."
He thanked her and arranged for Diana's office to collect copies with her permission. At the door, Mrs. Carter placed a wrapped blueberry muffin in his hand, saying he needed food if he expected to help anybody. Marcus realized he had not eaten since the day before. He took a bite while walking back across the street, a small act of obedience to someone who had already earned his respect.
At the courthouse that morning, Diana met him outside courtroom C. Her expression made him stop before speaking. She had requested a straightforward release hearing, but the assigned judge, Warren Matthews, was known to socialize with senior police officials, including Holt. That connection was not proof of misconduct, Diana warned, but it made her attentive to any unexplained procedural irregularity.
Angela was brought into the courtroom wearing the same jeans and shirt. Her cheek was visibly bruised, and she moved cautiously as she sat beside Diana. Marcus wanted to cross the room and embrace her. Instead he stayed where he was permitted, knowing that her lawyer needed the hearing to proceed without a disturbance.