Vanji continued. "I should have examined this more aggressively at the outset. I let the initial account shape my approach before I had all the evidence." Francis appreciated the admission.
"Then please preserve whatever you still have," he said. "Every recording and every version of the statements." She promised to do so and confirmed that a hearing would be scheduled. When he told Regina that evening, she sat with both hands over her mouth for several seconds before tears filled her eyes.
"It's moving," she said. Francis nodded. "It is." She reached for him, and he held her while the tension of the previous two weeks briefly softened. They ordered takeout instead of cooking and ate in the living room with a film playing low in the background.
For the first time since the incident, Regina laughed at something unrelated to the investigation. Francis wanted to believe they had reached the beginning of the end. He should have known that people willing to alter a report might become more desperate when the original account began to fall apart. The first bad news arrived on Monday afternoon, the day before the local review was supposed to begin.
Francis was at home gathering the last of his documents when a clerk from the department's records division called. Her voice was strained, and she apologized before explaining the problem. The original dispatch audio associated with Mason's response to Maple Court could not be located after an evidence transfer. A clerical error was the preliminary explanation, and a search was supposedly underway.
Francis stood motionless beside the kitchen counter. "When was the file last verified?" he asked. The clerk could not tell him. "Who handled the transfer?"
She did not have that information either. He asked whether there were server logs, backups, or duplicate recordings on the dispatch system. She said the technical unit would have to answer. After the call, Francis wrote down every word he could remember and the exact time the notification arrived.
He had learned long ago that lost evidence was not automatically proof of a conspiracy. Computers failed. Files were mislabeled. Agencies worked with old systems patched repeatedly beyond their intended lifespan.
But the timing was alarming. Dispatch audio could establish whether a genuine suspicious-person call had been received, when Mason requested backup, and what he told other officers before they arrived. It was one of the few neutral records potentially covering the encounter from the beginning, and it had disappeared just as scrutiny increased.
Regina listened to the explanation with disbelief. "They lost the recording?" she asked. Francis nodded. "That's what they're saying." She walked to the window and looked toward the driveway.