The first significant departmental reform came not from Marcus but from Officer Jennifer Torres. She proposed a simple rule: supervisors who reviewed citizen complaints involving officers under their direct command could recommend findings but could not close serious misconduct cases alone. Any allegation involving money, searches, force, retaliation, or missing video would require secondary review outside the immediate chain.
"Why wasn't that already policy?" Marcus asked.
Torres shrugged. "Because the old system was faster."
"Put that sentence in the training slide."
She thought he was joking. He was not. The policy went into effect the following week.
So did a tow-rotation reform. Dispatch software, not supervisors, would assign ordinary contract tows. Exceptions required a written reason that could be audited later. Officers could still request specialized equipment when circumstances justified it, but no single sergeant could quietly funnel routine business to one company. Westbridge Towing's municipal contract was suspended pending review.
That suspension caused immediate practical problems. Three other towing companies had to absorb calls. Response times increased. A major crash on the interstate left officers waiting forty minutes for heavy recovery equipment. Reigns's defenders seized on the delay.
"See?" one union representative told a reporter. "This is what happens when politicians interfere with working systems."
Marcus refused to pretend reform came without cost. At the next city council meeting, he said so directly.
"The old arrangement was efficient because one company received preferred access. If that preference was corrupted, replacing it will be slower until we build capacity. Convenience is not a defense for compromised contracting."
The clip circulated online. Some praised him. Others called him anti-police, anti-business, and naive. Marcus turned off the television.
He had learned years earlier that public opinion often wanted a hero or villain before investigators had finished numbering exhibits. He had no interest in auditioning for either role. The investigation accelerated when Mrs. Patricia Simmons agreed to a recorded interview with prosecutors.
She brought the envelope where she had kept the paperwork from her traffic stop. Inside, folded behind the warning citation, was a receipt from a grocery-store ATM. Two hundred dollars withdrawn at 7:31 p.m. Reigns's stop began at 7:17. The warning was issued at 7:43.
Simmons explained that Reigns followed her in his patrol car to the store parking lot after saying she could "handle the roadside administrative amount" if she did not have cash in her wallet. She had assumed the procedure was legitimate. The grocery store still retained exterior security video because the footage had been preserved for an unrelated shoplifting case. Investigators obtained it through legal process. The recording showed Simmons entering the store while Reigns's patrol car waited outside.
She exited minutes later and approached the driver's side of his cruiser. The angle did not clearly show money changing hands. It did not need to prove the entire case by itself. It corroborated her account in a way Reigns had never expected. Then investigators reviewed the patrol-car GPS.
Reigns had omitted the store stop from his report. The case was tightening from every direction. At 6:40 one evening, Marcus was preparing to leave when his desk phone rang from an internal extension.
"Captain, it's Derek."
Marcus sat back down.
"What do you need?"
"Five minutes. No recorder. No lawyers."
"No."
Silence.
"You won't even hear me out?"
"You can request an interview through your attorney and the investigators."
"This isn't about the case."