"You know how small this town is," he said. "You have a hearing coming up, a felony hanging over your head, and a whole task force that's tired of this nonsense." Monica replied that the truth of Saturday should not depend on whether she continued reading public records. Copeland leaned closer, and she could smell stale coffee on his breath. "Thirty-seven, huh? Somebody's been counting."
She did not show what the number did to her. The total of thirty-seven had not appeared in any news story, public statement, or conversation with Copeland, and she had shared it only with Ralph and Harriet in private. Harriet had recently sent a carefully limited summary of the pattern to the county prosecutor's office. If Copeland knew the count, somebody had either watched her work from an unexpected place or passed information to him that he should not have received. Monica kept her voice level and asked whether he had anything else to say.
"These aren't your people," he told her. "This isn't Nebraska. The captain has been running things here since before you wore that badge." Monica answered that she was not interested in controlling the town and had no claim to anyone's loyalty. She was interested in the records. "A man with nothing to hide doesn't offer to change his report in a parking lot," she said.
Copeland removed his hand from the roof at last. He glanced toward a patrol vehicle at the far end of the lot, where Fowler had been standing during the conversation with his right hand tucked into his cargo pocket. For an instant the younger officer looked as though he might come closer, but Copeland spoke sharply to him and he turned away. The sergeant walked toward the patrol car without another word. Monica unlocked the pickup, climbed in, and began writing before she started the engine.
She recorded the time, the position of the two officers, the exact words of the proposed deal, and the sentence revealing the number thirty-seven. She drew a simple map showing the pickup, the parked patrol car, and the approximate distance between Fowler and the conversation. Then she called Harriet and repeated the most important line. There was a long silence before Harriet told her that the number had gone to one office in a restricted defense letter.
"I don't want to accuse Valerie Quist of leaking it," Harriet said carefully. "She's too serious about her cases to be casual about something like that. But an office has assistants, intake staff, shared systems, and people who've worked with local police for years." Monica asked where she should send the full list if the county could not be trusted to keep it confidential. Harriet told her that the case now involved suspected misuse of federal funds, and that the relevant Inspector General's office had a public fraud-reporting channel.
"Anybody can use it?" Monica asked. "Anybody with facts to report," Harriet answered.