court rather than dissolved by a speech in the evidence yard. Monica promised to help make sure the case file reached independent counsel and that the physical firearm could not be destroyed before examination. Janice looked at the coat and said she had brought it because she did not want to leave behind the person Cory had been before the arrest.
Ralph pressed Monica's father's wrench into her hand. He had held it throughout the audit, gripping the chrome so tightly that its old engraving had left a pattern on his palm. Monica looked at RS1979 and remembered the first day her father taught her to separate the number on a piece of metal from the confident explanation offered by the person holding it. The wrench had disappeared into the storm drain and returned, muddy but intact, just as the truth had disappeared beneath reports and certificates before someone thought to check the metal again. Ralph nodded at her without speaking, the same expression he wore when an engine finally ran correctly after a long repair.
Valerie Quist approached while the investigators continued securing the bin. She told Monica that her office owed her a written explanation for the handling of the case and that the documents would be entered into the official record. Monica asked her to prioritize identifying every prosecution that had depended on a weapon now shown to have a compromised history. Quist did not offer reassurance she could not guarantee, but she said a dedicated review team would examine the full list and notify defendants and counsel of potentially exculpatory material. Monica thanked her for putting the matter into a process that did not depend on who the first victim happened to be.
The independent inventory continued after the cameras stopped carrying the ceremony live. Investigators photographed and checked the remaining firearms through the late morning, and Mallister matched every one of Monica's thirty-seven flagged serial numbers against the earlier destruction records before signing his preliminary tally. He also found other discrepancies that had not appeared on her list. By early afternoon, he called Monica back to the edge of the restricted area, his expression still serious even though the public audit had accomplished its immediate purpose. He showed her a preliminary discrepancy report containing all thirty-seven numbers she had submitted, then scrolled to another section. During the examination, he said, his team had identified nine additional serial numbers that appeared on destruction certificates issued by a police department outside Colorado.
"Nine more?" Monica asked. Mallister nodded and explained that the entries had been flagged by the wider interagency inventory comparison, not by her original list. The firearms were being preserved, but he would not speculate about their origins until the records were authenticated and the custody histories established. Monica looked toward the sealed bin and felt the scale of the problem shift again. She had found a pattern inside one county, but the physical inventory suggested the same failure might have crossed state lines.