"I want the task force rebuilt on evidence that can be trusted," she told him. "If a different commander gives the people inside it a better chance to do that, then assign a different commander." Underhill signed the transfer order with visible reluctance. He offered her a records-integrity position at the district office in Denver, less prestigious than leading a fugitive team but directly connected to the procedures she had been trying to improve. Monica accepted, then asked whether the new commander would be given the full audit findings, including the cases that had not resulted in charges against officers.
Underhill promised a formal handover. He told her she had been correct about one thing from the beginning: the documents did not sort themselves out. Monica laughed softly at hearing her own words returned and said he was finally learning.
He asked whether she regretted taking the case as far as she had. She thought about Cory walking out of the jail, Janice smoothing the old work jacket, and Ralph lifting his garage sign back into place. "I regret that it happened," she answered. "I don't regret reading the records."
Denver was not the assignment she had imagined when she moved west. Her new office had a window overlooking a parking garage rather than mountains, and most of her mornings were spent examining evidence-system audits, disclosure procedures, and training materials. She missed fieldwork but discovered that the quieter job could affect more than one task force if the work was done carefully. She helped revise forms so that evidence movements required independent review, and she emphasized the difference between a checked serial number and a number merely copied from an older report. The lessons reached classrooms full of officers who had never heard of Larkspur Bend, which pleased her more than any public acknowledgment.
Her relationship with Silver Pines did not end when she began commuting to Denver. Every weekend she returned to the little house across from Ralph, where the white sedan remained on the lift waiting for parts and patient hands. They worked without any rush to turn the repairs into a symbol. Some weekends they replaced a panel, others they repaired a wiring connection or cleaned the carpet, and sometimes they spent an hour deciding how best to fit a part before doing anything at all. Ralph insisted on reading the service manual aloud in a solemn voice whenever Monica accused him of improvising.
They learned more about each other in those hours than either had during the weeks before the arrest. Ralph told her about his first years in the Air Force, the aircraft he had maintained in weather so cold his fingertips seemed permanently numb, and the day his wife walked into a hangar to bring him dinner because he had forgotten their anniversary. Monica told him about her father teaching young mechanics who lacked money for proper tools and the green jacket he wore whenever a former student received a certificate. Ralph said her father sounded like a man who understood that a repair shop was sometimes also a place to teach people how to trust themselves.