The verification took longer than either of them expected. The duty officer was busy, the station supervisor wanted to know why the call was being made, and the local system had already created a custody entry under the description in Copeland's report. Monica sat on a metal bench in a holding room and listened to the doors open and close along the corridor while her knee grew stiff. She thought about her father working through a difficult repair without raising his voice and wondered what he would have said if he had seen his wrench disappear down a drain. He probably would have been more upset about the tool than the car.
At 2:04 in the afternoon, Edy returned with a key and an embarrassed expression. The federal duty officer had confirmed Monica's identity and position, and the station had no filed criminal charges requiring her continued detention. Edy unlocked the holding room and asked whether a supervisory deputy marshal was, as she put it, "some kind of boss." Monica told her it was, and watched understanding slowly replace curiosity on the older woman's face. Edy looked down at the torn work trousers and said she had never seen a booking sheet become quite so complicated in her nineteen years behind that desk.
"Could I have a copy of my custody information?" Monica asked. Edy checked the policy binder, found the ordinary procedure, and printed what she was authorized to provide. Monica thanked her for checking the number rather than guessing. At the front door, Edy lowered her voice and said that the captain had been informed of the identification. She could not tell Monica what he planned to do with it, but she had seen him take the evidence log upstairs himself.
In the captain's second-floor office, Beexley was already studying two documents. The first confirmed Monica's federal identity and the second recorded the handgun's serial number as DX30417. He read those seven characters more than once before opening a drawer where a blue folder lay beneath a stack of departmental memoranda. Its label read FIREARM DESTRUCTION CERTIFICATES, and he had signed the most recent annual certificate with his own hand. He closed the drawer without removing the file and stood at the window while afternoon sunlight moved across the patrol cars outside.
Ralph was waiting in the parking lot with his old blue pickup when Monica emerged. His arms were folded, his flat cap pushed back, and his face changed the moment he saw the way she was walking. "You hungry?" he asked instead of greeting her. Monica admitted she was starving, and he told her that he had made too much chili again. She climbed into the passenger seat and let herself lean back against the headrest for the first time since morning.
They drove several blocks before Ralph asked whether she wanted to talk. Monica said she wanted to see the video first. He handed her the phone when they stopped at a traffic light, explaining that he had recorded two minutes and forty seconds beginning when he emerged from the garage after the first shouted commands. The footage showed Monica kneeling in handcuffs, Fowler entering the car, and the handgun being presented to the street. It also recorded her voice repeating the serial number, a little louder than she remembered saying it.