"Are you accusing me of lying?" he demanded.
"I'm asking you to preserve the facts," the caller replied. "We have information that allows the timing and location of the encounter to be independently checked."
Crowe moved his boot from the desk. "Look, whoever you are, this is my county. I know how to handle my prisoners."
"She is not your prisoner to handle however you choose," the voice answered. "She is a citizen with rights, and we have serious concerns about what has occurred. You should expect further contact."
The line ended, and the silence left behind felt louder than the argument. Crowe stood with the receiver in his hand, staring at a small framed photograph of himself receiving a county service award. Laya watched him set the telephone down, pick it up again, and place it back more carefully. Then he told her to retrieve Serena's entire file, including the computer check and whatever the tow deputy had recorded.
"All of it?" she asked.
"All of it. I want to know who this woman really is."
Laya returned to the front desk and typed Serena's name into the county system. The response was unremarkable: valid identity, no warrants, no criminal record, nothing suggesting an immediate danger. It was exactly the kind of ordinary record that should have resolved any legitimate concern at the gas station. Yet she understood why Crowe was disappointed, because he had been hoping the database would produce a justification after the decision had already been made.
A younger clerk named Priscilla Owens leaned over Laya's shoulder, read the screen, and frowned. Priscilla had joined the department less than a year earlier and had not yet learned to pretend she did not notice contradictions. She asked whether the federal callers had actually verified their credentials. Laya nodded and showed her the recorded contact details, then asked Priscilla to save a copy of the original booking entry before any amendments appeared.
"We're allowed to do that?" Priscilla whispered.
"We're required to keep an accurate record," Laya replied. "That's different from picking a side."
Priscilla looked toward Crowe's closed door. "Sometimes it feels like the same thing here."
Laya said nothing, because the girl was right. She printed the original booking report, the revised version, and the time history that showed which user had entered each change. She placed the papers in the official case file, then made a note of their existence in the records log. Nobody would later be able to say that the first account had vanished without a trace.
Across the county, a tow operator had reached the gas station and was discussing the SUV with Wallace Doyle. The tow order described it as a vehicle held in connection with an obstruction arrest, a description Wallace could not reconcile with what he had seen. He told the operator that Serena had parked lawfully and that he had offered to keep the SUV secure on his property. The operator shrugged and said the county had issued a formal request, so he would need a cancellation from the sheriff's office before he could leave it alone.