There was silence at the other end, followed by the distant sound of a television being turned down. "How do I know you're really with the government?" Isaiah asked.
Aaron looked at Nathaniel. The question was more reasonable than any officer in Millbrook had allowed Isaiah to ask. "You don't have to trust a call from an unfamiliar number," Aaron said. "I can give you the field office's public telephone number and the name of the person who will confirm our assignment. Take your time and verify it yourself."
Another silence followed. Then Isaiah said, "You're the man from Rosie's, aren't you? I saw the video."
"Yes."
"They put you in cuffs."
"They did."
"And they took them off when they found out you were somebody important."
Aaron stared through the windshield at the dark diner. "They should have treated us fairly before they knew who we were," he said. "That's part of what we need to understand about what happened to you."
Isaiah breathed out slowly. "All right," he said. "I'll check your number. Then I'll talk. I've been trying to get somebody to listen for months."
Isaiah Monroe did verify the number. He called the public field-office line, asked to be transferred to the person Aaron named, and waited until a federal employee confirmed the inquiry before agreeing to meet. He chose Thursday afternoon at his sister's apartment on the east side of Millbrook, after he had slept following the warehouse shift. The apartment building stood behind a laundromat and a playground with two broken swings. Aaron and Nathaniel arrived without a marked vehicle or an entourage. They parked on the street, walked up the stairs, and knocked like visitors who understood that a person had invited them into his life rather than into an interview room.
Isaiah opened the door wearing a plain white T-shirt and work trousers. He was lean, careful, and older in his expression than his twenty-four years suggested. His sister Alana sat at the kitchen table with a folder of papers and a little girl coloring at the far end. The room smelled of rice, laundry detergent, and the cinnamon tea cooling in a mug.
Isaiah's mother had urged him not to meet with investigators again. She did not believe he was lying, only that speaking the truth had already caused enough trouble. He had not told her the meeting was happening until the agents were on the stairs.
"You don't have to answer anything you don't want to," Nathaniel said after the introductions. "This isn't an interrogation. We want to hear your account, and we will compare it with whatever records exist. There are no promises about what the investigation will prove."
Isaiah studied Aaron. "I watched you on that video," he said. "You didn't move. I kept thinking, what if he hadn't had a badge?"
"That's part of why we're here," Aaron replied. "But I don't want my morning to replace yours. Tell us what happened on Mercer Avenue. Start wherever you need to start."