"They said if I was innocent, I shouldn't be in a hurry. That's what they always say. If you ask why, you're argumentative. If you look nervous, you're suspicious. If you stay too quiet, they think you're hiding something."
Alana opened the folder. She had printed screenshots of texts Isaiah sent after each stop, his warehouse clock-out records, and the school message showing her daughter had arrived late after the third incident. She had also preserved three copies of his complaints. "I made him keep them," she said. "He wanted to throw the last one away when they sent back the same answer. I told him it mattered that he had written it down."
Nathaniel took notes by hand while Aaron compared the dates and times with the referral packet. The first complaint had a handwritten receipt time. The second had a stamp but no name identifying who reviewed it. The third contained an attachment label for the gas station's camera footage, which Isaiah said he had offered to obtain. The department's file showed no attempt to contact the station. The difference did not by itself prove a deliberate cover-up, but it identified a question an honest complaint review should have asked.
"What happened after you filed the third one?" Aaron asked.
Isaiah rubbed his palms together. "I started driving a different way. Six miles out of my way, through the county road and back. Takes fifteen extra minutes if I don't hit the school traffic."
"The first week I did it, I was so tired I nearly missed a turn. My sister made me pull over and sleep at a rest stop the next morning. You know how stupid that felt? I wasn't avoiding bad roads. I was avoiding the people who were supposed to make the roads safe."
His niece looked up from her drawing. "Uncle Isaiah takes the long road," she said matter-of-factly. Alana put a hand over the child's paper and gently directed her attention back to the crayons. The small interruption affected Aaron more than the formal complaints.
The consequences had entered a child's vocabulary. They had become part of the household routine, like which groceries were too expensive and which neighbor could pick up the mail. Aaron wrote the phrase down because it described a truth the traffic reports could never capture on their own.
"I don't want anyone ruined," Isaiah said after a moment. "I want to drive home. I want to finish a shift and go where I live without having to practice what I'm going to say if somebody follows me. I filled out those forms because I thought that was what you did when something went wrong. Then every letter came back saying nothing happened. It started to feel like they were telling me I hadn't been there."
"You were there," Aaron said. "We'll document what we can prove, and we'll tell you when we learn something. I won't promise this will be easy."
"You don't have to. You're the first one who showed me the file and asked what was missing."