Porter asked whether Hollister had shown her a warrant or explained a specific exception allowing the search. Denise said no. She remembered telling him she did not consent and watching him begin anyway. Gallagher stood on the opposite side of the car, and when Denise looked at him for help, he turned his eyes toward the shoulder.
"Did he say anything?" Porter asked.
"No," Denise replied. "That's part of what I remember. I was hoping one person would say this isn't right. Neither of them did."
The interview lasted nearly two hours. By its end, Denise had given the investigators the original bank receipt, the denial letter, and the names of two people who had lent money to help cover her mother's living expenses. Porter thanked her and offered to explain the restitution process when it became clear. Denise stood to leave, then turned back.
"If you get my money back, I'm grateful," she said. "But I want to know whether he can keep doing it to somebody else. That's what keeps me up at night."
Porter told her she could not promise an outcome. She could promise the account would be included in the inquiry and tested against the available records. Denise accepted the answer because, for once, it contained a specific action rather than a vague instruction to wait. Outside the courthouse, she sat in her car long enough to steady her hands before driving to visit her mother.
Earl Sutton's interview took place at his kitchen table because his arthritis made long trips uncomfortable. His old brown delivery jacket hung on the back of a chair. Photographs of family fishing trips covered the refrigerator, including one showing the boat he had sold. He pointed to the photo and explained that he had worked hard for the boat and sold it because he could no longer lift it safely on his own.
"It wasn't an investment," Earl said. "It was Saturday mornings and my brother's bad jokes. I sold it when my brother got sick, because I couldn't go out there and enjoy it without him. That money was supposed to help with the bills."
He had prepared a folder before the investigators arrived. Inside were photographs of the boat, handwritten notes from the buyer, the sale receipt, the cash withdrawal and deposit history of his account, and every letter he had mailed to the county. Porter examined the file and asked why he had preserved it so carefully. Earl shrugged and said a man who had delivered packages for thirty-four years learned that a missing signature could become an entire argument about whether something had arrived.
Marcus Green came in from college on an early bus. He had changed majors once after the lost semester, partly because the delay forced him to reconsider whether he could afford his original program. He was cautious with the investigators at first. He had already explained his situation to a county clerk, a student aid adviser, a lawyer who wanted a fee he could not pay, and three relatives who thought he must have done something wrong to attract a search.