Porter read the completed preliminary accounting and felt no satisfaction. She felt the slow anger of a person watching damage acquire its true dimensions.
At a meeting in the courthouse, an investigator set two folders on the table. One contained the racial breakdown of stops and searches. The other contained the financial findings. Porter opened them side by side and said that one folder explained whom the department had been willing to target while the other suggested why the practice had continued.
"Money," one of the investigators said.
"Money and permission," Porter answered. "A man can want money for a long time without building an operation like this. Somebody had to let him act as though no one would ever check."
Deputy Trent Gallagher's first formal interview lasted eleven minutes before he asked for a break. He sat in a courthouse conference room with a glass of water untouched before him and a notebook he had brought from home. Captain Porter and two investigators were on the other side of the table. He had been advised that his participation in questionable searches could expose him to legal consequences and that he could consult an attorney before proceeding.
He had consulted one. His attorney was a small-town practitioner who knew enough about criminal investigations to tell him that vague promises of protection did not exist simply because an investigator wanted cooperation. Gallagher entered the room prepared to tell the truth, but he wanted the process documented. Porter respected the request. He was not promised immunity or guaranteed treatment as a witness; any charging decision would belong to the appropriate prosecutors after the evidence had been reviewed.
When the recorder started, Porter asked about the stop involving Byron Davis. Gallagher described Hollister's decision to follow the Tahoe, the speed reading, and the registration check. He admitted knowing that the vehicle belonged to a federal fleet and that the license returned clear. He described being ordered to search the interior and finding the money.
"What legal basis did you believe you had for that search?" Porter asked.
Gallagher stared at the table. "I didn't believe we had one."
The room remained quiet. One of the investigators wrote the answer down exactly as stated. Gallagher took a breath and continued before anyone could rescue him from the silence.
"I thought the stop was turning into what they usually turned into. I didn't think saying that would stop him. I thought it would get me transferred."
"So you searched anyway," Porter said.
"Yes."
"You understand that explanation does not erase your participation?"
"I do now," Gallagher answered. "Maybe I understood it then, too. I just kept finding reasons not to admit it."
Porter allowed the statement to stand. She had interviewed enough officers to know the difference between a person beginning to accept responsibility and one merely rearranging facts to sound less guilty. Gallagher had not yet reached the end of that process. His initial explanation was part confession, part attempt to describe the pressure under which he worked, and the investigators would need to test both parts rather than accept either on trust.