"You think I'm the right person?" Mercer gave a tired half-smile. "I think you've been asking us to do that work for years, and we haven't done enough of it."
He did not accept immediately. He went home to Sandra, who listened while he explained what the offer would involve and what leaving Major Crimes might mean. She asked whether he was prepared to stop investigating murders and spend his days reading policy language, hearing complaints, and arguing over budgets. Raymond considered the people whose files he had learned about that week. "I don't know if I'll enjoy it," he said. "I know I could make it harder for somebody to bury what happened to them."
Sandra reached across the table. "You spent twenty-two years trying to solve problems after somebody got hurt," she said. "Maybe it's time to work on the part that happens before." Raymond held her hand and looked out toward the garage, where the Chevelle waited under its cover.
For the first time since the driveway confrontation, he began to imagine a future in which his most useful work might happen outside the department rather than within it.
The criminal case moved more slowly than the administrative hearing. District Attorney Marcus Webb reviewed the footage, interviewed the witnesses through his investigators, and sent the matter to a grand jury after prosecutors concluded the evidence supported criminal charges. The allegations concerned Puit's attempted unlawful restraint, his threat of force, and the misuse of public authority during an encounter unsupported by a valid investigative reason. They also examined whether his written account had deliberately misrepresented what the camera showed.
Raymond did not attend every meeting or demand updates each morning. He knew that a case became weaker when its most visible witness tried to direct the investigation, and he had told Webb from the beginning that he wanted a lawful process rather than a predetermined outcome. On some days he felt patient. On others, he found himself staring at a calendar and resenting the fact that an officer could change the meaning of his home in fifteen minutes while accountability required months.
The department's internal review widened at the same time. Voss obtained the complete authorization history for the three old complaints and found that portions of the supporting material had never reached the employees charged with making final recommendations. The omission did not automatically prove a criminal conspiracy, but it undermined the department's claim that those complaints had received thorough review. In several cases, the closing summaries described attempts to locate witnesses even though the original files contained working telephone numbers and no record that anybody called them.
Deputy Chief Torres insisted the incomplete inquiries resulted from an overburdened unit. Voss examined staffing records and found that the review office had carried a large workload during those years. She included that fact in her report rather than ignoring it, because the pressure to close cases quickly was part of the institutional picture. Then she asked why the same resource constraints had not prevented staff from pursuing complaints against other officers when the evidence favored discipline. The answer remained elusive.