"I'm not doing this to make your client famous," Price said. "She doesn't need me for that. I'm doing it because people in my department knew something had gone wrong and decided the important part was keeping it from embarrassing us."
Marcus asked her to begin at the moment Gloria entered processing. Price described Finch's posture, the database confirmation, and his sudden departure from the room. She then described seeing him with Corston in the hallway, talking quietly. When Corston asked whether Finch had known who the detainee was, Finch laughed.
Price repeated the words she had written in her notebook. "Doesn't matter what she is. She was standing in that lot like everybody else." Marcus asked whether those were the exact words.
Price said they were. She had heard them from approximately eight feet away, recognized both speakers, and recorded the exchange that night. She did not claim to know what Finch meant inside his own head. She could testify to what he said and how he behaved, and she could explain why those words made her doubt the sincerity of his reaction after the database result.
The affidavit contained a second account, one that had cost Price more sleep than the first. Three days before the department completed its internal review, Chief Holloway had called her at home on a Sunday evening. He asked after her husband, mentioned that her retirement was only three months away, and spoke warmly about her years of service. Then he said the inquiry was likely to conclude the officers had acted appropriately under difficult circumstances. He added that it would be helpful if her recollection aligned with what the department was finding.
Price had worked under Holloway long enough to recognize a message delivered without an explicit threat. The call did not order her to destroy notes or lie. It did not mention her pension directly.
But by placing her impending retirement beside the desired outcome of an internal investigation, the chief made the choice seem unmistakable. Price said little before hanging up. She then wrote down the conversation, including the precise phrases she remembered and the time it ended. Her husband read the notes that evening and asked whether she intended to keep them in a drawer until she retired.
"I thought about it," Price told Marcus. "I won't pretend I didn't. I've worked for decades, and I want to finish my career without a war. I also have three grandchildren, and the oldest is nine. I don't want him growing up in a city where people teach officers that silence is the same thing as loyalty."
She looked at the envelope between them. "Thirty years of service should mean something more than knowing which truth not to put on paper."