"That's not what the agreement says."
"It's what it does."
Puit looked toward the dark recording light. "Mr. Hargrove, you have a nice car and a family you were on your way to see. You do not need to turn one deputy's difficult decision into an investigation of everybody who was working tonight."
"Then don't turn it into one by changing the evidence."
The captain's eyes narrowed. "You don't know what you're accusing anybody of."
"I know my windows were broken after your deputy received confirmation that I owned the vehicle. I know the camera was taken without a record being made on the roadside. I know a sealed county case was opened without verification of its custody order. Those facts don't improve with time."
Puit stared at the agreement. "Men like you sign, go home, and keep driving your nice car. That's the deal this county has always offered. Most people have enough sense to take it."
"My father took that deal in 1981," Lennox said. "He was on his knees by the highway while I watched from the truck. He came home, but the part of him that believed a uniform would protect the innocent never came home the same way again."
The captain's expression changed for less than a second. "I wasn't involved in whatever happened to your father."
"I didn't say you were. I said I learned the cost of that deal before I was old enough to understand it."
"This offer won't last after midnight. You can sign and leave now, or we can continue reviewing everything connected to the case. Your employment. Your finances. Your reason for carrying county records you apparently can't explain."
Lennox pushed the paper back with two fingers. "Then I suggest your review be thorough, Captain. And I suggest you don't lose the paperwork."
The captain gathered the pages with a movement sharper than any he had made since entering. He stood so quickly that his chair scraped the floor. At the door he stopped and looked back, his pleasant expression gone.
"You are making this harder than it needs to be."
"No," Lennox said. "I'm refusing to make it easier to hide."
Puit left and closed the door with enough force to rattle the metal frame. In the hallway, Cara Beckett stood motionless beside the observation window. She had seen the captain turn the recording light off when he went in and had wondered, briefly, whether the system had malfunctioned. Now she heard the door close and saw the red indicator still dark.
During her training, Cara had worked a temporary assignment with dispatch and learned how interview recordings were controlled. She knew the room was supposed to record whenever a detainee was being questioned, not merely when the interviewer preferred a record. From the alcove next to the dispatcher she could see that the channel had been placed in a state that did not match the department's usual procedure.
She considered leaving it alone. The captain had the authority to discipline her, and Wade had already made it clear that he viewed her warnings as disloyalty. She thought of her father, who had served as a volunteer firefighter while working an ordinary day job, and of something he said when she graduated from the academy.