Frank stared at her. "They have the incoming sheriff in custody?"
"It appears they have him in custody, opened his transition case, and failed to verify the order that authorized his possession."
"Then let's go."
Naomi picked up the appointment documents. "We go as the county attorney and the chair of the appointing board. We do not tell anyone to rewrite a fact. We make the existing facts impossible to ignore."
The building clock moved toward midnight. Puit believed the deadline would let him close an embarrassing matter while he still controlled his department's records. Lennox, sitting beneath a dark camera lens, had begun to understand something more painful: whatever happened next, his son's game was over, and no amount of professional vindication would give that evening back.
At eleven forty-five, a dark county sedan turned into the parking area outside the sheriff's office. Naomi Castellan stepped out carrying a leather folder, and Frank Ostrander followed with the official county commission order beneath his arm. They had driven without emergency lights or police escort. Naomi had insisted on that because she wanted the night's next actions to proceed under visible legal authority rather than the illusion of a rescue operation.
Inside, the dispatcher was printing shift summaries when the two visitors came through the front entrance. Captain Puit appeared from the rear hallway almost immediately, as though he had been listening for the doors. His eyes went to the folder in Naomi's hand. Then he looked at Frank and arranged his face into the expression he used when county officials came asking inconvenient questions.
"County attorney," he said. "Chairman. It's late."
"We're here for Lennox Hargrove," Naomi answered.
"Mr. Hargrove is being held during an investigation involving restricted county material."
"Has anyone checked the control number on the case?"
"We're in the process."
"That sounds like no. Has he been formally charged?"
Puit did not answer immediately. Wade Toiver stepped out of the corridor behind him, his face already wary. Frank looked at Wade's name tag and then at a paper in his folder. A faint line appeared between the commissioner's eyes.
"Mr. Hargrove is in interview room two," Puit said finally. "If you're here to discuss releasing him, we can review the matter in my office."
"No," Naomi said. "I want to know his present legal status, and I want the restricted case preserved without further handling."
"You're asking me to interrupt an active investigation."
"I'm asking you to answer a question. If the man hasn't been charged, what grounds are you relying on to continue holding him?"
Puit looked toward the clock. It was eleven fifty-eight. He had spent the evening imagining a deadline he could reach before anyone intervened, and now the people authorized to oversee the transition were standing at his counter two minutes before it would take effect. He could still feel the report he had approved sitting in the system, waiting for signatures that now seemed much less protective than they had an hour earlier.
"There are procedures," he said.
"Then let's follow them," Naomi replied.
The room grew quiet. A booking officer stopped typing. Owen Ledbetter put down his sandwich. Cara stood near the evidence workstation, trying not to stare at the county attorney's folder, while Gil Harmon watched from the doorway of the break room. Wade held his arms close to his sides and wished he had never stopped the Bentley.