Then he called the person who had driven Miles back from the tournament. Coach Deacon answered in a low voice from a quiet hotel corridor. He confirmed that Miles was asleep, that the team had lost by four, and that the boy had played a remarkable game despite being disappointed. Lennox thanked him and asked whether Miles had said anything about his father.
"Only that you don't usually miss when you say you'll be there," Deacon replied. "He was worried, Lennox."
That sentence followed him back into the hall. He could survive public humiliation, an unlawful detention, and the hostility of men who did not yet understand how much of their private world was about to be examined. The thought of his son waiting through the game was harder because it was the one consequence nobody else was responsible for repairing.
He called Naomi aside. "I need the independent team to know I made the decision not to identify myself during the stop," he said. "I am not going to pretend I was unaware of my appointment, or that I didn't have a way to contact somebody who could intervene."
"Are you worried they'll say you encouraged the incident?"
"They can ask. I complied with the deputies. I declined an unlawful search. Afterward I believed the record needed to be preserved before the department adjusted its behavior. But there were personal consequences to waiting, and I won't rewrite those either."
Naomi studied him for a moment. "The investigators will appreciate the clarity. Some people may still disagree with the choice."
"They're allowed. That's another thing I'd like this department to learn."
At twenty minutes to one, a state vehicle pulled into the lot. Special Agent Renata Solberg stepped out with a physical-evidence specialist and a digital examiner named Theo Marchetti. She carried no dramatic expression and did not hurry into the building. Her team had received a preliminary summary and knew that the complainant was also the incoming sheriff; that unusual fact made independence more important, not less.
Lennox met her at the entrance. "Agent Solberg, I'm the complainant. I assumed office forty minutes ago. I'm not directing your fact finding."
"Good," she said. "That keeps the lines clear."
"The county attorney has the appointment and custody orders. The sealed case was in my lawful possession pending transfer. I can give you my statement when you're ready."
"We'll interview you separately. First I want the existing evidence preserved, and I want to know what has been touched since the stop."
They entered the office together. Puit watched from near the back wall, where he had been standing long enough for his coffee to go cold. For the first time that evening, another professional had arrived whose authority he could not rewrite with a red pen.
Renata Solberg began with the kind of work that would have disappointed anyone expecting a cinematic confrontation. She asked for a list of everybody who had entered the evidence room since six that evening. She requested the original dispatch log, the initial plate inquiry, the tow company's inventory, and every version of Wade Toiver's incident narrative. She asked the booking officer to explain what she had personally received, and she wrote down the answers without offering her own interpretation.