"I don't need a headline," Kesha told him. "I need my daughter to stay with me."
"Good," Richards answered. "That's where we'll start. We're not going to confuse being visible with being protected."
He reviewed the paperwork and identified inconsistencies that required immediate preservation requests. The time listed for the alleged discovery did not match a dispatch entry, and the officer's summary omitted Kesha's request for a supervisor. Richards contacted defense counsel handling the criminal charge and arranged for that office to request patrol recordings, location information, and chain-of-custody documentation. He also advised Kesha to keep every school letter, employer notice, and child services document in one place.
Preacher, meanwhile, arrived carrying a separate file. It concerned Jamal Brooks, the sixteen-year-old killed during a police encounter earlier that summer. Richards knew the case by reputation because Jamal's mother had been asking publicly for an independent review since the first official statement. He had not seen the disputed recording, and he insisted on establishing its provenance before making any claims about what it proved.
"There's a copy obtained by an officer who feared the original would disappear," Preacher said. "I didn't take it from a locker or break into a system. It was brought to counsel by someone who wanted to report wrongdoing. I can put you in contact with that person through the attorney who handled the initial disclosure."
Richards nodded. "Then we preserve the path it took to reach us. We need a reliable record if this ever goes before a judge. And nobody releases images of a dead child to the world without speaking to his family first."
Preacher lowered his eyes. He had watched the footage once, sitting alone in a small office. Jamal's frightened voice had been more difficult to endure than the final moments, because it made clear how young he was. The recording included audio of orders issued by Castellano and movements by officers that did not match the public account. It was enough to demand an investigation and far too important to be used carelessly as a publicity weapon.
Richards requested a private meeting with the federal investigators already reviewing the bombing. He and Preacher discussed how the apparent connection between the two cases could be explained without asserting conclusions they could not yet prove. The club itself was a possible target because Preacher possessed information about Jamal's death. The Williams family had become a separate target because Zara could identify men who approached the motorcycles. Both strands led toward the same task force, but the evidence still had to be assembled.
Detective Sarah Hang met Richards and Voss in a secure conference room. She was not comfortable being in the presence of a lawyer representing a motorcycle club, but she was more uncomfortable with the disappearance of a witness's phone. She placed a chronology before them, showing the original evidence entry, the unauthorized transfer request, and the unusual signatures. She had also discovered that Marcus Trent's name appeared on other forms connected to Castellano's unit.