Thomas Barrett came out of his office with a dishtowel over one shoulder. He had heard enough of the raised voices to pull up his security system, and the replay disturbed him more than the noise had. His cameras covered the entrance, register, and seating area; the corner camera recorded audio because he had installed it after a cash-register dispute the year before. He knew the system's limits and was not going to claim it had caught anything it hadn't. What he could see clearly was an officer moving toward a customer, looming over him, slapping the table, and grabbing his shirt.
"Mr. Hayes," Thomas said to Lucas, "I'm Thomas Barrett. I own the shop. Is there anything you need?"
"A copy of the footage preserved in its original form would help," Lucas answered. "Don't edit it or send it around yet. An investigator will give you a formal request."
"I'll preserve it," Thomas said. He looked toward Chloe, whose face had gone pale. "And I'm sorry this happened here."
"You didn't make him do it," Lucas replied. "But your employee needs somebody to check on her."
Thomas crossed the room and asked Chloe if she wanted to sit in the back. She shook her head because she was afraid moving away would look like admitting she had done something wrong. He told her she had done nothing wrong, then asked Nadia to cover the register. Chloe accepted a glass of water with both hands and sat near the kitchen door. She had kept herself steady while the officer was shouting; now that the shouting had stopped, she could hardly lift the glass without spilling it.
A man at the nearby newspaper table approached Lucas carefully. He introduced himself as Alan Pierce, an accountant who stopped for coffee before work. Alan said he had heard nearly everything after Mateo began questioning Lucas and had started recording when the officer struck the table. He offered the video without being asked. Lucas thanked him and told him to keep the original file and avoid adding commentary to it. The account would be stronger if each witness described only what they had personally observed, not what they thought they were supposed to say.
Lucas also noticed a woman near the window holding her phone low against her knee. Her name was Evelyn Park, and she had lived in the area long enough to recognize Mateo from earlier visits. She had watched him walk past the waiting customers, and she had been close enough to hear him threaten Chloe. When Lucas asked whether she would be willing to speak to the supervisor, she nodded, though her expression was uncertain. Her hesitation was not a sign of dishonesty; she was thinking about what it might mean to complain about an officer who patrolled the streets where her family lived.
"They'll need your name and contact information," Lucas told her. "You should say exactly what you saw, even if some of it doesn't support my version. The truth doesn't need anyone to improve it."
Evelyn seemed surprised by that. She had expected the man with the FBI credentials to tell her what mattered. Instead he asked her to preserve her recording and then returned to his seat. It would be weeks before Lucas understood how much that small courtesy mattered to a witness who had spent her life believing that officials usually arrived with a conclusion already written.