Garrett called the department until a receptionist told him to submit everything in writing. He submitted invoices, job records, a bank statement, and the names of customers who could confirm the payments. A clerk acknowledged receiving the documents, but no decision arrived. He borrowed an aging replacement truck that broke down during a commercial job, and the lost work forced him to delay paying his helper. Eventually his wife asked whether fighting for the truck was costing more than letting it go.
He could not bear to answer. The seized truck had been purchased with earnings from his first large contract after his father died. Its glove compartment still contained an old wallet that belonged to his father and a worn business card bearing the man's name. Garrett kept the wallet there not because he needed it, but because he liked opening the compartment before a difficult job and seeing one small reminder that someone had believed in him. The department's refusal to return the truck had taken something no financial valuation could describe.
He had visited the building seven times. Each trip required arranging work around the drive, finding a place to park, and preparing himself to be told that the right employee was absent or that a form had been submitted incorrectly. He had paid a lawyer for an initial consultation and learned that contesting forfeiture might cost more than the truck's remaining value. The lawyer did not advise surrender, but the numbers made Garrett feel that the system had been designed for people who could afford to wait longer than he could. He kept the receipt with Hask's signature anyway.
Nolan sat beside him rather than standing over him. "Please stay," he said. "I want to look at the property records myself." Garrett studied his face, searching for the practiced reassurance he had heard on every earlier visit. "You're not just saying that?" he asked. Nolan told him no and meant it enough to be frightened by the promise.
The property ledger was kept inside the evidence room on a shelf beneath an empty printer box. Nolan had seen it before while moving cases but had never taken the time to read more than a few entries. He pulled it out now, cleared a space on a table, and began turning the pages. Forty-three property entries appeared in the portion he checked: cars, cash, jewelry, electronics, tools, and personal belongings taken during stops or brief detentions. The estimated listed value in that section reached approximately $312,000.
Some entries bore detailed explanations. Others offered only a name, an abbreviated offense, and a set of initials. Beside many, Hask had written or stamped the same instruction: NO INVENTORY REQUIRED. Nolan looked for return receipts, final forfeiture orders, or records showing that property had been lawfully transferred out of custody. In the section he examined, he found almost none.
He knew the absence of a document from this ledger did not prove the document existed nowhere. That was why the next step mattered. Rather than changing or removing the book, he began photographing the pages in place, including the cover, entry numbers, dates, signatures, and surrounding details. He also wrote down which shelves corresponded to entries he could physically identify. If investigators arrived, he wanted them to be able to determine what he had done rather than rely on his word alone.