Eleanor Price was waiting on the porch with two cups of coffee and a yellow legal pad. At sixty-eight, Eleanor had retired from federal litigation but not from the habit of arriving prepared. She wore comfortable shoes and a dark jacket, her white hair drawn into a low knot. She had known Maya since Maya's early years as a lawyer, long before judicial appointments and public ceremonies. She also knew Daniel well enough to recognize the meaning of the empty garage without asking for an explanation.
"Start at the beginning," Eleanor said once they had sat at the kitchen table. "Not with what you think it means. With the first thing you observed."
Maya described the checkpoint, the patrol lights, the officer's questions, and the cloud indicator. Eleanor wrote the times in a narrow column, pausing when Maya explained that the motorcycle had recorded the sheriff's words before either officer claimed to be investigating a theft. They retrieved Daniel's account information from the notebook and verified that the upload had completed. The file remained untouched in secure storage, with the original time markers preserved. They made a working copy for review while retaining the original for authentication later.
When Maya reached the part where Mercer lifted the baton near the instrument panel, Eleanor stopped writing. "Did he strike the motorcycle?" she asked. Maya said he did not, because Hale ordered him to stop after the upload passed ninety percent. Eleanor underlined the point twice and asked whether Ruth's recording showed the exchange.
Maya confirmed that Ruth had remained across the road with her phone aimed at the motorcycle. "Then we have two independent perspectives," Eleanor said. "One recorded what initiated the stop. The other recorded how they reacted when they learned it existed."
"The recordings prove what happened to me," Maya answered. "They don't prove what happened to the other owners."
Eleanor looked at her. "You already think there are other owners?"
"I know there are allegations. I don't know yet whether they're connected. I want us to stay careful about that distinction."
The doorbell rang again as Eleanor was arranging the notes. Ruth Alvarez stood outside holding a canvas file bag thick enough to strain its zipper. She had changed from her roadside blazer into a simple cotton shirt, and her face carried the exhaustion of someone who had spent the afternoon answering calls from people who wanted to know whether she regretted intervening. Ruth accepted Maya's invitation to come inside and placed the bag on the kitchen table. "I've been collecting these for four years," she said. "Most of them never reached a public meeting."
She removed one folder at a time. Denise Porter had lost access to a delivery van needed for her bakery. Marcus Bell had challenged an unexplained fee on his Kawasaki and watched the motorcycle disappear into the county storage system. Out-of-county drivers described choosing to pay large release fees because taking time away from work for repeated hearings would cost more than surrendering their objections. Each file contained some combination of receipts, handwritten letters, title documents, photographs, and unanswered requests for information.