He started pulling old reports himself, using every favor he’d earned in twenty years. Tire analysis, scene photos, and officer logs from that night. Small glitches showed—wrong times, missing signatures, patrol cars marked present but never mentioned in the write-up.
The more he found, the more doors closed. A captain reminded him that grief clouded judgment. A lieutenant suggested grief and trauma counseling. Someone left a printout of his original complaint on his desk with a sticky note: “Don’t dig him up. Let him rest.”