Their headlights swept across the brick wall and went dark.

Hale stood beside me and tapped his pen against the ring of his notebook.

“They can lock the doors,” he said.

I watched a trooper step out of the first cruiser with a clipboard in his hand.

The county had the paper.

The State Patrol had the video.

At eight thirty I sat across from Diane Miller in her office, and she had three copies of the federal petition fanned across the desk.

Captain Vance’s voice came through the speakerphone.