Some had supposedly been removed by officers who had not been inside the building when the system recorded their access.
Someone had been manipulating the evidence system.
The investigation immediately expanded.
Simone spent the night reading old reports.
One case involved a nurse named Marcus Bell.
Another involved a bakery owner named Denise Alvarez.
A third involved a seventeen-year-old boy named Jordan Price.
Their stories were different.
Their circumstances were different.
But the pattern was remarkably similar.
A traffic stop.
A search.
A discovery.
An arrest.
Then months of confusion.
Simone asked for every file.
"Twenty-seven reopened complaints," Dawson said.
"Start with the oldest."
"What are we looking for?"
"Everything."
They worked until sunrise.
At 5:42 a.m., Dawson placed a folder on the table.
"Simone."
She looked up.
"What?"
"This isn't just Mercer."
He opened the folder.
Several signatures appeared repeatedly.
One belonged to Lieutenant Peter Harlan.
Mercer's direct supervisor.
Harlan had approved multiple disputed reports.
He had rejected civilian complaints.
He had recommended Mercer for commendations.
And he had authorized evidence transfers that now appeared questionable.
Simone leaned back.
"Bring me everything on Harlan."
Dawson nodded.
"Already requested."
At 6:10 a.m., the department's IT team discovered something else.
Harlan had attempted to delete messages from his department phone.
He had failed.
The device had already been mirrored.
The recovered messages contained strange expressions.
"Insurance."
"Contributors."
"Street adjustments."
Simone stared at the screen.
"What do those mean?"
Dawson answered.
"We're about to find out."
By seven in the morning, they had identified a network.
Not every officer was involved.
But enough were.
The problem was no longer whether Grant Mercer had planted evidence.
The problem was how long he had been able to do it.
And who had protected him.
Simone stood before a wall covered with case numbers.
"We aren't investigating one bad traffic stop."
Ruiz looked at her.
"No."
"We're investigating a system that made bad traffic stops possible."
Marcus Bell arrived at the Professional Standards building carrying a folder filled with papers.
He was thirty-two years old and worked as an emergency-room nurse.
Two years earlier, he had been driving home after a twelve-hour night shift when Grant Mercer stopped him.
Mercer claimed Marcus had been driving erratically.
Marcus denied it.
He was searched.
His vehicle was searched.
A packet was allegedly found in the trunk.
Marcus spent four days in jail.
His hospital suspended him.
His apartment application collapsed because of the arrest record.
And his family spent thousands of dollars on legal fees.
Eventually the case fell apart.
But the damage remained.
"I thought nobody believed me," Marcus said.
Simone listened.
"Did anyone ever apologize?"
Marcus shook his head.
"Not once."
"I apologize."
Marcus looked at her.
"You weren't the officer."
"No. But I represent the department."
He looked down at the folder.
"I don't want an apology if the next person gets the same treatment."
Simone nodded.
"Neither do I."
That became the principle guiding the investigation.
Not punishment for one officer.
Protection for the next citizen.
Denise Alvarez told a similar story.
Her bakery depended on a delivery van.
When Mercer stopped her before sunrise, officers searched the vehicle.
They claimed they found drugs.
Then one officer quietly suggested that the problem could disappear if she surrendered money from her payroll account.
Denise refused.
Her van was impounded.
Her bakery nearly closed.
She cried when she told Simone about it.
"I had employees depending on me."
Simone wrote everything down.
"Did you report the officers?"
"I tried."
"What happened?"
"They said there wasn't enough evidence."
Simone closed the notebook.
"There will be now."
The third meeting was with Jordan Price.
He was older now, but Simone could still see the seventeen-year-old boy described in the original report.
Jordan had been driving his mother's car.
Mercer had described him as nervous.
That single word had apparently justified everything that followed.