"I did."
"What happened?"
Teresa laughed bitterly.
"They said there wasn't enough evidence."
Elena lowered her eyes.
"Did you have a lawyer?"
"No."
"Did anyone help you?"
"No."
Teresa reached into a drawer.
She pulled out an envelope.
"I kept this."
Inside was a copy of her original complaint.
Elena read it.
The details were almost identical to her own experience.
But there was another similarity.
The official report had changed the nature of the encounter.
Teresa had said she was walking home.
The report described her as "loitering near private property."
Elena looked up.
"Did you ever get an explanation?"
"No."
"Would you be willing to talk to a lawyer now?"
Teresa looked nervous.
Then she nodded.
"Yes."
Elena's request for body-camera footage received an unexpected response.
The department said the footage could not be located.
That surprised her.
According to the report, Officer Kelly had activated her camera.
The department's own policy required footage to be retained.
Elena filed another request.
This time, she asked for the camera activation log.
The log existed.
It showed the camera had been activated at 8:19 a.m.
The incident report had been created at 9:04.
The camera had supposedly recorded for twenty-six minutes.
But the department said the file was unavailable.
Elena contacted Marcus.
He worked in information systems.
"Can deleted footage be recovered?"
"Sometimes."
"Even if someone says it doesn't exist?"
Marcus frowned.
"Why?"
"I need to know whether a file was ever stored."
He examined the metadata Elena had obtained.
Then he called her.
"Elena."
"Yes?"
"Someone accessed the evidence system."
"When?"
"Two days after your detention."
Her stomach tightened.
"Who?"
"The system shows an administrative account."
"Whose?"
Marcus paused.
"Internal affairs."
Elena said nothing.
The story had just become much larger.
Someone had accessed the evidence system after the incident.
Someone had opened the file.
Someone had apparently done something to the footage.
And Elena still didn't know why.
Elena contacted civil-rights attorney David Mercer.
He listened without interrupting.
When she finished, he asked one question.
"Do you have the records?"
"All of them."
"Bring everything."
His office was small, quiet, and filled with filing cabinets.
Elena placed the documents on his desk.
David read them for nearly an hour.
Finally he looked up.
"You may have something here."
"What?"
"Not just an isolated encounter."
He pointed toward the stack.
"Pattern."
Elena nodded.
"That's what I thought."
"Patterns are difficult to prove."
"I know."
"But these records help."
David opened Teresa's complaint.
Then the state investigator's findings.
Then Elena's dispatch record.
"There's another problem," he said.
"What?"
"The department's report says the officer had a description."
"The dispatch record doesn't."
"Exactly."
He leaned back.
"Who was the caller?"
"I don't know."
"We need to find out."
Elena looked at him.
"Can we?"
"Maybe."
"And the missing footage?"
"That's even more interesting."
David smiled slightly.
"Because missing evidence can create questions."
Elena gathered the papers.
"What do we do now?"
"We request everything."
"Everything?"
"Training records. Complaints. disciplinary records. dispatch communications. supervisor notes. Evidence-access logs."
Elena nodded.
David added:
"And we don't accuse anyone of anything until the records support it."
"Understood."
For the first time since the sidewalk incident, Elena felt that she wasn't standing alone.