She had not stopped thinking about Caldwell County. She would not stop thinking about it for a long time. It had the particular weight of a thing you finished but didn’t complete. Because the finishing was hers and the completion belonged to a process that would outlast her involvement.
Four to one vote. IA determination. DOJ monitor appointed. Edson on leave, termination proceedings pending. Beaumont on leave, removal hearing scheduled. Taggart under AG inquiry, attorney retained, immunity discussions ongoing. Seventeen documented incidents in the file. Seventeen women, five years, one gas station. The camera on the pump pillar recording. These were real. They were in the record. The record did not disappear when she turned to the next page.
It was Spates who told her about the trainee. The young deputy, training patch, low voice, Ms. Wynn, had put in for a transfer to DeKalb County in November and been approved in December. He had left Caldwell County before the formal hearing, before the board vote, before any of the consequences that were still accruing.
He had sent a letter, not to Tamara, to Spates. An envelope with no return address, postmarked from a zip code in DeKalb County, containing a single sheet of paper with a handwritten phone number and three words. Ask about Taggart.
Spates had not called the number in March, when the hearing was approaching and the strategy required careful management of what was disclosed when. He had not called it in April, when the IA determination was pending. He had not called it in May, when the DOJ letter arrived, or in June, when the board voted. He called it in July.
The number rang four times. A voicemail picked up. And the voice on the outgoing message was young, the right age, and said only a first name. Marcus. Spates left a message. He called Tamara afterward. “The trainee,” she said. “His name is Marcus Prieto. He transferred to DeKalb in December.” “What’s on the phone number?” “Voicemail. He hasn’t called back.” “He will,” she said. “Give him time.” “How much time?”
She thought about the closed door and what existed on the other side of it. The conversation in the parking lot or the diner or wherever the agreement about the rental agreement had been made. The person, not Edson, not Beaumont, someone adjacent, someone present, who had watched what happened and had driven home and had lain awake and had transferred counties three weeks later. “He’s not ready yet,” she said. “But he sent the number and that means he’s working up to it.” “What if he never calls back?” “Then he doesn’t call back. But he sent the number.” She looked at the notebook. “People don’t send numbers they don’t intend to use eventually.”
Marcus Prieto called Spates back on a Tuesday in August. The call lasted twenty-two minutes. Spates recorded it with Prieto’s consent. Afterward, Spates called Tamara. “You were right,” he said. “What did he say?” “He was in the building November 6th, the afternoon shift. He heard Edson talking to someone in the back hallway. Edson and one other person, voice he didn’t recognize, not Beaumont. He couldn’t hear the content. But he saw Edson come out of the hallway, go to his locker, and come out with an evidence bag, empty. He watched Edson write on the bag’s label. He watched Edson put the bag back in his locker without putting anything in it.”
She was quiet. “A labeled bag,” she said. “For the rental agreement that he never filled because he destroyed it first or gave it to someone.” “Prieto doesn’t know which. He only knows the bag.” She thought about the intake property log, the absence, the careful absence of a document that should have appeared in three separate places. Personal property. Evidence log. Incident report attachment. And appeared in none of them.