He almost smiled.
Then didn’t.
“Holloway did not create the retired seal image.”
Naomi looked up.
“What?”
“The seal file was stored on an internal courthouse server.”
“Who accessed it?”
“We don't know yet.”
The chief judge frowned.
“So someone inside the courthouse helped him?”
“Possibly.”
Naomi sat back.
This was no longer one detective panicking before a suppression hearing.
Somebody else had provided court material.
Maybe knowingly.
Maybe not.
The commander continued.
“We are locking audit logs.”
Naomi asked:
“What happens to the hearing?”
The chief judge answered:
“Reassigned.”
Naomi immediately shook her head.
“No.”
“Naomi.”
“If Holloway’s goal was to remove me from the hearing, reassigning it gives him exactly what he wanted.”
“You were just assaulted.”
“And?”
“You are potentially a witness.”
Naomi knew he was right.
She hated it.
“Then another judge hears it today.”
“Today?”
“Yes.”
“No continuance requested by police.”
The chief judge studied her.
“You think evidence could disappear.”
“I think a man forged my signature to stop a hearing.”
That ended the argument.
The hearing was reassigned to Judge Evelyn Price.
Same courthouse.
Different floor.
4:30 p.m.
Evidence immediately placed under joint custody.
No single police unit retained control.
The district attorney was notified.
So was the state bureau of investigation.
By evening, Holloway’s career was collapsing.
By midnight, the case was much larger.
The first discovery came from the printer logs.
Holloway printed the fake warrant at 12:22 p.m.
From a workstation inside Narcotics Division.
That established authorship more strongly.
But investigators also found an email.
Sent to Holloway at 11:47.
Anonymous internal account.
One attachment.
A high-resolution image of the old courthouse seal.
Message:
USE THE OLD VERSION. ELECTRONIC SYSTEM IS DOWN FOR SEALED ORDERS.
That explanation was nonsense.
But whoever sent it understood enough court procedure to make it sound plausible.
The internal account belonged to a courthouse employee.
A deputy clerk named Raymond Ellis.
Ellis denied sending it.
His login credentials had been used.
But security footage showed him at lunch across town at the time.
Someone used his account remotely.
Now digital forensics got involved.
The login originated from a courthouse administrative terminal.
Third floor.
Records division.
The investigation narrowed.
Three employees had access.
One had left early.
One was in a meeting.
The third was still in the building when investigators arrived.
Assistant Records Supervisor Lynn Mercer.
She denied everything.
Then they searched her workstation.
Deleted messages.
Payments.
Photos of court forms.
And communications with Holloway.
Naomi learned this two days later.
She sat in a conference room with state investigators.