Page 42 of State of the Union (First Family 3)

“Try telling that to the mayor and the city council and everyone calling for my head and the chief’s head on a silver platter. How, they want to know, could we have let a case like this go unsolved for eleven years and then closed it in a matter of days, like we did the Worthington case? This has happened on our watch, and we’re responsible.”

“What’s more important?” Sam asked, her stomach cramping with anxiety as she went toe to toe with her beloved captain. “To save lives or protect our careers?”

Jeannie gasped.

“I guess we’re going to find out which is more important to the people who matter,” Malone said.

“I have to believe it’ll matter more to them that we solved these cases than it does how long it took. Nine little kids were rescued, along with Carisma. Surely that counts for something.”

“You’d better hope so,” Malone said as he stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

“Whoa,” Jeannie said. “I’ve never seen him like that.”

“Me either,” Sam said.

“What’s our plan?” Gonzo asked Sam.

“I want the reports Stahl filed on these cases when they first happened.”

“I’m way ahead of you, LT,” Gonzo said. “I pulled them first thing, and they’re some of the best fiction you’ll ever read.” He handed printouts to her and Jeannie detailing the many steps Stahl claimed he had taken to investigate the Worthington and Deasly cases. “This is what your dad and others were seeing. This is why they didn’t press him about what was being done, because to read his reports, everything was being done.”

“LaToya Deasly told me she only saw him once and then never heard from him again,” Jeannie said, scanning the report. “But he details multiple lengthy meetings with her. Where was this? I never saw anything about this in the files I had.”

“There was nothing in the Worthington files either,” Sam said.

“The reports were archived,” Gonzo said.

Sam felt a zing of electricity that went straight down her backbone. “Only captain or above can archive files.”

“Which means someone intentionally archived these reports—someone at the captain level or above,” Gonzo said.

“Is it possible to see who did it?” Sam asked, recalling when this had come up before, but fairly certain it wasn’t possible to tell.

“Not at our level.”

“How were you able to find out they were archived?” Sam asked.

“I asked Archie to dig deeper and see if he could find anything buried on Worthington and Deasly,” Gonzo said, referring to Lieutenant Archelotta, who ran the IT division. “These are what he found.”

“There’s got to be more,” Sam said. “This was intentional. Stahl created these reports, and then someone buried them. I want to know who did that.”

“It was probably Conklin,” Jeannie said of their disgraced former deputy chief. “He would’ve been a captain then.”

“Conklin hated Stahl as much as anyone,” Sam said. “I can’t believe he would’ve done anything to help him cover his tracks.”

“What if Stahl had something on him?” Gonzo asked.

“I suppose that’s possible,” Sam conceded. “Is it possible to archive something without going through a captain?”

“No.”

“We might never know the whole story,” Sam said, “but this is enough for us to show Malone and the chief that Stahl was documenting efforts that never actually happened. It might get the dogs off our backs.”

“Or would that open a bigger can of worms?” Gonzo asked.

“That question is above my pay grade,” Sam said. “Good work on this, Gonzo. It helps to have something to work with.”

“What’s next?” he asked.