Chapter 10 - SOMEBODY COMES BACK FOR THE MOTORCYCLE
The microSD card remained with the independent investigators.
Nobody played it in Marcus’s apartment.
Nobody plugged it into a laptop.
Proper imaging first.
Write-blocked device.
Hash value.
Duplicate forensic copy.
Slow.
Correct.
That night somebody tried to enter the wedding garage.
Venue security called police at 2:11 a.m.
Rear camera showed a man in a baseball cap testing the service door.
Then moving toward the motorcycle entrance.
He carried no visible weapon.
He left when a motion light activated.
License plate camera caught part of a car.
Investigators identified the vehicle the next morning.
Registered to:
Northline Litigation Services.
A private investigations contractor.
Naomi recognized the company immediately.
They worked for Mason Vale’s defense team.
That did not mean defense counsel ordered a break-in.
It meant investigators had another problem.
Northline’s owner answered quickly.
The car had been assigned to contract investigator Travis Bell.
Bell said he went to the venue because he heard rumors that evidence relevant to the Vale case had been found during Naomi Carter’s wedding.
How?
“A source.”
Who?
He refused without counsel.
Did he enter?
“No.”
Camera showed him testing the door.
He called it:
“Checking whether the venue was open.”
Nobody found that persuasive.
Police issued a trespass warning while prosecutors and defense counsel fought over preservation.
Mason Vale’s attorneys formally denied authorizing any unlawful entry.
They also filed an emergency motion demanding access to any newly discovered Nightglass evidence that might bear on their case.
That part was legitimate.
Naomi watched from outside the screen.
Her current prosecution was now materially delayed.
Trial moved six weeks.
Defense had a right to investigate the old VIN evidence.
The office had a duty to preserve and disclose exculpatory material too.
The wedding discovery did not simply help prosecutors.
It could undermine them.
Then the microSD image opened.
Hundreds of files.
Most corrupted.
Elias had been using the digital camera on interval mode.
The recovered sequence covered three days before the fire.
Naomi appeared.
Pike.
Gloria.
Crane.
Elias.
Customers.
Mechanics.
Then the night before the fire.
2:13 a.m.
A man entered through the wide garage entrance.
Face visible.
Frank Delaney.
The police lieutenant Elias suspected.
He walked toward the Triumph with the disputed VIN.
He opened the seat.
Photographed something.
Then left.
No theft visible.
No arson.
But Delaney had told investigators he had not entered Reed Cycle Works in the week before the fire.
False.
That was significant.
Then the card contained a short audio file.
Elias’s voice.
“If you’re hearing this, I was right about Delaney being here.”
Pause.
“Doesn’t mean he’s the leak.”
Good.
Elias did not overclaim.
Then:
“Crane thinks Pike is cutting corners. Pike thinks Crane is protecting Delaney. I think everybody’s protecting their own case.”
Another pause.
“And Mom thinks if she keeps Marcus out of it, none of this can touch him.”
Naomi listened with independent counsel.
Then Elias said:
“The VIN list Naomi brought is real. One number is wrong.”
Which?
He read it aloud.
The Triumph.
The same VIN now central to Mason Vale’s case.
Elias continued.
“That bike was destroyed.”
Then:
“I watched them crush it.”
Silence.
“If the number is back, somebody made a second identity before the bike ever got to Voss.”
The current case theory shifted.
Prosecutors believed Voss’s network had cloned the VIN.
Elias said the clone existed earlier.
Possibly inside police impound.
That could mean some current evidence traced to government evidence-handling failures rather than exclusively to Mason Vale’s network.
Defense counsel would love it.
Naomi stared at the waveform.
Her current case had just become harder because the hidden evidence told the truth.
Then the audio continued.
“One more thing.”
Elias sounded closer to the microphone.
“If Pike says he sent the intern because he had nobody else, that’s a lie.”
May you like
Naomi went still.
“He sent her because whoever is reading his normal courier logs has a leak.”
