Chapter 6 - THE TAPE
Walter's younger voice sounded angrier than he remembered.
The recording began at 6:32 p.m.
Calvin asked:
“Did you enter Annex C after your shift?”
Walter:
“No.”
A lie.
Rebecca glanced at him.
Walter nodded once.
He knew.
Calvin asked about the camera.
Walter denied touching it.
Another lie.
Then the money.
“Did you remove currency from evidence Box 3A?”
“No.”
“Did you open Box 3A?”
“No.”
“Did you see Box 3A?”
“Not that night.”
Calvin pressed.
Walter cursed.
Asked for his lawyer twice.
The old audio showed a messy interview, not a polished confession.
At 7:03, Calvin said:
“I'm going to put what we've discussed into a written statement.”
Walter answered:
“Put whatever you want. I'm not signing it.”
Rebecca stopped playback.
Nobody moved.
Walter stared at the speaker.
“There.”
Calvin looked down.
Rebecca resumed.
At 7:11, another man's voice entered.
Assistant District Attorney Leonard Price.
Younger then.
“Where are we?”
Calvin:
“He admits going back inside?”
Walter immediately:
“No, I didn't.”
Price:
“We have badge access.”
Calvin:
“Outer annex. Not cage.”
Then papers moving.
Price:
“Get a clean summary. We can use it for charging.”
Calvin:
“He's not adopting it.”
Price:
“Then write what the evidence says he did.”
Silence in the courtroom.
Calvin closed his eyes.
Price continued:
“Make it usable.”
Walter looked at Calvin.
“That sentence.”
Calvin nodded.
“That is why I wrote first person.”
Rebecca asked:
“Why first person?”
Calvin rubbed his face.
“Because I had been trained that if a suspect later adopted a summary, first person was clearer.”
“Did you expect him to adopt it?”
“Not then.”
“Then why do it?”
“Because Price told me to.”
No grand philosophy.
A bad instruction.
An investigator following it.
Then the recording skipped.
Twenty-three minutes missing.
The file resumed at 7:54.
Walter was no longer in the room.
Calvin and Price were talking.
Price said:
“Box was light before he ever went back there.”
Rebecca stopped playback again.
Walter frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Calvin stared at the table.
“I had forgotten that line.”
“Convenient.”
Walter said.
Calvin did not argue.
Rebecca replayed it.
Price:
“Box was light before he ever went back there. That doesn't change the access case.”
Calvin:
“How light?”
Price:
“Voss is sorting it.”
Calvin:
“Then what are we saying Hayes took?”
Price:
“Whatever is actually missing.”
The recording ended.
Walter sat slowly.
The state had accused him of taking $286,000.
The number had been repeated in news coverage for months.
Now the prosecutor's own voice suggested the evidence box had already been short before Walter entered the annex.
Rebecca looked toward Nina.
“Find Voss.”
Harold Voss had been the evidence supervisor.
Retired twelve years.
Alive.
Living forty miles north.
He answered Nina's call.
May you like
And before she explained the new hearing, he said:
“I wondered how long it would take somebody to ask about Box 3A.”
