Chapter 5 - LIEUTENANT GRANT'S FIRST LIE
Lieutenant Owen Grant arrived with an attorney.
He denied deleting body-camera footage.
He admitted taking the bat.
Why?
“Chain-of-custody concern.”
Rebecca stared at him.
“You removed evidence from Central Precinct without logging it.”
“I intended to correct the log.”
“When?”
“Later.”
“Why did you take it?”
“My niece said the initial officers mishandled the scene.”
Rebecca’s face did not change.
“Your niece?”
Grant realized his mistake.
He tried again.
“Complainant.”
“She was not the complainant when you took the evidence.”
Silence.
The bat had vanished for forty-seven minutes.
Then reappeared in the evidence locker.
Its surface had been wiped.
Not completely.
But enough to degrade prints and touch DNA.
Grant said:
“I cleaned dirt from it because the bag was contaminated.”
No evidence technician would do that.
Then system logs showed Grant’s physical badge entered Central Precinct at 9:31 a.m.
He had claimed he was at breakfast across town until ten.
His alibi collapsed.
Still, Rebecca needed more.
Then Officer Marcus Bell remembered something.
He saw Grant in the evidence hallway.
Grant told Sergeant Dyer:
“Family situation. Handle it.”
Dyer answered:
“I already changed the narrative.”
That phrase mattered.
May you like
What narrative?
The report that turned Helen into the suspect.
