Chapter 10 - WHAT RENATA RECORDED
Digital forensics is mostly waiting for bars to move across screens.
That was disappointing.
I had expected something faster from technology.
The technician, Aaron Cho, did not care about my expectations.
"Stop hovering."
"I'm sitting."
"You're hovering emotionally."
Park almost smiled.
We were in a windowless lab beneath police headquarters.
Renata's recovered audio had been copied into three protected evidence images.
Emmett's phone sat powered down inside a signal-blocking bag.
Aaron worked on a duplicate.
"Deleted doesn't mean gone," he said.
"Sometimes."
"How long?"
"If you ask again, longer."
I shut up.
Park had spent the morning dealing with consequences from my alley mistake.
The rideshare driver had declined to press charges for now.
His lawyer had not.
A civil notice had already been filed.
I deserved it.
More importantly, the heirs' attorneys had begun circulating the video.
Their story was simple.
Renata was the daughter of a violent former criminal.
Her father had threatened wealthy families.
Any accusation from her was part of that pressure campaign.
It was a good story.
That made it dangerous.
Aaron finally spoke.
"Got something."
The audio returned in broken fragments.
At first, normal party noise.
Music.
Glassware.
Someone arguing about a basketball game.
Renata laughing at something I could not hear.
The sound of her laugh punched straight through me.
I had not heard it since the attack.
Then her voice moved closer to the phone.
"Emmett, I asked you a question."
Emmett answered.
"I told you, I don't know anything about my grandfather's foundation stuff."
"You have an archive project."
"That doesn't mean I read every box."
"Did you see Elena Salgado's name?"
A pause.
"No."
Renata said, "You're lying."
Park wrote the timestamp.
The file skipped.
Next, Santiago.
"Why are you asking about nineteen-year-old accounting records at a party?"
Renata.
"Why do you care?"
Santiago laughed.
"I don't."
Then Maurice.
"Your dad is that import guy, right?"
Renata said, "What does my dad have to do with this?"
Maurice answered, "Maybe ask him."
The audio cut again.
Aaron recovered another segment.
This one had less music.
A hallway maybe.
Renata breathing.
A door opening.
An older male voice.
Marcus.
"You look so much like Elena around the eyes."
My stomach twisted.
Renata said, "Who are you?"
"A friend of your father's."
"My father doesn't have friends like you."
Marcus laughed softly.
"That's what he wanted you to believe."
Renata said, "Where is my backpack?"
"Safe."
"Give it back."
"When you give us the key."
"I don't have it."
Marcus sighed.
"Your mother was a terrible liar too."
Then came a sentence none of us expected.
"She hid copies because she thought one day you might be smart enough to finish what she started."
Park stopped the audio.
"Copies."
I looked at her.
"Plural."
Aaron resumed.
Renata said, "Copies of what?"
Marcus answered, "Don't insult me."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Then a scrape.
Someone moving furniture.
Santiago said, "She's wasting time."
Maurice said, "My mom said no marks."
The room froze.
Park backed up.
Played it again.
My mom said no marks.
"Senator Beltran knew," I said.
Park lifted a hand.
"It suggests Maurice believed she gave instructions. It does not prove she did."
"He used her name."
"Children lie about parents."
"He's twenty."
"Rich twenty-year-olds are still children when consequences arrive."
Fair.
The next recovered fragment was worse.
A thud.
Renata crying out.
Emmett saying, "Stop. Stop, man. This is insane."
Santiago breathing hard.
Marcus saying nothing.
Then Maurice.
"Where's the card?"
Renata.
"I don't have it."
Another impact.
I stood up.
Park put her hand on my shoulder.
"Sit."
"I can't listen to this."
"Then leave."
I hated her.
She was right.
I walked into the hallway and leaned against the wall.
My hands shook.
Not rage this time.
Helplessness.
That emotion had no old skill attached to it.
You cannot intimidate helplessness.
You cannot buy it.
You cannot make it disappear before breakfast.
It just sits in your chest and waits.
Ten minutes later, Park came out.
"We have enough to charge assault."
"All three?"
"Santiago definitely. Maurice conspiracy and unlawful imprisonment, possibly more. Emmett depends on what else we recover and what he admits."
"Marcus?"
"We need him in the room."
"His voice is there."
"Defense will challenge identification. We build it properly."
"What about the senator?"
"We build that properly too."
I rubbed my face.
"I hate that sentence."
"Good cases are made of boring sentences."
Aaron opened the lab door.
"There's one more fragment."
We went back in.
He played it.
Renata's voice was faint.
"You killed her."
Marcus answered immediately.
"No."
"You killed my mother."
"No, Renata."
Then his voice changed.
Almost gentle.
"Your father did."
The file ended.
I stared at the waveform.
Park watched me carefully.
"What did he mean?"
"I don't know."
This time the answer was true.
Then my phone rang.
Mateo.
I almost ignored it.
Something made me answer.
"Daniel," he said.
His voice sounded wrong.
"What happened?"
"Luis Marron is alive."
I stood.
"Where?"
"He called me."
"Why?"
Mateo took a breath.
"He says he knows who caused Elena's crash."
---
(To be continued)
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