Chapter 10 - The Locker Marked Seventeen
They canceled the transport. Pike called it a scheduling problem, although I could see he wanted to call it something else. Investigator Price was escorted to records. I was marched back to segregation, where the token cut a crescent into my palm.
A state investigator had requested Camera Three, the intake inventory, and the employee login history for the recorder.
Dee passed my door on her way to medical. "You're welcome," she whispered.
"You could get another charge."
"I could also get my son to hear I'm not the kind of mother who watches somebody get buried."
"Why are you helping me?"
Her eyes moved away. "Mina helped my kid. Sent him birthday cards when I couldn't afford stamps. I kept quiet when they said she died."
Late that afternoon, an officer brought me to an interview room. Naomi sat behind a scratched table. No lawyer, no promises, no recording hidden under her jacket—just an official evidence recorder on the table and a clear notice describing my rights.
"You don't have to answer," she said. "And I can't fix your conviction. But I can investigate whether anyone is destroying state records."
I told her about the purple thread, the unsigned bag, the earlier timestamp and the token. I put the brass disk between us.
Naomi photographed it from both sides. "This is an old numbered laundry locker token. Locker Seventeen is in storage B-17."
"Can you open it?"
"With a warrant or a valid administrative inspection order. I'll request the safest route."
Her phone rang. She read the caller's name and stood.
"Stay here," she said. "Do not let them move you without written notice."
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Through the door I heard her say, "What do you mean the storage room flooded?"
Then she added, very quietly, "And why was the sprinkler valve turned by hand?"
