4338.213 · August 1, 2018 AD
When Evidence Falls Out of Your Pocket
There are exactly three types of detectives: those who've never carried stolen evidence, those who carry it competently, and those who fumble it onto interview tables in front of their sergeant. Sarah discovers which category she belongs to whilst watching Claiborne's eyes narrow with recognition. Then comes the dismissal. The questions about promises. The corridor confrontation. And finally, the bathroom where ten minutes of scalding water proves utterly insufficient for washing away what she's done.
Competence is measured in small things. Sitting down without incident. Retrieving notebooks without drama. Not transforming routine interviews into career-ending disasters through simple clumsiness.
But exhaustion makes fingers clumsy. Stress makes pockets feel deeper than they are. And when you're carrying evidence that could destroy you, Murphy's Law stops being theoretical and becomes biographical.
The interview barely starts before Claiborne's watching Sarah instead of Gladys. Before promises made in patrol cars echo as accusations through interview rooms. Before dismissals happen with surgical precision and lies become necessary survival tools.
Some people handle pressure by maintaining perfect composure under scrutiny. Others make it three steps into the bathroom before their legs stop cooperating. Sarah belongs firmly in the second category—collapsing against sinks, shaking under scalding water, sobbing with the kind of violence that suggests delayed reactions finally catching up.
Cody Jennings has a name. Gladys knows more than she's saying. Claiborne suspects more than he's asking. Karl killed someone and every choice Sarah's made since then has been wrong.
Ten minutes isn't enough time to fix anything. But it's all the breakdown she can afford before walking back into a station where everyone's watching and nobody knows quite how much she's lost.
