Chapter 4 - THE BASEBALL BAT WITHOUT A NUMBER
Sergeant Hayes contacted Rebecca at six in the morning.
The station preservation system had finished duplicating body camera footage.
One recording came from Officer Ryan Cole, the rookie who switched off his camera when I entered.
His device had captured events before the lobby confrontation.
Ryan responded to Brooke’s emergency call with another officer.
When they reached Mom’s house, Helena stood near the driveway soaked by rain. She held her wrist and repeatedly said Brooke attacked her.
The baseball bat lay near the garage.
Ryan photographed it.
A dark stain and strands of silver hair were visible on the wood.
Brooke told officers Mom had carried it outside.
Arthur confirmed the lie.
Ryan placed the bat inside an evidence sleeve.
Captain Landry arrived in his private vehicle.
His first question was not whether anyone needed medical help.
“Has Clara Carter been contacted?”
Arthur answered:
“Mom called her from the bathroom.”
Landry cursed.
He told Ryan to stop recording because the matter involved sensitive family information.
Ryan complied.
He believed the camera shut down completely.
It continued recording audio for another thirty seconds during its closing process.
Landry said:
“Put the bat in my trunk. If it reaches evidence, the lab will make this impossible to contain.”
Ryan asked what to list in the report.
“Nothing until Brooke settles on a statement.”
The footage established deliberate evidence suppression.
It also placed the bat inside Landry’s vehicle.
Investigators searched the captain’s car under warrant.
The trunk was empty.
Mud from the liner matched footprints in the station evidence corridor.
Landry had brought the bat into the building, then removed it from the property room before preservation activated.
The evidence clerk, Nora Ellis, admitted he ordered her to create a temporary tag without entering the item into the digital system.
“He said the weapon might contain privileged medical material,” she said.
“Did that make sense?” Rebecca asked.
“No.”
“Why did you obey?”
“He controls promotions, overtime, and discipline.”
Fear explained the decision.
It did not make the missing evidence harmless.
Nora showed investigators a storage cabinet inside the property room.
Landry kept an old brass key for a basement records area officially closed because of flooding.
Sergeant Hayes had seen him enter it during several elder related cases.
The basement door was sealed pending a warrant.
While that process moved forward, I reviewed Miriam Cole’s complaint.
Miriam had called the Attorney General’s consumer line eight months earlier.
She claimed Northbridge employees pressured her to enter temporary memory care after a minor fall.
Westbridge officers described her refusal as paranoia.
Captain Landry signed the report.
A physician declared her incapable after one fifteen minute examination.
Her home was sold to a Northbridge property affiliate.
She was moved between three facilities.
Her daughter lived in Oregon and claimed no one informed her until after the sale.
The complaint reached Martin Ellison.
He closed it for insufficient evidence.
I called Miriam’s daughter, Sarah Cole.
She answered with controlled anger.
“My mother was not confused.”
“Did you speak with her after the placement?”
“Twice. Then Northbridge said calls upset her.”
“Did she mention Helena Carter?”
“Yes.”
Miriam and Mom had compared letters concerning their properties.
Both received notices referring to loans they never authorized.
Miriam believed several widows in Westbridge were being targeted.
She copied documents onto a memory card and asked Helena to keep it.
The card Mom gave me might contain more than her house video.
Digital analysts found a hidden partition.
Inside were photographs of deeds, guardianship orders, police reports, and financial transfers involving seventeen elderly residents.
Every case included a Westbridge police contact.
Most included Captain Landry.
Several reports were signed by officers who denied writing them.
The transfers led through Northbridge into a company named Harbor Municipal Consulting.
That company received payments from police unions, care facilities, and a state legal services contractor.
One payment went directly to Martin Ellison’s wife.
The description read home renovation reimbursement.
Martin had told me his wife inherited money for their renovation.
I remembered helping him select an architect.
My mentor had allowed me to admire a kitchen partly paid for with stolen assets.
Rebecca ordered preservation of Martin’s financial records.
I was removed from direct decision making because of our relationship.
That was proper.
It still felt like betrayal.
The warrant for the station basement arrived.
Investigators opened the locked records room.
There was no flood damage.
Shelves held body cameras, removed hard drives, unsigned reports, medication bottles, and property files from elder abuse cases.
The baseball bat rested on a table.
Its original evidence sleeve had been replaced.
Beside it lay a wet beige cardigan resembling Mom’s.
Someone had planned to create new physical evidence linking her to the weapon.
On the wall was a map of Westbridge.
Seventeen homes were marked in red.
Mom’s house was number eighteen.
May you like
A nineteenth mark circled my own address in Hartford.
Continue to the next part: The secret basement proves Helena was only one target, while the mark on Clara’s home reveals the conspiracy intended to control the investigator before she could expose it.
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