Chapter 4: The Men Who Came When I Called
Callahan arrived in thirty-eight minutes.
Price was two cars behind him.
They pulled up in separate unmarked vehicles, both dark blue, both with the quiet authority of cars that don't need lights to make people move.
The crowd parted without being asked.
Special Agent Dana Callahan was fifty-one, tall, with close-cropped silver hair and the unhurried walk of someone who had never once needed to rush to feel powerful.
She looked at my windshield first.
Then at the sledgehammer on the ground.
Then at Mercer.
She didn't say anything for a moment.
Then: "Whose hammer?"
Mercer said nothing.
"Sergeant Mercer," Callahan said, in a tone that suggested she already knew and was simply being polite, "is that your department-issued equipment?"
"It's—" He stopped.
Started again.
"It was in my vehicle."
"Okay." Callahan pulled out a small notebook.
Not a phone.
A notebook.
Old habit.
"And you removed it from your vehicle because?"
"I had reason to believe the vehicle's identification had been tampered with."
"And the sledgehammer assists with verifying identification how, exactly?"
Mercer's jaw moved.
No words came out.
Agent Price had circled to the Bugatti's passenger side.
He was photographing the windshield with a proper field camera, working methodically, corner to corner.
Every few frames he paused and noted something in his own notebook.
Callahan looked at Cross.
"Deputy Cross.
Your body camera is active?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"From what point?"
Cross glanced at Mercer.
The glance lasted less than a second, but Callahan caught it.
I could tell because she wrote something down before Cross answered.
"From the initial stop," Cross said.
"Good." She held out her hand.
"I'll need that footage preserved.
I'm going to ask you to remove the camera and hand it to Agent Price directly."
Cross unclipped the camera from his chest without hesitation.
Mercer watched him do it.
"Sergeant Mercer," Callahan said, turning back, "your body camera."
"It malfunctioned."
Callahan looked at the camera on his chest.
The small indicator light was dark.
"When did it malfunction?"
"Before the stop."
"Before the stop," she repeated.
She wrote it down.
I had stayed quiet since they arrived.
That was deliberate too.
Callahan didn't need help.
She was doing exactly what I would have done.
Mercer seemed to realize the dynamic was changing.
"I want to call my union rep."
"You're not under arrest," Callahan said pleasantly.
"You can make any call you like.
I'd just ask that you stay on scene until we've completed the initial documentation."
He pulled out his phone.
Callahan came to stand beside me.
She kept her voice low.
"Webb gave me the transmission highlights on the drive over." She looked at the Bugatti.
"He called it deliberate."
"It was."
"The VIN check came back clean before the first swing?"
"He confirmed it himself.
I heard him radio it in."
Callahan nodded slowly.
"Okay." She looked at Mercer, who had turned his back to us and was speaking quietly into his phone.
"He know what he's looking at?"
"He's starting to."
"Good." She tucked her notebook under her arm.
"Price is going to need your onboard camera footage.
The Bugatti's system — does it run continuously?"
"Continuous loop.
Triggered backup on impact.
It should have everything from the lane change forward."
"The lane change he claimed you didn't signal."
"Which I did."
Callahan almost smiled.
"Of course you did." She turned toward Price.
"Marcus.
Onboard camera."
Price looked up from the windshield.
"Already on the list."
Mercer finished his call and turned around.
His expression had changed.
Not softer.
Harder.
The kind of hard that comes when someone has been told by someone they trust that the situation is worse than they thought.
"I'd like to make a statement," he said.
"You'll have that opportunity," Callahan said.
"At the field office."
He blinked.
"You're bringing me in?"
"I'm inviting you in.
To give a voluntary statement." She paused.
"Unless you'd prefer to wait for a less voluntary arrangement."
The union rep on the phone had clearly told him to cooperate.
Mercer knew it.
The muscles in his jaw worked, and then he nodded.
"Fine."
Callahan gestured for Price to continue.
She came back to me once more.
"Reeves.
How are you holding up?"
"Fine."
She looked at me the way people look when they know fine is not the full answer and have decided not to push.
"Webb wants you in the debrief.
Tomorrow morning, not tonight.
Tonight you go home."
"I need to arrange a tow for the car."
"Price will handle that.
It's evidence now anyway." She said it matter-of-factly.
"We'll get it to the FBI garage.
Fulton County is going to want their own assessment, and frankly so will you when you file the damages claim."
I looked at the Bugatti one more time.
The silver web in the glass.
The dent in the hood.
"He really thought I was nobody," I said.
I hadn't meant to say it out loud.
Callahan followed my gaze.
"They always do," she said.
"Right up until they don't."
She walked back toward Price.
Mercer was watching me from across the asphalt.
His arms were at his sides now.
The sledgehammer was still on the ground between us, exactly where he'd left it.
He hadn't picked it up.
He wouldn't pick it up.
It belonged to the story now.
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
Atlanta area code, but not one I recognized.
I answered.
"Special Agent Reeves?" The voice was male, young, slightly breathless.
"This is Marcus Tully.
I'm a reporter with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
We've received footage from multiple witnesses at the scene.
I was hoping to get a comment before we go to press tonight."
I looked at Callahan.
She was twenty feet away, her back turned.
"How did you get this number?" I asked.
A pause.
"I'd rather not say."
That pause told me more than the answer would have.
Someone had given him my number.
Someone who knew it.
"No comment," I said, and ended the call.
I stood there for a moment in the afternoon sun, turning that over.
May you like
Someone had fed my direct line to a reporter within the first hour of the incident.
The question was who.
