My radio crackles. "Sheriff Negrorio?" Deputy Torres's voice comes through. "I think I found your dispatcher."
"Location?"
"Evidence room. She's reorganizing."
I take the stairs to the basement two at a time.
The evidence room is a secured area requiring keycard access and a six-digit code. It contains physical evidence from every active and cold case in the county. Chain of custody protocols are strict. Only authorized personnel are permitted entry.
The door is wide open.
Jessica is sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by evidence boxes, a legal pad balanced on her knee and a pen tucked behind her ear. She's sorted the boxes into neat rows based on some organizational system I cannot immediately identify.
"Sheriff!" She looks up with such a bright smile. "Did you know your evidence room has no logical organization whatsoever? I found a box from 2019 sandwiched between two from 2007. And the labeling is inconsistent. Some boxes have case numbers, some have names, but no context."
I stand in the doorway. Processing.
"You're in the evidence room."
"Yes."
"A secured facility requiring authorized access."
"The door was propped open. Deputy Fowler went in to get something, and I noticed the disorganization, and I thought I could help while things were quiet." She gestures at the boxes around her. "I've developed a system. Chronological by year, then alphabetical by primary suspect surname, with color-coded tags for case status. Open cases in red, closed in green, cold cases in blue."
"You've been in here for how long?"
She blinks. "Maybe half an hour? I just got started when I found one that was mislabeled, and then I started cross-referencing..."
She stops. Looks at me. Her expression cycles through realization, mortification, panic.
"The dispatch station. I forgot. Again."
"Deputy Torres has been covering." I step into the room and examine her organizational system more closely. "But you've accomplished something my deputies have failed to achieve in years."
She scrambles to her feet, scattering papers. "You're not mad?"
"Deputy Fowler has been unable to locate the evidence for the Parsons case for six weeks." I point to a box she's set aside. "Is that it?"
She checks her notes. "If Parsons is the suspected insurance fraud from March? Then yes. It was filed under Peterson. Someone transposed the letters."
I stare at the box. At the legal pad. At Jessica, standing amid the chaos she's both created and organized, looking like she expects to be escorted from the building.
Then I smile.
Jessica's eyes go wide. "Did you just smile?"
"I'm expressing approval of your organizational methodology."
"That's definitely a smile. An actual smile." She moves closer, her earlier panic forgotten. "Deputy Marcum told me you don't smile. He said he's worked with you for four years and he has never seen you smile.”
"Deputy Marcum exaggerates."
"He said you have a 'resting sheriff face.' Those were his exact words."
"Deputy Marcum will be assigned parking duty for the foreseeable future."
Jessica laughs. The sound fills the evidence room, bright and warm and entirely inappropriate for a secured facility containing criminal evidence.
