Chapter 12

CloudView Precinct’s conference room always smelled like burnt coffee and copy paper. Fluorescents hummed. A single window cut the table into bands of light that never warmed the room.

Captain Michael Donovan stood at the whiteboard with a dry-erase marker in his fist like a baton. Behind him: three circles—SEB WALTER / SAVANNAH SPENCER / MOTIVE—connected by arrows that meant little and satisfied nobody.

“Eyes are on us,” he said, voice even. “Press. Mayor’s office. And the D.A. wants regular touchpoints. Assistant District Attorney Jamison will be in to go over particulars.”

Butler rolled his pen between his fingers, energy looking for an outlet. Seth sat back, hands around a paper cup he wasn’t drinking, listening.

“We’re good, Cap,” Butler said. “Tight scene. Tight timeline.”

Donovan nodded once, not committing. “Let’s talk it through one more time before—”

The door opened without a knock.

Fred Jamison walked in like the room belonged to him: tailored suit, cufflinks that caught the light, a cologne you could taste. He offered a half greeting—something in the neighborhood of a nod—and set a leather folio on the table without sitting.

“Gentlemen. Let’s keep this brief.” He glanced at his watch—unnecessary, theatrical. “Public interest is climbing, national pickup is inevitable, and my office is fielding media inquiries by the hour. I need to be confident this case is, and will remain, airtight.”

He said the last word like it was a brand.

Butler leaned forward. “We’re there. We’ve got the lamp, the blood, her prints, the 911 call—”

Jamison raised a palm, not to stop him, to quiet him. “Detective Butler, I’ve read the reports.”

He turned to the board. “Victim: Sebastian Walter. Defendant: Savannah Spencer. Relationship:… unclear.” He faced them again. “Narrative pressure is simple. The evidence must be simpler.”

Donovan capped his marker, moved to the head of the table. “Fred—”

“ADA Jamison,” he corrected, gentle as sandpaper.

“ADA Jamison,” Donovan amended, unbothered. “My detectives know what a clean case looks like. If you have a concern, voice it.”

Jamison’s gaze slid to Seth. “Detective Coudry, you’ve been quiet.”

Seth didn’t shift. “Listening.”

“Good. Then answer me this: everything you have—chain of custody, witness statements, timelines—holds under challenge?”

Seth chose the smaller truth. “Everything we’ve got is solid.”

Jamison heard the seam. “But?”

Seth let the silence sit. Then: “We don’t have motive. Yet.”

“But you have a story.” Jamison’s eyes thinned into a smile. “The defendant kills a man in a house she has no legitimate reason to be in, then calls 911 and refers to him as her husband. The jury doesn’t need a motive to recognize delusion.”

Butler jumped in. “Exactly.”

Jamison ignored him. “Here’s what I don’t want: any whiff of mishandled psychiatric evidence. With the current climate, any defense motion about competency, diminished capacity, or mental health mistreatment puts us on the back foot. The state has taken enough heat. Do you understand me?”

The word psychiatric hung a second longer than the rest.

Donovan stepped in. “Defense hasn’t filed anything yet.”

“They will,” Jamison said. “And when they do, I want a record that looks like this department respects process. Compassionate where required, clinical everywhere else.”

He flicked the folio open with two fingers, scanned a page he’d already memorized. “Detective Butler, your report uses the phrase ‘hysterical’ twice. Change it. ‘Highly distressed’ works. ‘Hysterical’ reads gendered and lazy.”

Color rose in Butler’s jaw. “Noted.”

Jamison closed the folio. “Good. Now—resources. You’ll get them.” He nodded at Donovan, a permission disguised as benevolence. “Overtime, lab priority, whatever keeps this moving. But I don’t want surprises. If I’m going to stand up in front of cameras and call this case strong, it needs to stay strong.”

He checked his watch again as if to end the meeting by decree. “Captain.”

“Fred,” Donovan said, neutral.

Jamison’s smile didn’t touch his eyes. “ADA Jamison,” he corrected out of habit, and left as abruptly as he’d entered. The door sighed shut behind him.

For a long beat the room held its breath.

Butler let out a short laugh that wasn’t humor. “Guy’s a ray of sunshine.”

Donovan rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb, then dropped his hand. “He’s not wrong about language. Clean it up. All of it.”

Butler nodded and opened his notebook. “Yes, sir.”

Donovan looked to Seth. “Thoughts.”

Seth stared at the whiteboard. The arrows. The blank under MOTIVE.

“Everything we have is what we have,” he said. “But the convenience bothers me.” He kept his voice flat, statement not challenge. “Prints, weapon, her call. It reads… easy.”

Butler turned, frown creeping. “You want this harder?”

“I want it true,” Seth said.

Donovan’s mouth twitched—the closest he got to approval. “Then make sure it is.”

He took the capped marker and tapped it twice against the table, decision landing. “I’m authorizing extra hours, priority lab pulls, and a second walk-through of the scene with fresh eyes. Talk to Evidence, pull any outstanding camera canvass. If there’s a psychiatric angle, document every accommodation you’ve made in custody. No gaps for a defense motion to crawl through.”

Butler scribbled, momentum returning. “Copy.”

Donovan looked at both of them, measuring. “I like you boys. And this—” he nodded at the board “—this is a make-or-break career case. Not because of press. Because you don’t get many with this many eyes and this much margin for error. Don’t give anyone a reason to doubt your work.”

He stood, meeting over without saying it. Chairs shuffled. Paper cups hit trash.

In the hallway, the precinct felt smaller—voices layered, phones chirping, the constant printer grind. Butler fell into step beside Seth.

“You heard the man,” Butler said. “We button this up.”

“We should do the second walk-through today,” Seth said.

Butler squinted. “We already did two.”

“Then we’ll call this one something else,” Seth said. “Fresh eyes.”

Butler grunted. “Fine. I’ll loop Evidence.”

They split at the bullpen’s edge. Seth stopped at the whiteboard by his desk and rewrote MOTIVE in smaller letters, as if size might make it easier to fill. He capped the pen and stood there, not moving.

Back in the conference room, the whiteboard still shouted MOTIVE at an empty table. In the hallway, Donovan signed the overtime request Jamison had blessed and set it in the outbox with a flat palm.

Airtight, the ADA had said.

Seth looked at the board, then at the door, then at nothing.

“Let’s make sure,” he murmured, and went to work