“I know.”
“Nadine.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t do this yourself.”
She frowned.
“I’m not.”
“I mean really.”
Daniel lowered his voice.
“You are a federal prosecutor. If you call their chief personally, people will hear power before they hear facts.”
Nadine rubbed her forehead.
“I know.”
“Let me handle the request.”
“Fine.”
“Anything from your office involving that department?”
Nadine stopped.
“There’s a municipal contracting investigation.”
Daniel became silent.
“Target?”
“No.”
“Police department directly?”
“Peripheral. A communications vendor sold equipment to several agencies, including them.”
“Are you supervising?”
“Yes.”
“Not anymore.”
Nadine nodded.
“I know.”
“You disclose Monday.”
“I will.”
“Then you get screened completely.”
“Yes.”
Daniel paused.
“Now emotional validation?”
Nadine leaned back.
“Fine.”
“You nearly got arrested at your own house after every ordinary fact proving you belonged there had been verified.”
She closed her eyes.
“That’s not the part making me angriest.”
“I know.”
“The federal credential stopped him.”
Daniel said nothing.
“The license didn’t.”
Silence.
“The property record didn’t.”
Another pause.
“No burglary report.”
“No damaged door.”
“No complainant claiming ownership.”
“Nothing.”
Nadine opened her eyes.
“But prosecutor did.”
Daniel understood.
“That is the wound.”
Monday morning, Nadine reported the entire incident to ethics counsel before she opened her first case email.
The attorney listening to her description asked only three questions before reaching the same conclusion Daniel had.
“You supervise the communications-vendor inquiry?”
“Yes.”
“You’re screened effective immediately.”
“Agreed.”
“No case-file access, no informal updates, no discussion with the replacement prosecutor.”
“Yes.”
Nadine signed the screening memorandum before lunch.
That part mattered almost as much to her as the complaint.
If the contracting investigation later produced action against anyone connected to Keller’s department, Nadine wanted nobody reasonably able to claim she had used federal power to settle a personal score.
At 10:36, Daniel submitted a formal records-preservation notice to the police department.
Body cameras.
Dispatch audio.
CAD records.
Database queries.
GPS logs.
Radio traffic.
Incident notes.
Supervisor communications.
Any report involving Nadine’s address.
The legal unit recognized her name.
By 11:04, Police Chief Warren Ellis knew what happened.
He called Nadine.
She forwarded the voicemail to Daniel.
Daniel replied with four words.
Not yet. Let process work.
Internal Affairs opened a preliminary review that afternoon.
Keller learned before the end of his shift.
His first reaction was anger.
“She set me up.”
His union attorney, Paul Jennings, looked across the table.
“How?”
“She knew exactly what questions to ask.”
“She’s a lawyer.”