Reddick gave investigators three explanations for Everett’s money.
First, official seizure.
Then delayed documentation.
Then he claimed Everett voluntarily offered the six hundred dollars to avoid a citation.
The recording destroyed the third story.
His attorney stopped allowing further informal explanations.
Captain Sloan claimed the deposits represented an emergency fund used for confidential highway operations. He could not produce authorization, audit documents, confidential-informant identifiers, withdrawal logs, or any ordinary controls associated with a legitimate law-enforcement fund. He insisted older supervisors had taught him to manage certain cash expenses outside normal systems.
That answer widened the investigation.
Nora asked Reddick why he kept the deposit receipts.
He eventually gave a surprisingly believable answer.
“Because I didn’t trust Sloan.”
Corruption did not create loyalty.
It created leverage.
Reddick had kept proof that money moved upward in case Sloan ever tried to blame everything on him.
That decision became one of the most damaging things he had done to his own defense.
Luis Avery eventually agreed to a full interview.
He admitted knowing cash sometimes disappeared.
Reddick called it the “highway tax.”
Everett hated the phrase.
It turned theft into routine.
Avery denied personally taking valuables but admitted receiving gift cards, meals, and small cash payments from Reddick.
“How much?” Everett asked when Nora summarized the interview.
“Four hundred over several months.”
Everett shook his head.
Four hundred dollars had purchased a uniformed officer’s silence.
Avery said Colin Mercer also knew what was happening.
Mercer denied it.
Investigators continued looking.
Caleb was different.
He had reported Reddick.
He had also failed to intervene when Everett’s money went into Reddick’s pocket.
Both remained true.
The case refused to produce clean heroes.
Everett preferred that.
Reality usually did.
The Officer Before Reddick
During Avery’s second interview, he mentioned something investigators had not heard.
“Reddick didn’t start it.”
Nora leaned forward.
“Who did?”
Avery named Victor Hale, a retired officer who had worked the same corridor more than a decade earlier.
Complaint archives contained Hale’s name.
Six allegations.
Cash missing.
Property missing.
Stops ending without citations.
All closed.
Victor lived outside Santa Fe, New Mexico.
He initially refused to speak.
Then his attorney arranged an interview.
Victor denied stealing anything until investigators showed him old complaints, financial records, and Reddick’s deposit receipts.
He stared at the paperwork.
Then said something that changed the investigation.
“Richard still doing that?”
Nora did not react.
“Doing what?”
Victor realized what he had said.
Too late.
Eventually he described a system that had existed long before Reddick joined the highway unit.
Officers did not stop everybody.
That would create too many complaints.
They selected drivers likely to carry cash and unlikely to have immediate local support.
Contractors.
Seasonal workers.
People buying used vehicles or equipment.
Older drivers.
Out-of-county travelers.
Amounts remained relatively small.
Two hundred.
Four hundred.
Eight hundred.
Occasionally jewelry.
Enough to matter intensely to the victim.
Not enough to automatically trigger headlines.
Some money stayed with the officer.
Part moved upward.