The hallway went completely silent. Whitaker stared at the badge. The color left his face with the speed of a man who has just watched his entire career flash in front of him. Barrett took a small step backward without seeming to realize he'd done it. Both of them knew that badge.
They had been receiving internal department memos for two weeks about the new chief starting Monday. They had seen the name. They had seen the photograph. And they were standing in a hallway having just attempted to arrest him after he showed them his deed. Lane's voice came from down the hallway, still defiant.
"That badge is probably fake, too." "Ma'am?" Whitaker's voice came out sharper than he intended as he cut her off, his eyes never leaving the badge in the Rivers's hand. Rivers closed the badge wallet and put it back in his pocket. He looked at Whitaker and then at Barrett with an expression that was completely composed and absolutely final.
"I will see both of you in my office Monday morning," he said quietly. "8:00 a. m." Neither officer said anything. Rivers turned to Lane who was standing down the hallway looking for the first time like a woman who understood the weight of what she had set in motion. ""You will be hearing from my attorney," he said simply. Then Rivers looked back at the two officers.
"Before either of you leaves this building, I need three things. The CCTV footage from this hallway covering today, the recording of the 911 call that brought you here, and official written documentation of this incident including your badge numbers, the call log, and everything that was said and done in this hallway today." Whitaker nodded once, the nod of a man who knows that he is already standing in the wreckage of something he cannot repair. Rivers picked up his box from the hallway floor, carried it into apartment 4C, and closed the door behind him. He had a move to finish.
Malcolm Rivers spent the rest of Saturday finishing his move. The furniture arrived in the afternoon, the moving company brought everything up, and by evening Rivers was sitting in his new apartment surrounded by boxes he hadn't unpacked yet with the folder of ownership documents on the kitchen counter and three specific items on his phone. The CCTV footage, the 911 call recording, and the incident documentation he had requested from Whitaker and Barrett before they left the building. He listened to the 911 call once that evening. He watched the hallway footage once.