Naomi Opened An Evidence Log Before She Offered An Explanation

I left the chain on the door.

Hector pushed the envelope through the gap.

"New service terms. Sign before tomorrow."

"I'll read them."

"There's nothing to read. Company data stays company data. Bring back the little box, too."

"It's my equipment."

His smile went away.

"And those are my docks you work on."

He left without waiting for an answer.

The paper demanded every recording from his vessels, including backups. It also waived my unpaid bills. At the bottom, a blank line waited beside my printed name.

I set it under the missing notice and called Naomi.

She came to the shop that evening with a local police officer. Before I opened a file, she asked whether I wanted to give the records freely.

"Yes. But I need a record of what leaves here."

"So do I," she said.

Naomi was thirty-five, a Japanese American woman with dark eyes and straight black hair tucked behind one ear. She listened without helping me finish my sentences.

That took some getting used to.

"Maybe those numbers mean something else," I said.

"They might. Show me how you got them."

I warmed my empty mug under the tap, emptied it, and sat down.

I showed her the signed rental agreement. Then the installation photographs, the serial numbers, and the way each recorder saved a new block of readings without changing the old block.

"Could you edit these files?" she asked.

"A person with the right tools could alter a copy. That's why I haven't made maps or cleaned anything up. These are the raw downloads."

"Good. Leave them that way."

She called a digital evidence specialist who worked with the police. He talked us through a first preservation step while he arranged to take the devices in person.

We stopped using my archive drive. Naomi logged its make and serial number. She photographed the recorder, its seals, and the labels I had put on it during installation.

She took the Bell Ledger's recorder from the locked parts drawer, too.

"I need to keep working," I said.

"We can take these originals and have verified working copies made. You'll get receipts for everything."

She wrote each handoff down. I read each page before signing.

Her receipt listed two recorders, one archive drive, and the envelope Hector had brought. I kept my copy in the rent folder. If anyone asked what I had surrendered, I could show them without relying on fear or memory.

When I pointed at the time stamps, she stopped me.

"Local time or universal time?"

I swallowed.

"Universal. The navigation messages use universal time. My service notes use local time."

We wrote both down. That changed the date on one stretch of the route, but not the night that mattered. The stop at Slate Pocket still fell on September 14 in Alaska.

"A wrong conversion could hurt someone," I said.

"That's why we check it now."

She drew two rows on her pad.

CLAIMED: VESSELS DOCKED.

CHECKED: POSITION FEED SHOWS MOVEMENT.

"That second line isn't a finding yet," she said. "It's something we can test."

I liked that she left room for a mistake without using it as an excuse to quit.

She explained that the missing-person team and federal fisheries agents would handle the larger case. Her harbor work could help with berth records, access logs, and vessel movements.

"I can't promise these tracks tell us what happened to Mira," she said.

"I know."

"And electricity at a berth doesn't prove the boat stayed there. Someone can leave a cable serving dock equipment. We'll need more than a bill."

I had been about to suggest the power bill. I shut my mouth.

She waited.

"I'm afraid he'll close my shop," I said.

"Keep his messages. Keep your invoices. Tell me about any threats. Don't go looking for him."

After the officer carried the boxed devices out, Naomi stayed long enough to watch me lock the shop.

"Have you eaten?" she asked.

"A packet of crackers."

"That sounds like evidence of another problem."

I laughed before I could stop myself. She smiled, but she did not turn the moment into anything more.

The next morning, Hector sent one line: You want work or trouble?

I saved it and wrote back: Please send the service request.

Two hours later, his dispatcher called. The Bell Ledger's aft freezer was running warm. Hector wanted me aboard at six, when the crew would be unloading.

I sent the request to Naomi before I answered.

She called me right away.

"You don't have to accept this job."

"There are people working beside that bad wiring. I'll inspect it if I can do it safely."

"Then we'll arrange for an officer nearby. Stay within your repair work."

At five fifty, the dispatcher sent a second message.

This one included a photograph of the freezer door and a note in Hector's own handwriting.

NO INVENTORY. NO PICTURES. FIX IT AND LEAVE.