The text comes on a Monday morning.
Not from Pamela. From a number I don't recognize. Then a second text, same number: it's pamela, new number, can you meet.
I call the number immediately. She picks up on the second ring.
"Where are you," I say.
"Home. I'm fine." A pause. "I found something. I need to show you in person."
I go that evening.
Her apartment is in a building three blocks from the coffee place on Sycamore, fourth floor, a space that looks like someone who spends most of their time at a coffee shop working: books everywhere, a desk that's lost under papers, a kitchen that has exactly the equipment you need and nothing decorative. She has her laptop open and three printed maps on the floor and she's been here for hours, I can tell.
"I changed my number last week," she says, handing me coffee. "I started getting calls. Silent ones. Different numbers. I thought it was a mistake at first."
I look at her. "How many."
"Six over two weeks. Always late at night." She sits down. "I don't know if it's connected. I'm not saying it is. I'm saying I changed my number."
Six calls over two weeks. Late at night.
I write it in the notepad in my head. I don't take it out in front of her.
"Show me what you found," I say.
She shows me the maps.
She's been working backwards from the contamination plumes. Following the water table, calculating flow rates from the original drainage failure sites, projecting where the contamination would have moved over eight years. Three of her projections converge on a block at the southern edge of the Narrows.
The same block as the building we warranted three days ago.
She doesn't know that. She got there from soil data.
"The contamination from three separate sites is pooling here," she says. "The water table under this block has been compromised for years. The building on the corner shows subsidence consistent with soil instability from long-term chemical exposure." She points to a photograph she's taken. External, from the street, showing a crack pattern in the building's foundation.
Our building. She'd walked past it and photographed the foundation.
"When did you take this," I say.
"Last Thursday."
Last Thursday was the day before we went in with the warrant.
"Pamela." I keep my voice even. "I need you to listen to me."
She stops. Looks at me.
"The building in that photograph. We executed a warrant on it on Friday."
She's very still.
"Connected to your case," she says.
"Yes."
"I was there the day before."
"Yes."
The room is quiet. The maps on the floor between us. Her coffee going cold at her elbow.
"The calls," she says. "The silent ones."
"I don't know if they're connected." I hold her eyes. "But I want you to stay away from that block. I want you to tell me if you get more calls. And I want you to not go anywhere alone in the Narrows at night until this is resolved."
She nods slowly. The specific quality of someone receiving information and building something out of it in real time.
"You think he knows I've been near his sites," she says.
I don't answer that directly. "I think you should be careful."
"I'm always careful."
"More careful than that."
She looks at me for a long moment. Something in her face that I don't have a word for. Not fear. Something quieter.
"Okay," she says.
Fourth okay. Same word. Different weight.
I drive home through the Narrows and call in a request for a drive-by rotation on her building. Not a full detail. Just eyes, twice a shift. I file it as a witness protection precaution on a standard form. Renee will see it. I'll need to explain it.
I'll explain it tomorrow.