The senior officer — his nameplate read Patel — positioned himself between Victoria and the storefront, out of the worst of the glass, where the exterior camera could see them both clearly.
Marcus stayed where he was. He had learned, over years of watching other people's cases, that the best thing a witness could do was nothing. Stand still. Let the record build itself.
"Ma'am," Patel said, "I need to ask you directly. Did you throw the brick through that window?"
Victoria's mouth opened. Closed. Marcus could see her weighing it — the denial, the spin, the half-truth. He had watched suspects do this arithmetic a thousand times. The problem with arithmetic, as his father used to say about engine diagnostics, was that the numbers didn't care what you wanted them to be.
"I broke the window," she said finally. Her voice was flat. "I was enforcing association authority over a noncompliant commercial parcel."
Patel wrote it down. "And you told dispatch that the property owner had broken in."
"I believed he had no legal right to be here."
"But you just admitted you broke the window yourself."
"He was refusing to leave."
"From property you now admit you don't own." Patel glanced at his notes. "Ma'am, I'm going to be honest with you. The video shows the brick leaving your hand. The property owner has a deed. You have an assertion. That's where we are."
Victoria's composure cracked a fraction. "He's FBI. This whole thing is—" She gestured wildly at the agents. "This is intimidation. He's using federal resources to harass a community volunteer."
The tall woman in the navy jacket stepped forward. "Ma'am, nobody here is harassing you. You called 911. Officers responded to your call. Everything that's happening right now is happening because you made that call."
That landed. Victoria went quiet.
Patel turned to Marcus. "Sir, is there anyone injured inside?"
"No. One employee, unharmed."
"And you want to press charges for the property damage?"
Marcus considered. He was thinking about the glass sensor log, the 911 recording, the customer's video, the eight-camera archive. He was thinking about what his team would need and what the county would need, and about the fact that those were two different things.
"Yes," he said. "Criminal mischief, at minimum. And I'd like the false report documented as well."
Victoria's head snapped up. "I made a good-faith report."
"You told dispatch a man had broken into the station," Patel said. "You told them he was aggressive. You introduced the possibility of weapons. The man was the owner, standing still, with his hands visible. That's going in the report."
She had nothing to say to that. For the first time since the brick, she was silent.
Patel kept writing. The notebook was one of those small spiral-bound ones officers carried, and Marcus watched the pen move in short, efficient strokes. Name. Time. Admission. The facts going down in order, each one a small nail.
"Ma'am, I'm separating you from the scene while the investigation continues," Patel said. "You're not under arrest right now. But I need you to understand that you are the subject of an active investigation, and I strongly advise you to contact an attorney before you say anything else. Anything you say from this point forward can be used."
Victoria looked at Marcus one last time. "You could have told me who you were."
It was such a strange sentence that Marcus almost laughed. Almost.
He thought about the deed in his portfolio. He thought about the business license on file with the county, the corporate registration, the insurance binder, the closing statement with the recorder's stamp. He thought about the eight cameras and the glass sensor and the archive secured at 3:42. He thought about the customer at pump two, whose video was probably already uploading somewhere.
"I showed you a deed," he said. "You threw a brick."
The federal agents returned to their positions. The tall woman in the navy jacket spoke quietly into her radio — Marcus caught the words "scene secure" and "local has the subject." The customers slowly went back to their cars, though nobody seemed in a hurry to leave.
Marcus looked at the broken window. In twenty-four hours, there would be a new one. He already knew the glazier's number by heart — he'd gotten three quotes during the renovation, because his father had raised him to get three quotes for everything. What he didn't know yet was how much that single brick was going to cost everybody involved.
Behind the counter, Dana was already sweeping glass into a dustpan. Somewhere in the back, the coffee machine hissed. Ordinary sounds. The station was still a station, even with the FBI in the parking lot.
Marcus took a breath and let it out slowly. Then he walked inside to help with the glass.