By noon, the suspension notice was circulating among the families who had testified about the towing scheme.
Some people thought the city was punishing them for speaking.
Others believed the bus changes were a coincidence.
Neither explanation made the notice less dangerous to people who needed the route.
Nia Palmer, the community attorney helping affected drivers, telephoned David Roth’s office and explained what the document appeared to contain.
Roth told her he would review the issue with the litigation team.
He did not promise that federal prosecutors could direct a municipal bus route.
He asked her to save the exact notice and to identify the meeting at which a decision would be made.
“Thursday,” Nia said.
“Then the people who use that route should have a chance to be heard before Thursday’s vote.”
Nia looked at the clock.
“That gives us forty-eight hours.”
“Yes,” Roth said.
“It does.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: THE WRONG NUMBERS

Young Jenkins heard about the proposed route changes while reviewing testimony in a federal office two counties away.
She read Nia’s message, then checked the attached report against the preserved exhibits from the Crestwood hearing.
The figures matched in three places where they should not have matched at all.
One vehicle had been listed as a roadway hazard even though officers had removed it from a private parking space.
Another had been counted twice because two separate invoices had been submitted for a single tow.
A third entry concerned Marisol’s van, which had been removed under a justification now subject to judicial review.
Meridian’s report treated all three as confirmed traffic hazards.
Young asked her analyst, Theo Barnes, to join her in the conference room.


“I want to know when the contractor received this dataset,” she said.
Theo studied the report’s date.
“The file was prepared after the preservation order.”
“That doesn’t establish when the information left the department.”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then separate what we know from what we suspect.”
Theo nodded and began making a source table.
Young was careful about one point in particular.
Her office could examine whether false policing data was continuing to cause harm, but she would not instruct a local committee to vote a particular way.
The oversight office had authority and obligations, not permission to become the town’s substitute government.
She asked Roth whether a notice to the city could identify the disputed source without arguing the transit merits.
“We can tell them not to characterize contested removals as established safety incidents,” he said.
“We can also ask for the materials needed to determine whether the data was knowingly repurposed.”
Young looked at the screen.
“What if they go ahead?”
“Then the people affected have their own ways to challenge the decision, and the federal case continues on its legal track.”
“I don’t want anyone saying we threatened them into keeping a bus route.”
“Neither do I.”