knew the first hour mattered.
The first call.
The first timestamp.
The first witness who had not yet been pressured into changing the truth.
At 5:19, I backed my SUV from the driveway.
The neighborhood was still dark. Porch lights glowed through the sleet. A newspaper soaked beside a mailbox two houses away.
On any other Thanksgiving, those ordinary details might have felt comforting.
That morning, they seemed like proof the world had the nerve to continue.
I reached the nearly empty downtown terminal at 5:43.
The building
