“Lieutenant Hawkins?” Mayor Donaldson said. “Can you stop in my office so we can get the paperwork done?”

“Sure,” she said. “Thanks, Linda.”

The other council members shook her hand or hugged her, and then she followed City Attorney Haymes and Mayor Donaldson down the hall to the mayor’s office. They went inside and the mayor shut the door. They kept going into his inner office and sat in the old oak chairs upholstered in green leather.

Haymes took the first piece of vellum out of the file folder. He said, “This is the resolution composed and unanimously approved by the council and signed by the mayor and council and me. It transfers the first million dollars of the federal government’s four-million-dollar disaster grant into a second fund accessible only to Weldonville PD commanding officer Lieutenant Leah Anne Hawkins, to be used at her sole discretion to fund additional law enforcement efforts necessary since the escape from the federal penitentiary at Weldonville.”

“I didn’t ask for anything like that. I asked for a leave of absence. Is that even legal, Phil?” Leah asked.

“It’s legal enough,” Haymes said. “The city council gets to say how the grant money is spent. You just watched them do it. If the feds were to audit it, they would be forced to find that we used it in a public effort at restoring the rule of law. The fact that the town is speeding up the process of quietly dying is not something they can prove or punish. It may also mean the rest of the money will probably never be spent. That will make the accountants among them happy.”

Leah said, “All I asked for was a leave of absence. What you two did was present the council with a fiction and get them to pay for it.”

“The city has turned your request for a leave of absence down,” Haymes said. “It has decided instead to make sure you have resources to do what all three of us know you’re planning to do anyway. The million dollars has been deposited in the five largest banks in the United States. It will be accessible to you by five debit cards in your name. They’re in the white envelope. Use them like credit cards, or make withdrawals in cash. If you need to pay for something by check, any branch can issue a cashier’s check. Don’t keep financial records. The banks will record every expenditure as a matter of course. Any explanations will come from the city.”

He took out the second sheet of vellum. “This one is your commission from the council, essentially. It says you are engaged in enforcing the state laws of Colorado, and have the full support of the police force, the district attorney, and the city government. The city will cover any matter of legal counsel, bail, and criminal or civil liability for you and your deputies.”