A list of objects is the most honest clue there is. Nobody wrote it to persuade anyone, so when an evidence log says that three teeth went to the university for examination and did not come back, players believe every word of it.
At the head, the agency, the case, the date and the particulars of the search: where, when, by whom and on whose authority. Then a ruled table of articles, each with its number, a description, where it was found, what it was sealed in and who took it, and under it the chain of custody, one line for every time an article changed hands. Remarks, signatures and a stamp close the page.
The chain of custody is where the story hides. A gap, a signature that should not be there, an article that went out for examination and came back one short: players read that table like a confession.
A 1920s property clerk's report typed onto a printed form; an Eastern Bloc protocol of search and seizure with a round violet stamp; a modern crime scene log filled in by hand, with yellow markers for the item numbers; a space station's evidence intake manifest; and a fantasy city watch's inventory of goods seized, closed with a wax seal. A4 at 300 DPI. The pictures of the scene belong on a Photograph, and the officer's own account of the night on an Official Form.