"I'm the Deputy Director, Elias. I can be free whenever I want. Why?"
"Because," I said, tracing my thumb over the serial batch numbers printed on the slip, "Oakhaven Township holds an open municipal town hall on the first Tuesday of every month. I think it's time we attend."
CHAPTER 2 CONTINUED
At a quarter past three, the side door of the precinct opened. Officer Keller stepped out into the afternoon sun. He was out of uniform, wearing a tight gray t-shirt, jeans, and aviator sunglasses. He didn't look over his shoulder. He didn't scan the lot. He walked with the relaxed, rolling gait of a man who owned the pavement beneath his boots.
He climbed into a late-model, lifted Chevy Silverado parked in the reserved section. It had a custom matte-black paint job, oversized all-terrain tires, and a heavy steel brush guard. It was an eighty-thousand-dollar truck, heavily modified. Not exactly the standard commuter vehicle for a municipal patrolman making fifty thousand a year.
The Silverado’s heavy exhaust rumbled to life, echoing off the brick building. Keller pulled out of the lot and headed south toward the commercial edge of town.
I gave him a three-block lead, letting a delivery box truck slide into the lane between us. Tailing someone in a small township requires distance, but I didn't need to stay close. Keller drove aggressively, riding the bumper of a sedan in front of him before jerking into the oncoming lane to pass. He wasn't checking his mirrors for a tail. He believed he was the apex predator in Oakhaven.
Ten minutes later, Keller’s brake lights flashed. He pulled into the wide concrete bay of a large commercial garage on the edge of the county line. The faded painted letters above the open bay doors read: Dixon’s Tires & Custom Auto.
I pulled my Ford onto the shoulder of the road a hundred yards away and cut the engine.
I watched through my windshield as Keller hopped out of his truck and walked into the shop's glass-front office. He was inside for less than fifteen minutes. When he came back out, he was accompanied by a man in a grease-stained blue work shirt. They were laughing. Keller slapped the man on the shoulder, climbed back into his Silverado, and peeled out of the lot, kicking up a spray of loose gravel.
I waited until Keller’s taillights disappeared over the ridge. Then, I started my engine, pulled into the tire shop’s lot, and parked in the customer spaces.
The air inside the small front office smelled strongly of vulcanized rubber, motor oil, and stale cigarette smoke. The man in the blue work shirt was standing behind the scratched glass counter. His name patch read GREG. He was staring down at his hands, methodically smoothing out a stack of crisp, perfectly flat hundred-dollar bills.
Resting on the counter, right next to the cash register, was a white paper bank envelope. It had a distinct horizontal crease near the top left corner, exactly where Mrs. Higgins, my bank teller, always slid the heavy metal paperclip.
"Be with you in a second, friend," Greg said, not looking up. He licked his thumb and counted the bills. "Seven, eight, nine, ten. Exact change."
He tapped the stack of hundreds against the glass to align them, then reached for the cash drawer.
"Those are brand new," I said, keeping my voice mild and conversational.
Greg paused, his hand hovering over the open drawer. He finally looked up at me. His eyes were tired, framed by deep lines of accumulated stress. "Yeah. Customer just settled a past-due account for a suspension lift and a light bar. Good to finally get it off the books. What can I do for you? Need an alignment?"
"I need you to look at something," I said.
I reached into my denim jacket, pulled out the crumpled bank withdrawal slip I had retrieved from the highway shoulder, and placed it flat on the glass counter. I tapped the bottom right corner, where the bank’s dot-matrix printer had stamped the sequential serial numbers of the dispensed currency.
"The top bill in your hand," I said quietly. "I'm going to guess the serial number ends in four-two-seven-B."
Greg stared at me. The friendly mechanic facade instantly vanished, replaced by a rigid, defensive caution. He slowly lowered his eyes to the top hundred-dollar bill in his hand. He checked the number. I watched his jaw muscles tighten.
"Who are you?" Greg asked, his voice dropping an octave. He didn't move toward the register. He just held the money tightly against his chest.
I pulled my worn leather wallet from my pocket, flipped it open, and set it on the glass next to the receipt. The heavy brass investigator’s shield caught the overhead fluorescent light.
"I'm retired," I said. "But the man who just handed you that cash isn't. Officer Keller pulled me over on Interstate 70 yesterday afternoon. He didn't write a ticket. He just reached into my pocket and took that exact stack of bills. That’s my daughter's water heater money."
Greg looked at the badge, looked at the receipt, and then looked toward the open bay doors, as if expecting Keller’s cruiser to suddenly pull back in.
"Look, man," Greg said, his voice carrying a sudden, nervous edge. "I don't want any trouble. I run a clean shop. Keller owed me a thousand bucks for three months. He finally paid up today. I don't care where he got it. It’s my money now. He owes me."
"I know he owes you," I said gently. "And I'm not accusing you of anything, Greg. But if you deposit those specific bills into your business account, they mix with federal currency. The chain of custody is broken. Keller gets away with it, and I have no proof he ever possessed the money he stole from me."
"So what do you want me to do?" Greg asked, shaking his head. "Hand it over? Take a thousand-dollar loss because a local cop is dirty? I have payroll on Friday. I have a mortgage. If you want this cash for an investigation, go get a warrant."
"If I get a warrant," I explained, "I have to file an affidavit with the county courthouse. Keller’s lieutenant will be notified before the ink is dry. The dashcam footage of my stop has already been conveniently deleted by their IT department. If I tip them off, Keller will just say he paid you with his own savings, and I'll be tied up in a civil suit for three years."
"Then we have a problem," Greg said stubbornly. "Because I'm not giving this back for free."
He was right. He was a working man, just like I had been. He couldn't absorb a loss like this. And I couldn't walk out of this shop without those sequential bills. They were the physical anchor I needed to prove Keller hadn't just seized the cash, but had stolen it for personal use.
I looked at the white envelope on the counter. Then I looked at Greg.
"If I walk out of here right now, drive to my bank, and bring back one thousand dollars in clean, untraceable cash, will you trade me for those specific bills?"
Greg narrowed his eyes, studying my face for any sign of a trap. "You'd buy your own stolen money back?"
"I need the evidence," I said. "And I need it to stay off the Oakhaven police radar until Tuesday."
"Fine," Greg said. "You bring me a thousand clean. I'll put these in the safe in the back. But I'm only holding them until closing time at six. After that, they go in the night drop at my bank."