Victoria’s posture stiffened. For a fraction of a second, her gaze flicked to the blue Ethernet cable dangling limp from the severed router on the wall. "Nolan has no administrative authority over corporate records. He’s an hourly site watchman whose employment contract includes a strict confidentiality covenant. Whatever he touched in this room is proprietary company work product."
"It isn't company work product," I said, pointing directly to the Panasonic Toughbook resting on the steel bench. "It's David's personal system. He bought the machine himself when he set up the bay six years ago. The serial number is stamped on the bottom plate with his personal tool tag."
Aris stepped forward. His heavy leather holster squeaked against his hip as he leaned over the bench. The screen was still glowing with the three open directories: the vehicle CAN bus logs, the second-quarter maintenance budget draw sheets, and the packet trace.
"Chief," Victoria interjected, her tone dropping into that smooth, patronizing cadence she used to shut down junior accountants during quarterly reviews. "This is an internal labor matter being manipulated to stall a lawful civil recovery. David had forty-two thousand dollars in undocumented equipment reconciliations when his medical leave began. We have an unencumbered legal right to secure any asset purchased or maintained with company capital until that variance is settled by the estate’s administrator."
"Look at the line items, Chief," I said, refusing to shout. "Don't take my word for it. Read the requisition manifest."
Aris pulled a pair of wire-rimmed reading glasses from his front uniform pocket and hooked them over his ears. He bent closer to the ruggedized screen, squinting at the glowing amber text.
"Part number 88-Delta-Four," Aris read aloud, tracing his index finger along the digital spreadsheet. "Industrial high-pressure hydraulic pump. Quantity: three. Destination: Bay 4 Maintenance. Billed to: Bucks Fleet Escrow." He paused, looking over the top of his glasses at the low, compact chassis of the Cayman. "You don't run an industrial freight pump on a two-point-seven liter flat-six engine, Victoria. A high school shop student knows that."
"David was the facilities manager," Victoria said quickly, her jaw tightening. "He maintained the sorting floor as well as the fleet pool. He lumped the purchase orders together under a single departmental code. It was sloppy accounting, which is precisely why the board initiated an inquiry before he passed."
"Then why did the delivery truck go to River Road?" Nolan asked.
The bay went quiet. Outside, Miller’s tow truck engine gave a heavy, rhythmic thrum as its hydraulic pump idled in neutral. Miller looked through the glass pane of the service door, his brow furrowed, his heavy steel chains hanging slack at his knees.
Victoria’s eyes narrowed until they were thin slits. "What did you say?"
"River Road," Nolan repeated, tapping the screen with his pen. "The second-quarter bill of lading from Penn Freight Express. The driver didn't drop those three hydraulic pumps at our receiving dock on State Road. He dropped them at Unit 14-B, Delaware River Self-Storage, Upper Makefield Township. The receipt has a gate access code attached to it."
Nolan reached down, tapped the enter key on the Toughbook, and brought up the scanned delivery manifest.
In the signature box at the bottom of the electronic freight ticket was a signature line. It didn't say David Keller. It said Sterling Asset Management LLC. And the receiving contact listed for the delivery was a private cell phone number—the exact number Victoria had held against her ear fifteen minutes ago in the gravel lot.
Chief Aris straightened up. The casual, bored posture disappeared completely. He looked at Victoria, then back at the glowing screen.
"Victoria," Aris said, his voice dropping into that flat, formal register officers use when an interview shifts from an inquiry to an investigation. "Is that your private entity?"
"This is ridiculous," Victoria said, her cheeks flushing a dull, angry red against the cold morning wind. "That storage facility was leased on an interim basis to hold overflow inventory while the sorting facility roof was being repaired in June. David handled the logistics personally. If my contact number was listed on the manifest, it was because the carrier required an executive contact for after-hours gate access."
"David was in an isolation ward at Temple University Hospital from June 12 through July 3," I said. "He had an autologous stem cell harvest. He wasn't driving delivery trucks to Upper Makefield, and he wasn't signing receiving tickets at eleven o'clock on Friday nights."
"You don't have his full schedule, Claire!" Victoria snapped, her voice rising half an octave, cracking through the quiet of the maintenance bay. "You weren't in the corporate meetings. You weren't managing our operational burn rate. You were out in the county changing brake pads on farm trucks while the rest of us tried to keep this business solvent!"
Sloane and Leah had moved into the doorway behind Miller. Sloane looked uncomfortable now, her expensive phone lowered to her waist, her designer coat pulled tightly around her ribs. Leah took one step back onto the gravel, her eyes darting between the police chief and Victoria’s red-faced expression.