"You can tell them whatever you want," I said, pointing one grease-stained finger toward the timberline behind his truck. "But your brother won’t be the only one answering that switchboard today. Chief Deputy Miller runs the afternoon desk on Saturdays. And Miller’s wife is my second cousin."
Ray stopped six feet from my bumper. The gravel crunched under his boots, wet and sharp. For two seconds, the only sound on Blackwood Ridge was the steady drip of condensation off the cab roof onto the hood of my Econoline and the distant rattle of leaf springs climbing through the third switchback. He knew Miller. Miller had lost two fingers in the limestone quarry back in seventy-eight, lived in a cinderblock house off the river road, and carried an old notebook in his shirt pocket where he wrote down every gallon of county gasoline pumped into patrol tanks. Miller didn't trade favors with the Vance family, and he didn't wipe dispatch recordings.
Ray’s jaw worked, chewing on air. He looked down at the muddy envelope he’d tossed into the ditch water. The paper had soaked through, turning dark brown, but the red wax depot stamp on the corner was still intact, showing the exact voucher number and the date-time imprint from forty minutes ago: 10:14 AM - CRUSHED STONE DEPOT RELAY EXPENSE - $1,200. 00 CASH.
Slowly, carefully, Ray reached into his left shirt pocket. He pulled out the folded stack of twenty-dollar bills. His eyes never left my face, but the arrogant, easy sneer he’d carried down from his patrol truck was gone, replaced by the pinched, sour look of a dog caught with stolen meat on the porch. He didn't hand the cash to me. He tossed it onto the wet hood of my van, right over the rusted spot where the primer showed through the white enamel. The bills scattered slightly in the damp breeze, four or five of them plastering themselves flat against the cold steel.
"Take your goddamn scrap money," Ray said, his voice trembling around the edges. "Gather up your paperwork, turn this heap around, and get off the ridge road before the road crew gets up here. You tell Miller you had an alternator short that tripped your emergency rig. You tell him your radio malfunctioned."
"That money isn't scrap, Ray," I said, standing upright against the ditch slope. My left arm hung stiff, but my balance was back. "That money belongs to the quarry cooperative for three weeks of tower maintenance. And you didn't drop it on my hood because you felt bad about an old man's shoulder. You dropped it because you heard those dual-tone air horns hitting the ridge gap."
Through the trees below us, headlights flickered against the wet branches. It wasn't just a patrol car climbing the grade; it was the county’s heavy rescue utility truck, flanked by an unmarked sedan with a single blue strobe spinning behind the rearview mirror. Miller was in the sedan. I recognized the low, rhythmic rattle of his old straight-six engine before the car even cleared the tree line.
Ray heard it too. His head jerked toward the bend, his shoulders tightening into a rigid hunch. He looked at the money on my hood, then down at the yellow citation pad still sitting on my steering wheel where he’d slapped it down with his pen. He realized his carbon slip had my name written on the top line in his own handwriting, alongside the false charge of reckless operation he’d logged before he realized the county was listening. If Miller saw that pad on my dash, the paper trail was closed: an unserved citation, an open-band broadcast of a shakedown, and twelve hundred dollars lying across the radiator cowl of an impounded work van.
Ray took one step toward the cab door to snatch the pad back, but I shifted my weight, planting my boots square in the narrow opening between the driver’s door and the front fender. I wasn't big enough to fight him hand-to-hand, not with my shoulder wrenched, but I didn't need to fight. I just needed to take up the physical space for thirty seconds.
"Step back, Arthur," he hissed, his face inches from mine, the smell of cheap diner coffee and stale tobacco rolling off his breath. "Don't be a fool. Let me grab that slip."
"Leave it where it lies, Deputy," I said, looking right into his pale eyes. "You wanted this stop on the record. Let’s let Miller see the record."
CHAPTER 2 CONTINUED
"Ray," Miller said. He didn’t glance at me yet. His pale, rheumy eyes stayed fixed on the younger deputy’s collar, tracking the jerky flutter of Ray’s throat. "Take your hand off the retention leather."
Ray’s fingers twitched against his holster snap, lingering for a fraction of a second before he pulled his wrist up and crossed both forearms over his chest, trying to smooth down the crumpled polyester pocket where my money had sat three minutes ago.
"Chief," Ray said, his tone climbing half an octave before he reined it back down. "Arthur’s got an irregular transmitter bridging the timber circuit. It caught my tactical squelch when I pulled in to write him for obstructing the haul lane. Equipment misfire. I was just helping him kill the feed."