"Twelve hundred," Don blurted, his eyes darting toward the door where the state trooper stood motionless. "Twelve hundred flat. Cash disbursement from the lightning damage reserve."
"That’s what the receipt said," Miller agreed, his voice deadly calm. "Except when your brother pulled Arthur over at mile marker four, Ray already knew the envelope was in the bottom tray of the steel toolbox. He didn't search the cab, Don. He didn't look behind the seat. He reached his hand straight into the brass latch."
Don swallowed, his throat hitching. "Ray patrols the access road. He knows Arthur’s truck."
"Ray doesn't know an alternator from a water pump," Miller said. "He knew what was in that box because you called his personal radio band from this desk at ten-fifteen. We’ve got the switchboard trip-cord logged at the annex, Don. You bypassed the sheriff’s tactical loop and pushed a patched patch through the quarry's private commercial transmitter."
The room went completely quiet, except for the low, rhythmic rattle of the kerosene flame.
Through the window, Ray was still sitting in the front seat of Miller’s car, his head bowed, his forehead resting against the cold side glass. He hadn't moved. The two volunteer firemen stood on the shoulder of the road, leaning against the front fender of the rescue truck, watching the scale house with their arms folded across their turnouts.
"I didn't tell him to take the cash, Chief," Don whispered, his voice shrinking until it barely carried over the stove. "Arthur wasn't supposed to get pinched on the ridge. Ray was just going to hold him at the gate until the haul trucks cleared the bridge. We had three overweight limestone loads coming down from the top cut. If Arthur’s radio rig stayed on the ridge, the state inspectors would have caught the channel crossover."
"The limestone wasn't overweight, Don," I said, speaking for the first time. The pain in my shoulder was tightening into an iron knot, but I kept my voice level, the way I used to talk to the crews when a high-voltage lead went live on a wet tower. "Those three tandem rigs weren't carrying limestone at all. They were hauling the county’s gravel stock—the stone the road commission bought in July for the river crossing. You and Ray have been selling county loads out the back gate to the timber company since August."
Don looked at me like I’d struck him with a tire iron. "You don't know what was in those hoppers, Arthur. You’re a radio repairman. You don't know gravel from dirt."
"I know what’s on my tape, Don," I said. "When Ray jerked my door open, he hit the master toggle for the emergency circuit. But my auxiliary receiver wasn't just broadcasting. It has an open monitoring line wired to the county maintenance loop. While Ray was holding his citation pad against my steering wheel, your scale-house terminal was reading the axle weights over the automated quarry frequency to the timber yard foreman."
I looked at Miller. The Chief Deputy didn't look surprised. He simply turned the page of his black ledger, tapped the paper twice with his stubby pencil, and nodded toward the trooper by the door.
"Jesse," Miller called out through the screen. "Bring Arthur’s toolbox in here. The whole tray."
The fireman walked in thirty seconds later, carrying my gray steel chest by its heavy wire handle. He set it down on the scale counter between Don and the Chief. The latch was still bent where Ray’s boot had forced it, the gray enamel chipped down to bare, rusted metal.