Thank you, Deputy," Miller said quietly. "That establishes your personal inventory of the envelope prior to this stop being called in." Vance’s head dropped.
His forehead touched the warm metal of the cruiser’s hood, the metal vibrating slightly against the beat of his engine. Thomas Keller let out a slow, whistling breath through his teeth. "You always were too greedy for your own good, Lyle.
Back when you were running the impound yard in Madison, you couldn't leave a toolbox in the back of an abandoned flatbed without prying the lock off. We all knew it. We just didn't have the paper to prove it.""
Call county dispatch, Sergeant," Vance muttered into the hood, his voice muffled by the steel. "Call Sheriff Drummond. I have a right to county representation before you transport.""
Sheriff Drummond was contacted twenty minutes ago, Deputy," Miller replied, sliding the currency into a heavy brown evidence pouch and sealing the red adhesive strip across the top. "When the DPS field supervisor notified him that an unlogged stop on state preserve land had captured audio of an extortion demand, Drummond surrendered primary jurisdiction immediately. He told us to handle it by the book.
County isn't coming out here to pull you out of this ditch." Calloway pulled Vance’s arms behind his back. The steel ratchets of the handcuffs clicked twice—tight, professional, and uncompromising.
Miller stepped away from the cruiser and walked toward my driver's side window. I watched him approach in the cracked side mirror, his broad campaign hat casting a long shadow across my door." Mr.
Arthur," Miller said, stopping two feet from my glass. "You can roll that window down now." I unlocked the central latch with a firm push of the slider and worked the chrome crank with my right hand, easing the glass down into the door frame until the night air swept into the cab.
The smell of pine resin and wet dirt felt clean after the sour tobacco Vance had left behind." You alright in there, sir?" Miller asked, his eyes sweeping over my hands on the wheel, checking for tremors."
I’m alright, Sergeant," I said. "Just tired of waiting on this shoulder."" Your boy did good work with that forestry relay," Miller said, nodding back toward Jesse, who was already walking toward Thomas Keller’s trailer to pull down a floor jack and a spare tire.
"He flagged the state desk the minute Vance turned off the blacktop behind you. Most folks would have just handed the envelope over, gone home, and swallowed the anger until it turned into bile. It takes a hard man to sit in a locked cab and let a badge lean on him while the tape runs.""
I hauled logs for thirty years on these county roads, Sergeant," I told him, looking out through the windshield at Vance being guided into the back of the lead Charger. "I've seen what happens when you start paying a toll to cross your own county line. First it's fifty dollars for an imaginary cracked taillight, then it's five hundred for a steering box, and pretty soon you don't own the dirt under your own house because someone with a star says you owe them for the right to breathe."
Jesse hauled the hydraulic jack off Thomas’s trailer with a heavy clatter of iron, dragging it across the red gravel toward my front flat. Thomas followed with the four-way wrench, setting the teeth against the ruined lug nuts Vance had kicked." We’ll have this spare on in five minutes, Arthur," Thomas said, setting his shoulder to the wrench.
"Then we’ll convoy that wood back to your shed before the rain starts off the ridge." Trooper Calloway closed the rear door of the Charger with a heavy, decisive latch. Through the tinted safety glass, I could see Vance sitting straight against the molded plastic seat, his badge pinned crooked against his torn vest, looking straight ahead into the blue strobes that were still cutting the dark Georgia pines into pieces.
Miller signed the bottom of his evidence sheet, tore off the yellow carbon slip, and held it out through my open window." Keep this with your truck registration, Mr. Arthur," Miller said.
"It’s a state evidence receipt for the five hundred dollars. When the grand jury convenes in Athens on Tuesday, the district attorney is going to need you to walk them through that tape from the first kick to the last dollar." I took the paper from his fingers.
The carbon was still warm from his clipboard, the purple ink sharp and legible under the interior dome light. I folded it once, cleanly across the center, and slipped it into the breast pocket of my chore coat, right beside the brass toggle of the lapel mic that had saved my farm." I’ll be there, Sergeant," I said, looking out at the road ahead.