"Federal Special Inspector Byron Underwood," I said, stepping past Vance so that my shadow fell across the concrete scale ramp. "Office of Inspector General. I am conducting an emergency evidentiary audit under Section 354 of the Federal Highway Administration Code. Step away from the weigh-house threshold, Mr. Douglas."
Douglas let out a dry, rattling laugh, planting his boots wide in the dust. "I don't give a damn what kind of badge you bought out of an Atlanta catalogue, son. Vance Miller called me twenty minutes ago. He told me some hothead in a government fleet sedan was trying to impersonate state transit personnel down at the shopping center. You think you can roll three black trucks into my yard and play marshal?"
"Deputy Miller is currently seated in the back of his own patrol vehicle under federal marshal custody at the Oakridge plaza," Vance said, his voice dropping into that icy, bureaucratic register that leaves no room for debate. He drew a tri-fold legal document from his leather portfolio and held it out at eye level. "This is an emergency preservation and seizure order signed at eleven forty-five this morning by United States District Judge Marcus Campbell in Brunswick. Every digital scale record, bill of lading, aggregate core sample, and fuel manifest within this perimeter is now evidence in a federal criminal proceeding."
Douglas didn't reach for the paper. His gaze flicked past Vance's shoulder toward the access road, where the second Suburban had already parked directly across the haul route, its steel bull bar blocking the rear tires of the aggregate hauler. The truck driver, an older man with gray sideburns, immediately cut his ignition, kill-switch hissing as the air brakes locked with an echoing snap that startled two crows off the fence line.
"You can't seize these files," Douglas said, though the brassy confidence in his throat had thinned, leaving a brittle, raspy edge beneath the volume. "The weigh-house system belongs to Pine Ridge Logistics. It's private equipment leased to the county. You need a state warrant from Judge Tatum."
"Judge Tatum recused himself forty minutes ago when the Department of Justice unsealed an indictment against his municipal bond holding company," I told him, taking three steps toward the scale door. The electronic digital readout mounted above the shack’s lintel was blinking with a cycling green diagnostic loop: SYSTEM RESET IN PROGRESS – MANUAL OVERRIDE ACTIVE.
Douglas saw me look at the screen. His jaw clenched, the heavy tendons in his neck pulling taut as he shifted his weight to bar the doorway with his broad shoulder. "You step inside that booth, Underwood, and you're committing an illegal entry on commercial property."
"The scale is tied to federal highway grant number GA-four-eight-eight-two," I said, holding his bloodshot eyes without blinking. "You have a manual purge running on the automated tare memory right now. You’re clearing the weight variances for the Route 9 overpass piers."
I didn't wait for him to step aside. I stepped up onto the concrete ledge, my right hand pushing the unlatched screen door inward before his arm could drop across the frame.
Inside, the weigh shack was five paces square, suffocatingly hot, and smelling of burnt ink from a ribbon-feed impact printer chattering against a continuous ream of tractor-feed paper. On the battered plywood desk, a gray desktop terminal displayed a progress bar stalled at seventy-two percent: TARE CLEARANCE – SECTOR FOUR SUB-BASE.
Beside the monitor lay an open green canvas ledger, its pages water-stained and marked with grease rings from paper coffee cups. I laid my gloved left hand flat across the open spread, pinning the paper before Douglas’s hand could reach through the doorframe to snatch it.
The column headers were written in faded black ballpoint pen, dated over the last fourteen months: DELIVERED QUARRY SPEC: GRADE A GRANITE. But written beneath each entry in red grease pencil was the actual truck ticket number, paired with a three-letter dispatch code: ALT-RIV-SAND.
"Altamaha River sand," I said aloud as Vance stepped through the door behind me, followed by two armed agents carrying evidence cases. "You billed the federal transit commission for eighty-six thousand tons of quarried structural stone for the bridge piers. You delivered dredge sand from the river bend at eight dollars a yard."
"That sand met state compaction specs," Douglas muttered from the threshold, his hands hanging limp at his sides as an agent stepped quietly between him and the doorway.