Before I could reply, he grabbed my right wrist, twisted my arm behind my shoulder blade with enough leverage to strain the tendon, and ratcheted the steel cuff until it bit through my shirtsleeve into the bone. The second cuff snapped shut before I could shift my balance.
He reached through the Lincoln's open driver-side window, hit the trunk release, and let the heavy lid pop open with a dull mechanical clunk. Inside, bolted to the spare tire well, was the steel lockbox Arthur had insisted on keeping chained to the frame. A numbered red wire seal still looped through its latch, intact and stamped with the state comptroller's insignia.
Coyle unclipped his shoulder mic, but he didn't key the county channel. He dialed a private number on his personal phone, tucking the receiver between his ear and his jacket collar as he inspected the lockbox.
"Ed? It’s Coyle," he said quietly, his eyes tracking the dark marsh behind my shoulder. "I’ve got the old man’s town car out by the mile-nine turnout. Driver’s in cuffs. Bring the flatbed from the south lot, not the county depot. Tell Pete we need the cutter for the rear floorboards before shift change."
He ended the call, shoved me into the plastic seat of his cruiser, and slammed the steel door shut. Through the scratched Plexiglas partition, I watched him pull a pry bar from his cruiser’s trunk. He wasn't waiting for a tow. He was wedging the bar directly under the seal.
CHAPTER 2: The Crowbar Snapped The Seal Before The Marsh Fog Reached The Door
The hardened steel of the pry bar shrieked against the latch housing, a sharp, violent tear of metal that cut clean through the idling rumble of the cruiser's engine. Deputy Vance Coyle didn't pause to check the road. He braced his hip against the Lincoln's rear bumper, drove the flat wedge deeper under the comptroller’s wire seal, and threw his entire upper body weight into the lever. The braided steel wire snapped with a dry, whip-like crack.
Inside the cruiser, the cold vinyl smelled of damp wool and industrial disinfectant. The steel cuffs bit into the skin above my thumbs every time I shifted, but I didn't pull against them. Panicking against steel only stripped your wrists raw, and I needed my hands intact if I was going to handle paper before midnight. I leaned my shoulder hard against the Plexiglas partition, keeping my eyes locked on Coyle’s broad back.
He flipped the heavy lid of the lockbox open. The yellow beam of his tactical light plunged into the recess.
There were no bricked stacks of unmarked bills. There were no envelopes of bearer bonds. What lay inside the bolted tray were three flat green cloth-bound ledgers, an indexed stack of carbon-copy receipts tied with red legal twine, and a heavy, rectangular recording deck—an old cassette-driven Dictaphone that Arthur Pendelton had kept on the side corner of his magistrate desk for thirty-two years.