Hayes swallowed hard, his throat working against the starched collar of his uniform shirt. He reached into his left trouser pocket, his fingers trembling so violently that he nearly dropped the small metal ring. He slammed a heavy brass cylinder key down onto the flat top of my dashboard.
It was notched with three asymmetrical grooves along the spine and stamped with the state comptroller’s inventory number: MC-04-EVID.
"That’s the precinct lockbox key," Hayes whispered. His teeth were chattering despite the warm air still rising through the defroster vents. "The bottom safe behind the booking ledger. He didn't put your two thousand in his cargo pocket, Mercer. He’s not that stupid. He knew you were carrying that haul receipt from the agricultural branch because Pete called him the second you cleared the teller window. He took your envelope, dropped it down the chute into the county civil forfeiture drop-safe, and locked the secondary deadbolt."
"Why drop it in the precinct safe if he’s stealing it?" I asked, keeping my tone steady.
"Because the ninety-minute statutory clock doesn't apply to seized assets once they hit the inner depository," Hayes said, his words tumbling over each other. "Under the new local ordinance Marcus had his brother draft for the township board, anything dropped into the municipal forfeiture vault is classified as 'unclaimed interdiction inventory' until the quarterly clearance hearing. The quarterly clearance hearing isn't until January. By January, the county commissioner writes off the currency as untraceable contraband, cuts an administrative disposal voucher, and Marcus gets forty percent of the aggregate balance deposited directly into his private training fund."
I picked up the heavy brass key. The metal was cold, smelling faintly of gun oil and brass polish. "And the four-digit branch stamp on the strap?"
"Marcus has an ink solvent in his locker," Hayes said, wiping his palms across his knees. "He was going to go in at midnight after my shift turned over, pull the brown envelope out through the rear maintenance hatch, strip Clara Henderson’s purple seal with methyl ethyl ketone, and replace the band with a generic county evidence strip. He’s done it five times since August. Every dime taken from independent haulers who couldn't afford to hire a lawyer from out of county."
"And you stood on the shoulder of Old State Road and chewed your gum while he did it," I said.
Hayes flinched as if I’d struck him with a tire iron. He turned his head toward the passenger window, staring out into the dark where the rain was turning into sleet against the glass. "I’ve got two little girls, Mercer. One of them needs braces, and the other has asthma that costs four hundred dollars a month for the inhalers. If I cross Marcus, my evaluation gets marked 'unsatisfactory conduct' before breakfast. You know what happens to a probationary patrolman with an unsatisfactory mark in Miller County? You can't even get hired to guard the gate at the landfill."
"You should have thought about your girls before you let him shove an old man’s face into the hood of a patrol car," I said.
I turned the ignition key. The starter ground twice, heavy and wet, before the eight-cylinder engine caught with a low, rhythmic rumble. I reached down, popped the transmission into reverse, and backed the truck thirty feet until the front bumper cleared the concrete light post.
"Where are you going?" Hayes grabbed the door handle, his knuckles white again. "I told you, Pete Willis is blocking the cattle guard! If you go toward the bypass, Marcus will be behind you in the utility cruiser with his push-bumper before you hit third gear."
"We aren't going to the bypass," I said, swinging the wheel hard to the left and cutting across the open gravel yard toward the rear of the maintenance shed. "We're going to the township fire station on Church Street."
"There’s nobody at the fire station on a Friday night except volunteer drivers," Hayes stammered. "They don't have jurisdiction over the sheriff's road patrol!"
"They don't need jurisdiction over the road patrol," I said. "They have the county district magistrate’s remote teletype machine in the dispatch office. And the senior magistrate on call tonight is Raymond Miller."
Hayes went rigid in the passenger seat. His jaw dropped slightly, the color draining from his cheeks until he looked like tallow under the dashboard lamps. "Raymond Miller is ninety-one years old. He doesn't come out of his farmhouse for anything less than a structural fire."