Harlan's flatbed hissed to a halt ten feet from my rear bumper, air brakes popping loud enough to shake the drizzle off the pines. Harlan climbed down out of the cab in oil-stained insulated coveralls, carrying a heavy J-hook chain in one gloved fist. He did not look at me. He looked straight at Croft.
"Ray," Harlan said, his voice carrying over the idling diesel. "We got a problem."
Croft took two deliberate steps toward the wrecker, keeping himself positioned between Harlan and me, but the wet night air carried every word.
"Hook the rear axle and get it on the bed," Croft ordered quietly. "I told you to take it straight to the back bay behind the maintenance shed."
"Frank's down at the county building," Harlan muttered, wiping mist from his mustache. "I swung by the gas station on the bypass to grab diesel, and Tommy from road maintenance was on the pump. He said Frank walked into the commissioners' clerk office twenty minutes ago with a red folder. He was asking for the state auditor's phone number."
Croft's spine went rigid under his storm jacket. "Frank doesn't have the auditor's direct line. The clerk went home at five."
"Tommy said the night custodian let him in because Frank's got the county fleet maintenance contract," Harlan insisted, his voice rising with panic. "If Frank gets an investigator on the horn before this trunk gets emptied, every serial number on those three alternators is going to match the scrap invoices we signed off on last Tuesday. You told me David wouldn't make it past the creek cut."
"David didn't make it past the creek cut," Croft said, his voice dropping into a harsh, controlled hiss. "Now shut your mouth, back the rig up, and drop the winch."
Every piece of the puzzle snapped into place like a locked transmission gear.
My brother Frank had rebuilt twenty-four heavy-duty alternators for the county fleet over the last three years. Last week, the road supervisor had told Frank that all twenty-four had failed field tests and were being decommissioned as total losses. The county had billed seventy-two thousand dollars in emergency replacement funds to buy brand-new commercial units from an out-of-state distributor.
Except there were no new units. Croft and Harlan were taking the decommissioned units Frank had rebuilt, stripping the housings, restamping the serial tags in Harlan's back shop, and billing the county treasury for full-price replacements while dumping the originals back into county service.
The three crates in my trunk were not spare parts. Frank had pulled them off three decommissioned plows this morning to inspect the supposed electrical failures, only to discover his own fresh copper rewinds still gleaming inside the casings. Frank had given them to me to drive across the county line to an independent machine shop in Mercer for certification.
Croft had not stopped me to write a traffic ticket. He had stopped me to steal the evidence back before morning.
I did not wait for Harlan to hook the axle.
While Croft stood three paces away with his back turned, his eyes fixed on Harlan, I reached through my cracked driver's window. I hit the electric lock toggle, pulled the door open, grabbed my heavy canvas jacket off the passenger seat, and snatched the yellow clipboard right off the hood.
The metal clasp gave a sharp snap as I ripped the top yellow carbon copy free from the board.
Croft turned at the sound, his heavy face twisting into sudden fury. "David! Drop that paper and step back to the vehicle!"
He lunged forward, his heavy glove reaching to snatch the yellow sheet from my hands.
I stepped back off the asphalt, plunging my boots into the mud of the drainage ditch. The cold water seeped through my leather seams, soaking my socks instantly, but I held the yellow carbon sheet inside my jacket against my ribs, my phone already sliding out of my pocket.
"The VIN is dated forty-five minutes ago, Ray!" I yelled over the engine roar of Harlan's truck. "You signed this before I even cleared the bypass! You touch this car, and it's grand larceny under state law!"
Croft stopped at the edge of the shoulder gravel. His hand did not go for the nylon cuffs now. It rested directly on the black checkered grip of his service weapon, his thumb popping the retention hood down with an audible, heavy click.