For a split second, Croft looked like he might shove Vance aside. His chest swelled, his big fists balling into knots at his sides. For twelve years, Croft had answered to nobody between the river and the county line. The magistrates were his golfing partners; the commissioners signed his requisitions without reading the line items. But Vance wore the gold state seal, and behind Vance was the state auditor’s division, an apparatus that did not care who bought breakfast at the county diner.
Croft slowly backed up two paces, his boots slipping slightly on the wet gravel.
Vance turned back to me. "David, where are the keys to this vehicle?"
"Right on the dashboard where Croft made me leave them," I said.
Vance reached through the open window, retrieved my key ring, and walked to the rear of the Buick. He didn't ask Croft for permission. He fitted the trunk key into the lock and turned it. The latch popped with a sharp, heavy click.
Vance lifted the heavy steel lid.
Inside lay the three rough pine crates Frank and I had loaded twenty minutes before Croft pulled behind me. Vance pulled on a pair of black nitrile gloves from his pocket, reached into the first crate, and peeled back the burlap wrapping.
Underneath, bathed in the blue strobes of the state cruiser, sat a heavy commercial Delco alternator. Its cast-iron casing had been ground down and painted with matte gray primer, but the copper winding inside gleamed bright and pristine. And right across the mounting bracket, stamped into the metal with Frank’s unmistakable custom shop punch, was a tiny letter 'F' beside a four-digit job code: 4412.
Vance pulled a folded sheet of paper from his citation book—a printout transmitted from the county garage records.
"Invoice forty-four-twelve," Vance read aloud, his voice cutting through the drizzle like a gavel. "Billed to the Blackwood County Road Commission on September twelfth as a full warranty rebuild by Frank Miller. Decommissioned three days ago by Sheriff Croft’s equipment committee as non-functioning scrap. Replacement check issued to Northern Fleet Supply for three thousand four hundred dollars."
Vance reached down and tapped the side of the housing. "Northern Fleet Supply is registered to a post office box in Mercer. The registered agent on file with the secretary of state is Harlan Towing and Recovery."
Harlan let out a choked sound and sat down hard on the wet running board of his truck, burying his face in his grease-stained gloves. "I told you, Ray. I told you Frank was keeping the core tags. You said nobody checks the copper."
Croft stood motionless under the downpour, the water streaming off his hat brim like melted wax. His face was devoid of color, his jaw slacked, the arrogant certainty that had carried him out of his cruiser completely stripped away.
"Sheriff Croft," Trooper Vance said, his hand resting firmly on his duty belt as he stepped back to his cruiser door to key his radio. "Unbuckle your duty belt and lay your service weapon on the hood of Unit One. State police is taking custody of this scene, this vehicle, and all parties present."
The click of Croft's unbuckled leather belt echoed louder in the dark than any gunshot.
CHAPTER 4: What The Silence Cost Us
Ray Croft did not look at me, and he did not look at Trooper Vance. For five long seconds, his hand remained anchored to the heavy leather of his utility belt while the rain poured off his hat brim in steady rivulets. But the flashing strobes from Car Thirty-Two painted the asphalt in relentless blue, and through the wet pines, another siren wailed in the distance—a second state unit descending the turnpike switchbacks.
Slowly, his fingers stiff from the October cold, Croft reached down. The brass buckle of his duty belt gave a hollow, metallic snap as the tongue released from the leather. He lifted the heavy rig—holster, service Glock, spare magazines, radio clip, and flex-cuffs—and laid it flat across the damp hood of Unit One. The metal scraped against the wet paint with a gritty screech that sounded like an iron grate sliding shut.
"Step to the rear bumper of my cruiser, Ray," Vance instructed, his voice level, professional, and devoid of theatrical triumph. "Hands where I can see them."