"That’s the two thousand dollars you pulled out of my cab twenty-four minutes ago on the shoulder of Route Nine," I said, keeping my voice level, the tone I used when a young apprentice stripped an oil pan bolt and tried to hide it with thread sealant. "You told me you were holding it as suspected narcotics proceeds under county civil forfeiture. You told me it was going to the county clerk's evidence safe in Oakhaven. But you’re sitting in Ray Gidley’s bay, splitting twenty hundred-dollar bills into two stacks of ten while Ray fills out a fraudulent safety rejection slip to justify the stop after the fact."
Ray’s jaw tightened. "You shut your mouth, Art. You don't know what you're looking at."
"I know what a state inspection manifest looks like, Ray. I’ve held a state safety license six years longer than you’ve had this salvage lot. Under Title 47, Section 12, falsifying an out-of-service report to justify an unlawful commercial seizure isn't a county citation. It’s a Class C felony against the Department of Transportation. Carries three years minimum at the state facility in Vandalia, along with the permanent revocation of your shop's operating certificate."
Ray's face went white under the grease smudges. He looked down at the blue carbon form, then at his own thumb pressed against the ink seal. He knew the statute. Every registered mechanic in the state had to take the four-hour certification course every three years to keep the wall plaque. He knew that once that seal hit the paper, the signature wasn't a county matter anymore; it was an official instrument filed under penalty of perjury with the state regulatory board.
Morse took a quick step forward, his boot sole grinding against a scatter of metal shavings on the concrete. His service weapon was still in the holster, but he held the entire belt by the buckle, using the heavy leather like a club.
"You're not walking out of here with that mouth, Arthur," Morse said, his face flushed red beneath his cropped hair. "You think because you fixed school buses for thirty years people are going to take your word over an active deputy's report? Tyler’s on his way down here right now with the county transport wagon. When he gets here, your truck is going on the hook, and you're going into the back of his cage for obstructing a hazardous vehicle order. Let's see how much your shop is worth after six months of lot storage fees at seventy-five dollars a day."
"Tyler isn't on his way down here," I said quietly.
Morse blinked, his momentum breaking for a split second. "The hell he isn't."
"He’s sitting at the intersection of Route Nine and the county cutoff," I told him, pointing through the bay door toward the gravel access lane. "He’s watching the north approach because he thinks I had someone coming down from Decatur with that transmission block. But he isn't watching the back gate."
A shadow crossed the concrete floor of the service bay.
It wasn't Tyler Vance's patrol car. It was an unmarked gray Dodge sedan, creeping through the gate at five miles an hour, its tires throwing small gray pebbles against the chain-link fence. The engine didn't roar; it carried the deep, steady hum of a high-output municipal interceptor, its low-profile push bumper grayed by road dust.
Special Agent Miller stepped out of the driver’s side before the sedan had completely settled on its shocks. He wasn't wearing a utility uniform, but he had clipped a gold shield to the breast pocket of his poplin work shirt, and in his left hand he carried a black, hard-sided aluminum briefcase with the seal of the United States Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General embossed into the lid.
Morse spun around, his hand instinctively going for the unbuckled gun belt.
"Deputy Morse," Miller said, his voice completely flat as he cleared the threshold of the bay. "Leave that leather on the chair."
Morse froze. His eyes darted from Miller’s badge to the unmarked car, then out toward the open fence line. "Who the hell are you? This is a private commercial facility under county administrative jurisdiction. You don't have authority here."
"Inspector General Miller, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, joint task force with the United States Attorney’s Office for the Central District," Miller said, walking straight to the wooden workbench without glancing at Morse’s face. He set the aluminum briefcase down on the concrete floor, popped both latches with two dry, metallic clicks, and pulled out a battery-operated ultraviolet lamp with an eight-inch filtered lens.
Ray Gidley stepped back two full paces, his knees bumping against a stack of unmounted truck rims. "Wait now. Wait just a second. I didn't tow nothing yet. There ain't no county hook on that Ford. Tyler just asked me to check the paperwork—"
"Quiet, Mr. Gidley," Miller said.
He didn't draw a weapon. He didn't raise his voice. He simply switched on the ultraviolet lamp. The tube flickered once with an eerie violet glow, humming softly in the damp heat of the shop.
Miller swept the light across the wooden workbench.
Instantly, the torn paper bank strap flared with brilliant neon-yellow characters across its white cardstock: USDOT-OIG-SPECIAL-OPS-09.
Miller tilted the lamp five inches lower, sweeping the beam over the two stacks of hundred-dollar bills. Every single bill in Morse’s stack, and every single bill pinned beneath Ray's iron tape dispenser, glowed with matching vertical numbers stamped along the right-hand margin of Benjamin Franklin’s portrait—serial markings invisible to the naked eye under sunlight, but blazing like fresh phosphorus under the ultraviolet tube.