Miller didn't touch the cash. He reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a small digital voice recorder, and clicked the slide switch forward.
"Time is fourteen forty-two," Miller said into the microphone. "Location: Gidley Salvage, Bay Three. Present: Special Agent Miller, Master Mechanic Arthur Vance, Deputy Kevin Morse, and Certified State Safety Inspector Raymond Gidley. Subject currency recovered: twenty one-hundred-dollar Federal Reserve notes matching recorded series numbers zero-four through two-four on federal operational manifest Charlie-Seven."
Miller turned the ultraviolet beam directly onto Deputy Morse's hands.
Morse looked down at his own fingers. His right thumb, his index finger, and the palm of his left hand were coated in bright, fluorescent yellow powder, transferred directly from the treated linen paper of the bills he had been counting.
"Mr. Gidley," Miller said, turning his head toward the mechanic who was now trembling against the tire rims. "Step away from that carbon manifest."
Ray didn't argue. He raised both hands to the height of his ears, his grease-stained fingers shaking so violently that his pencil slipped from behind his ear and clattered against the concrete floor. "I didn't take no money, Mister. I swear to God I didn't take a dime. Tyler said he’d pull my county towing contract if I didn't stamp the rejection slips. He’s got four other haulers' titles locked in his desk up at the annex right now. He makes me hold the trucks until they sign the liens over to his cousin's LLC."
"Shut up, Ray!" Morse shouted, his voice cracking into a high, panicked register. "Shut your damn mouth!"
Morse reached down toward the folding chair, his fingers clawing for the grip of his service weapon.
I didn't think about the forty years between us, or the arthritis that made my knuckles ache when the weather turned damp. I stepped forward, grabbed the cast-iron handle of my hydraulic line press off the concrete floor, and shoved the heavy iron base straight into the frame of the folding chair.
The steel chair skittered across the grease-slicked floor, slamming into the leg of the workbench. Morse’s gun belt tumbled off the back, the heavy holster hitting the concrete with a dull thud, sliding out of his reach beneath an old differential housing.
Morse stumbled, off balance, his boot slipping in a puddle of cutting oil. Before he could recover his footing, Miller had his hand flat against Morse’s upper spine, driving him forward until his chest cracked against the edge of the wooden bench.
"Federal officer," Miller said into Morse’s ear, his voice calm, mechanical, and entirely without anger. "You move your hands off that timber, Deputy, and you’re going to federal detention in Springfield without a county bondsman to sign your paper. Do you understand me?"
Morse didn't answer. He lay pressed against the wood, his cheek resting three inches from the glowing bills, his breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps that stirred the dust on the table.
Outside, the crunch of heavy tires on gravel broke the silence.
A white county cruiser with an amber hazard rack turned slowly through the salvage gate, its engine idling low and heavy as it moved between the rows of dead cars. Tyler Vance had finally noticed the gray sedan slip off Route Nine.
Through the heat shimmer rising off the yard, I could see Vance behind the wheel of his patrol car, one hand resting on the top of the steering rim, his face unreadable behind dark aviator glasses as he realized the shop doors were wide open and nobody was waiting on the access road.
CHAPTER 3: The Yard They Tried To Seal
Tyler Vance didn't cut his cruiser's engine. He let the Crown Victoria idle in the center lane of the salvage yard, the cooling fan roaring against the heavy afternoon air while the nose of the patrol car blocked the only driveway leading back to the county highway.
Through the heat haze, Vance watched the open bay doors. He saw Ray Gidley standing with his empty hands pinned against the wall of scrap rims. He saw Kevin Morse face-down across the greasy worktable, held by Miller's forearm. And he saw me standing two feet away, the heavy cast-iron base of my hydraulic line press resting squarely between Morse’s dropped duty belt and the bench leg.
Vance stepped out of the air-conditioned car slowly. He left his campaign hat on the passenger seat, his unbuttoned shirt collar fluttering in the hot downdraft from the cooling fan. His hand didn't drop to his holster, but his fingers hooked into the heavy nylon web belt near his brass buckle, his shoulders squaring as he evaluated the perimeter like a man who believed every inch of dirt within thirty miles belonged to his badge.
"Ray," Vance called out, his voice cutting through the mechanical hum of the cruiser. "Why is that old man's Ford still sitting on its tires?"
Ray didn't answer. He pressed his back harder against the tire stack, his eyes fixed on Miller’s dark poplin shirt where the federal shield caught the overhead fluorescent tube.