Takeover

“Camber’s off,” Don said. “The wheel is angled inward just a touch. Probably hit a pothole or something.”

“How do you men do that? You can’t remember your mother’s birthday, but you know the timing sequence on a ’68 Mustang.”

“The same thing happened to a Riviera I used to have. And I never forget my mother’s birthday. Or yours.”

Theresa brushed black fingerprint powder over the glossy paint. The tedious work frustrated her, but she knew that the exterior of a vehicle is an ideal surface for prints, and she needed to collect them before any more people, including herself, climbed in and out of the car. The security guard and their young patrolwoman, at the very least, had already been too close to it. She forced herself to work calmly, without missing any of the surface.

“They must have left it running when they went into the bank.” She spoke aloud, trying to get her mind around the events of the morning. The pictures would not form. What would Rachael do if he died? How would she react? She didn’t seem to love Paul, not yet, but he had been well on his way to becoming a second father to her. “The security guy would hardly have the keys to it, so it must have been running when he came out and moved it, which seems really weird to me, but apparently that’s the protocol: contain the bad guys and cut off their escape.”

“Wouldn’t it be safer to let them take the money and run?” Don asked, lifting a piece of tape just enough to slide a card underneath it, lest the weak breeze blow the card away. “Then capture them later when there aren’t a bunch of civilians standing around?”

“This is a federal bank.” Theresa brushed the powder liberally over the surface, holding her arm out as far as it would go to prevent the fine black grains from settling back on her. “They don’t let nobody take nothing.”

“A federal bank does things differently?”

Clear finger marks sprang to life; Theresa could only hope they belonged to the criminals. She concentrated, to keep herself from devolving into panic. “It’s a Federal Reserve bank. It’s like a bank for banks. The Fed lends money to banks, oversees all transactions by check, and controls the physical amount of currency in circulation.” She noted her coworker’s raised eyebrows. “I chaperoned Rachael’s sixth-grade field trip.”

“But it’s still a bank, right?”

“I guess so. But they’d have been better off going to the Fifth Third across the street.”

The young officer returned; her body appeared fit, but her face flushed red from the heat, and she had used the short trip to her vehicle to snag a bottle of water. She offered her own theory: “Maybe they meant to, and then they got the wrong building. They ain’t too bright, and that’s a fact.”

Enough speculation, Theresa thought. “Who’s the car registered to?”

“Robert Moyers. Resides in Brookpark, no record, doesn’t answer his phone.”

“And hasn’t reported it stolen?”

“Hasn’t reported squat.”

Theresa lifted a palm print with wide, clear tape. “How old is he? Could he be one of the robbers?”

The young woman shrugged again. “Moyers is twenty-seven. But they’re wearing hats and sunglasses, so who can tell?”

“Driving your own car to rob a bank is so dumb it should be a charge in itself,” Don said. “But then we’ve already established their level of intelligence. Or lack thereof.”

The cop wiped her face again. “All I know is, it’s too early in the summer for it to be this hot. It’s freakin’ June, feels like August, and I got to work a special detail tonight at the lake tonight, too. Mosquito heaven.”

Theresa stripped off the black-smeared latex gloves and donned a fresh pair, finally ready to move inside the car. She glanced up at the Federal Reserve building, as she had every five seconds since arriving. For a moment she felt more frustration than fear-so close, and yet…

Paul could die today. He might be dead already; the walls of that building were thick enough to withstand a nuclear attack, certainly thick enough to muffle a gunshot-

Enough, she told herself. Focus on what you can do. Focus.

The interior had been cared for as meticulously as the exterior. The faded leather upholstery had no holes, and the bits of woodlike paneling shone deep and glossy. A steering-wheel cover had been carefully laced up and satellite radio installed. She assumed that Sirius could trace the unit to the owner’s account, but that would certainly take days, and Paul didn’t have that kind of time. She noted the location of the seat, already positioned so that her five-foot-seven-inch frame could reach the pedals comfortably.

Under the driver’s seat, she found a gas receipt from the Lakewood Marathon station, dated the day before, 11:32 A.M. The driver had paid cash. She also found an empty container for candy mints, a wisp of foil packaging, and a toothpick. Great for DNA evidence. Not too informative in the short run.

Under the passenger’s seat, she found an empty white number-ten envelope that had been sealed and then ripped open. Oddly, it had no mailing address or return address, only a metered postmark for forty-one cents, dated the previous October.

Both floor mats yielded yellowish grains, which Don lifted with clear packing tape and placed on sheets of clear acetate, labeling each sheet with a Sharpie marker.

The sun ducked behind clouds occasionally, but the humidity persisted. Theresa’s handsome coworker disappeared long enough to cart the first set of evidence samples back to the lab, then returned bearing something even more attractive: an ice-cold bottle of water. “You okay out here?”

“Yeah.”

“Your face is as red as a beet.”

Theresa nearly spit out the water. “Hell, Don, don’t say that! My mother always used to tell me that.” It had annoyed her at twelve and still annoyed her at thirty-eight.

“Sorry. I took that dirt from the floor mat to Oliver to run in the GC/mass spec.” The mass spectrometer, coupled with a gas chromatograph, would separate the substance into its chemical compounds. “I thought I’d have to offer to wash his car, but he heard about… about what’s happening and took it without argument. I think he likes you.”

“Impossible.” Theresa lifted the rear floor mat. “Oliver doesn’t like anybody.”

“I’m not trying to tell you your business, but have you checked the glove compartment?”

“I did. There’s an owner’s manual and a receipt for an exhaust system from Conrad’s in Strongsville, dated four years ago, which our little patrol officer is supposed to be calling about right now. She returned to her air- conditioned squad car the minute you left and emerges only to deliver the occasional bulletin. I also found a travel package of Kleenex and a bottle of Advil. That’s it.”

“And no sign of the owner?”

“Still isn’t answering his phone. They’ve sent someone to the address.” Theresa straightened up and snatched the keys out of the ignition. Aside from the ignition and trunk keys, the ring held a rubberized red profile of some historic-looking figures and a smaller key, apparently meant for a Master padlock. She opened the trunk.

“No body,” Don confirmed. “Nothing back here but a jack and a spare and a set of jumper cables. This guy keeps a very neat car.”

“Man after my own heart. I hope he’s still alive. Maybe out of town or something, blissfully unaware that his vehicle has been used in the commission of a felony, and perhaps a murder to boot.” With a flashlight in one hand, she combed through the dark gray carpeting with the other, picking up loose hairs and fibers and dropping them into a petri dish. This is a waste of time, Theresa thought. They’d stolen this car to rob a bank-they had no reason to even look in the trunk, much less leave her any clues there. She plucked up a dried twig with two leaves still attached. “You know what this is?”

Don took it from her fingers. “A twig?”

“Thanks.”

“Sorry. Magnolia? Birch? You really shouldn’t ask me-I flunked botany.”

“So did I.” And she couldn’t see how any of this would help Paul anyway.

The beam of light caught a dark smear on the carpet’s surface. She moved the flashlight to study it from different angles. “This could be blood.”

“Want a Hemastix?”

“Please.”