changing her statement and leading the investigation would be thin.
Chuck and I needed to be sure to stay on the right side of it.
He spoke first. 'Kendra, if you're not sure, why don't we come back in
the morning when it's light out and you've had the chance to sleep on
things.' We both looked at her, hoping the message might translate.
But thirteen-year-old ears are deaf to subtlety. 'I don't need to come
back. This is the car. It's just not the right color.'
It was my turn to try. 'So, are you saying that this is a similar kind
of car to the one they had, but that the one they were driving was a
different color?'
'No. I mean, this is the car they had. Someone must have painted
it.'
Struggling to hide my frustration, I said, 'Kendra, a lot of cars look
like this one. You're too young to remember, but when Chuck and I were
your age, almost every car made in America looked just like this. Sad,
isn't it?' She wasn't laughing. 'Maybe it's better if we take Chuck's
advice and come back and look at it when it's light out before you make
up your mind for sure.'
'I don't want to come back tomorrow. What if it's gone? I don't need
to see it again anyway. I'm sure this is the one. I couldn't remember
it enough to, like, describe it out loud at the hospital, but now that
I see it, I recognize everything about it. See, it's got a ding in the
door over here where the driver sits. And the front hubcap is
different than the back hubcap. Then I ran over here to look at it
better. When I looked inside, I remembered it too. The dash is all
freaky, like a spaceship. I don't know how to say it. It's just the
same. But it looks like they did stuff to it. It's like way cleaner
inside and it's a different color.'
It was possible. The car was, after all, parked outside of Derringer's
building, and people have been known to paint their cars.
Chuck was busy taking a closer look at the Buick. 'She might be on to
something, Kincaid. For such a piece of ... um, junk, this baby's
paint's looking real good. So's the interior.'
It made sense. We knew already that Derringer was willing to go the
extra mile to hide physical evidence. If he'd shave his body to avoid
leaving hair samples, he might rework his car to dispose of any
incriminating evidence.
'I don't think we can get a warrant with what we've got. Kendra says
it's the same car, but the fact that it's a different color's going to
kill us. Is there some way to tell for sure if the paint is new?'
'Sure. I'll just chip a little bit off.' He reached in his pocket for
his keys.
'No! Stop. Don't touch the car.'
Chuck held his hands up by his face. 'I wasn't going to open it or
anything.'
'It doesn't matter that you weren't going to open it. Looking beneath
the paint still constitutes a search. If you chip that paint off,
whatever you see underneath will be inadmissible. And if we get a
warrant based on what you see, anything we find as a result of the
warrant will also be thrown out. Is there some way to tell if the
paint's new without touching the car?'
'Depends how good a job they did. If it was a quickie, they might not
have gotten beneath the bumper and the lights. The cheap way to do it
is to tape those areas off and paint around them. If he got it done
after Saturday night, I doubt they did a thorough job. Problem is, I
can't tell anything in this light.'
'I've got a flashlight in my trunk. I'll go get it.'
When I got back, Kendra said, 'How come he can use a flashlight but
can't chip some of the paint off?'
'He's allowed to look at anything in open view. Flashlights are fine.
Some courts even let you use stuff like night vision goggles without
getting a warrant.'
'Hey, I've got something here.'
Chuck waved us over. He was crouched down by the back bumper,
supporting his weight with one hand and aiming the light with the
other.
'It looks like this light tan stops right here at the edge of the
bumper.' He was talking slowly, the way people always seem to do when
they're squinting. 'Hard to tell exactly what color's behind there.
Dark brown, maybe. But it's definitely a lot darker than the new
stuff. Look over at the edge over here. It looks like they were kind
of sloppy taping the bumper here. There's a thin line of paint on the
metal right at the lip there. Can you see it?'
'Barely, but it's enough. So the paint job must've been done
recently.'
