“What stolen property?”
Poole raised his hands. Take it easy. “Listen here. The truth is, something like this happened one other time. I just never told you about it.”
Vince looked right at him. “What the hell are you talking about, Myron?”
“This was seven, eight years ago.” Sheriff Poole shrugged.
“Didn’t ask how long ago it was.”
“State patrol over there had picked up a guy, turned out to be one of your old running buddies,” Poole said. “You were a few years closer to your parole period back then, remember. Anyway, they called, looking for a truckload of stolen microwaves.”
“Microwaves.”
“Don’t know if their suspect was trying to give them the runaround, or if you were just the first place they thought to look.”
Vince wondered if the sheriff was talking about Buck Lavelle. He remembered Buck going through the occasional appliance phase.
“Point is, they found their merchandise in a warehouse somewhere that same afternoon.” Poole smiled. “Called me back, apologized for wasting my time. That was that.”
“Jesus,” Vince said. Fucking Buck Lavelle. He remembered, now, why he’d stopped running around with that asshole in the old days.
“I told Captain Torres that story this morning,” Sheriff Poole said. “Also told her they’d need a little more than they had to get me comfortable. But I get the feeling she knew that already.”
The longer Myron Poole spoke, the more Vince understood the purpose of the sheriff’s visit. He claimed this had happened before, yet today was the first Vince had ever heard about that.
Because this time was different. Whatever Captain Torres from the Omaha Police Department had told him might not have been enough to sell the sheriff on a warrant, but it was enough to send him out here personally.
“Listen, Vince.” Sheriff Poole kept his arms folded, looking at the ground again. “I know you’ve got some history behind you. I also know you’ve worked pretty hard to keep your nose clean out here all these years.”
“That’s goddamned right,” Vince said.
Thinking: Not even a week. Matty, the college boy, had it all figured out. And they hadn’t even made it a goddamned week.
“I also know you two have had it a little tough out here lately.” Poole looked off toward the scrap yard. “Money-wise, I mean.”
Vince said, “We’re getting by.”
“I know you are.” Poole finally looked at him. “Also know you hooked up a vehicle for me thirteen months ago. My brand-new, twenty-one-year-old deputy, who I ended up firing two months later anyhow, had forgotten fifty-six hundred dollars in cash evidence bagged up in plain view on the dashboard. You had that vehicle in your sole possession for a good hour.”
Vince didn’t say a word.
“But every dime of that money ended up in my evidence locker,” Poole said. “Wouldn’t have been too hard for a guy to slip a couple hundred into his pocket, leave it looking like a green rookie miscounted the amount. Especially a kid everybody knew couldn’t find his ass with both hands and a GPS.”
“Yeah, well.” Vince looked off toward the smoke from the incinerator shed. “That was thirteen months ago, you said.”
“Hell,” Poole said. “I don’t figure people change too much in a year. Not where it counts, anyway. I just wanted to come on out as a friend, let you and Rita know you might be seeing me back later. With some other folks, I’d imagine. If it comes to it.”
“Nothing here worth hiding, Sheriff. Come on along.”
“That’s what I told Captain Torres you’d probably say.”
Sheriff Poole clapped him on the arm and headed back toward the Bronco. Over his shoulder, he called, “Tell Rita I hope her mom feels better.”
“I’ll do that,” he said.
Rita’s mother was healthier than Vince and Myron Poole put together. Seventy years old and the woman jogged six miles a day.
As Poole climbed back into his Bronco, Vince said, “Sheriff?”
“Yep?”
“Appreciate the hand with the luggage.”
“Didn’t do much. Like I said, caught her heading out.”
Vince tried to put a chuckle in his voice. “Just out of curiosity, how much she take with her this time?”
“Oh, I’d say she’s pretty well set.” Poole laughed. “Three big suitcases and a couple of those, what do you call ’em? Garment bags. Wasn’t sure we’d get the trunk closed.”
She never packed more than the one small suitcase. A few changes of clothes and a sketch pad or two. I’m coming right back, she always said.
Poole slammed the door and waved through the open window.
Vince raised a hand back. He stood and watched the sheriff turn around, roll down the driveway, and disappear around the bend.
The sun was warm. The sky was blue.
All around, the shape of the land seemed to be changing. Drifts and ridges shifted in place, gradually collapsing on top of themselves. Everything had been white a few days ago. Pretty soon, the last of the snow would soak into the mud.
Vince stood there long after the sheriff had gone, looking out over the scrap yard, watching the smoke rise.
Contrary to the vigorous recommendations of his union rep, Worth had no plans to bring in a lawyer. Not yet.
It hadn’t gone unnoticed. Vargas poked his head into the room just a few minutes after Worth’s rep had left to bring back lunch.
“Hey,” Vargas said. “Can you stand in a lineup?”
“That’s funny,” Worth said.
“Seriously.”
“You want me in a lineup?”
“Not like that,” Vargas said. “We just need bodies. Shouldn’t take long.”
Worth looked at him.
They didn’t just need bodies.
He’d be an idiot to say yes. If his rep had been here, he would have laughed in Vargas’s face for even trying.
Worth wondered who they’d pulled in. A neighbor in Gwen’s building? Somebody from the house next door? The thought came like a kick in the groin, certain and sickening. It was the most basic point of weakness in the whole house of cards. Somebody had seen something.
“Come on,” Vargas said. “It’s not like you have anything better to do.”
He’d be an idiot to say yes.
If he declined, he’d look like he didn’t want to fill in some routine lineup.
If he told Vargas to wait for his rep to get back, he might as well have called in a lawyer hours ago. More than anything else, now of all times, he needed his fellow cops to see him as one of their own. He was the one who’d come inside. Not Tony Briggs and Ray Salcedo. His was the honest position. Not theirs.
The minute he held up a right and attempted to shield himself with it, everything he’d done so far today was lost.
Worth took a breath, shrugged, and said, “Sure.”
Twenty minutes later, Mark Vargas took him to a different room, closed the door, and said, “Sorry about that.”
Worth kept his face neutral. “Sorry about what?”
They were in an audit room now. Small, no windows. A table and a few chairs. There was a multimedia cart with a color monitor, a VHS deck, and a snarl of cords hanging behind.
Vargas walked over and turned on the monitor. A video image of one of the interview rooms wobbled onto the screen.
While they watched the monitor, another detective escorted a bony kid to the table, sat him down, winked up at the camera, and disappeared from the frame.
“Derek Price,” Vargas said. “Southwest patrol picked him up this morning at Bergen Mercy ER. Public defender’s office is sending somebody over.”
Worth put the kid somewhere between eighteen and twenty-two. He had a stud in one nostril. Both arms were covered in tattoo ink from his T-shirt sleeves down to his wrists. He had straight black hair cut short in back, longer in front, a greasy curtain hanging over his eyes.