The patrol car pulled up maybe fifteen minutes later, no siren, just the light bar doing its slow sweep across the brick fronts of the houses. Officer Lena Carter got out. She was maybe forty, compact, hair pulled back tight, and she walked the scene the way she owned the authority in it — not hurrying, not pausing, just taking everything in order. She looked at the tow truck, the Mercedes with its front wheels in the air, the black box on my driveway, the four of us standing around it like it was a fire we'd found.
Marcus did the talking first. He told her his name, his license number, why he was here, what he'd found, and that the bracket had snapped by accident when he braced himself. He was careful about that part. I could tell he'd already rehearsed it in his head. I would have too. Twenty years of dealing with angry people makes you careful.
Officer Carter crouched next to the box and looked at it for a long time without touching it. Then she stood up and looked at Tyler.
"This is no longer a parking dispute," she said.
That sentence landed on the driveway like a dropped wrench. Meredith started to say something and Officer Carter held up one finger without looking at her, and Meredith stopped. There's a kind of authority you can't buy or inherit. It comes from having seen everything before.
The officer called it in. She gave dispatch the address, asked for a tow authorization to the impound lot, and requested that a crime scene tech be notified, just in case. Then she started photographing. For twenty minutes she photographed — the box, the open panel, the wires, the memory card in its slot, the plastic sleeve of papers, the cable running up under the bumper, the snapped bracket still hanging from the underbody. She shot the whole car, front to back, plates, the VIN through the windshield, the wheels, the tinted windows. She shot my sign on its stake at the foot of the driveway. She shot the four of us from across the driveway, standing where we'd been standing.
When she was done, she put on a pair of gloves and carefully lifted the box into an evidence bag, sealing it with a tag she filled out in block letters. She worked the memory card out of its slot with two fingers and dropped it into a smaller bag. Then she opened the plastic sleeve and unfolded the papers, holding them by the edges.
There were three of them. Temporary vehicle documents, the kind dealers print for cars waiting on permanent registration. Different names on each one. Different addresses. Different VINs. None of them matched the plates on the Mercedes, and I could see the VIN through the windshield didn't match the one on the plates either. I didn't say any of this out loud. I just watched Officer Carter's face as she read, and her face went very still in the way that means somebody's professional day just got longer.
"Where did you get these?" she asked Tyler.
Tyler said nothing. He was staring at the papers like he was trying to make them not exist by looking hard enough. I'd seen that look on customers who'd just been told their transmission was shot — the look of somebody doing math they don't want to finish.
She asked him again. He looked at his mother. Meredith's mouth was a thin line, and she didn't say a word, which for her was the loudest thing she could have done.
"Whose car is this?" Officer Carter asked.
Tyler said nothing.
"Who put the device under the bumper?"
Nothing.
Officer Carter folded the papers back up with her gloved hands, slipped them into the evidence bag, and sealed it. She radioed dispatch with the plate number and the windshield VIN, and we stood there in the quiet while she listened to whatever came back through the speaker. I couldn't hear it. Her expression didn't change, which told me plenty.
"The vehicle is being impounded pending investigation," she said. "Mr. Vaughn, I'd like you to come downtown with me to answer some questions."
"Am I under arrest?" Tyler asked. His voice was small.
"You're not under arrest at this time," she said. "You're being detained for questioning. There's a difference, and I'd recommend you don't make me explain it twice."
Meredith said, "I'm coming with him. He doesn't answer anything without a lawyer."
"That's your right," Officer Carter said. "Bring the lawyer."
Marcus repositioned the truck, and the Mercedes — dark blue, spotless, chrome wheels, the car that had owned my driveway for nineteen days — went up on the flatbed and rode away behind a patrol car, and it struck me that for all the mornings I'd watched that car arrive, I'd never once watched it leave.