by Diane Kelly
“What are you going to do now?”
He shrugged. “Wait for some evidence to pop up.”
“That’s all?”
He snorted and swept his open palm to indicate the parade of files spread across his dead. “You see these files, Officer Sharpe? I’ve got two dozen cases demanding my attention, many with much better leads. I’ve got to focus my efforts on the crimes I’ve got a chance of solving.”
While I empathized with his situation, I couldn’t bear the thought that Mr. Beaumont might never see his car again. “Can I see the footage from the Bel Air theft?”
The Mule growled in annoyance, but pulled the footage up anyway. The video was dark, taken at nighttime, only the porch light and a streetlight illuminating the field of view. As I watched, a guy in a sweatshirt and jeans jogged past, the hood pulled up on his sweatshirt, obscuring his face. The time stamp indicated it was 2:03 AM. Not exactly the typical time a person went out for run. A minute later, the Bel Air headed past in the opposite direction, the man in the hoodie at the wheel.
I gestured to the screen. “Mind if I talk to that couple? And the other victims, too?”
“Why?” He scoffed. “You think you can investigate this case better than me?”
It was my turn to shrug now. “I don’t know. Maybe. We won’t know until I try.”
He snorted. “No one else would dare talk to me that way. You’ve got the biggest balls in Division Four, Officer Sharpe.”
“You’re not allowed to say things like that anymore,” I told him. “References to genitalia are frowned upon these days.”
Alarm skittered across his face until he saw me wink. While I’d tolerate no sexual harassment or discrimination, a mere crude reference wasn’t going to send me rushing to human resources. Besides, I’d considered his comment to be a compliment. While I had no literal balls, I liked to think my metaphorical ones were as big and round as my breasts.
He sat back in his seat, his facial features relaxing in relief. “All right, Sharpe. Tell me why you think I should let you perform another round of interviews.”
Although not invited to do so, I took a seat on one of his wing chairs. “Because I want to help these people. I know what it’s like to discover your car’s been taken from you.”
“You had a car stolen?”
“Our family car was towed when I was a kid.”
He rolled his eyes. “That’s not the same thing at all.”
I didn’t bother to fill him in, to tell him about the panic we’d felt when not just our car, but our shelter and all of our belongings, had disappeared. “Maybe not. But I also don’t like that I was on the thief’s tail yesterday and he got away from me.”
“Ah, now I get it.” A smug smile curled his lips. “You want to even the score, repair your ego.”
While the status of my ego was a much lower priority than seeing the Beaumonts reunited with their beloved Barracuda, the Mule’s statement bore some truth and I wouldn’t deny it. “Sure. If I can.”
My honest admission melted his smug smile. “Been there myself. It’s frustrating when a bad guy slips through your fingers.” He let out a long breath. “I suppose it can’t hurt for you to perform second interviews. But clear it with Captain Carter first, make sure she’s okay with it.”
“Thanks, sir.”
I stood and gave him a salute before traipsing down the hall to the captain’s lair. Unlike the Mule’s office, which was strictly utilitarian and bore no traces of personality, Captain Carter’s space was unmistakably hers. Like the woman herself, the space was a unique blend of fierceness and femininity. A half dozen potted ferns graced the desk and bookshelves. The walls had been painted bright red to best complement the artwork that adorned them, vivid prints of paintings by the late artist Gwendolyn Knight, who’d once taught at Black Mountain College in Asheville. Also adorning her walls was a large group photo of her former SWAT unit and the paper target that had helped land her a position on the team. Every shot had been a direct bulls-eye.
Her chair was turned to face the window behind her, and all I could see was the top of her head.
I tapped a knuckle gently on her doorframe. “Captain Carter?”
“Officer Sharpe,” she replied, recognizing me by my voice. She spun around in her chair and treated me to a broad smile. “What’s up?”
I pointed down the hall in the direction of the Mule’s office. “Detective Mulaney told me to get your permission before I go speak with the people whose cars were stolen.”
She arched a brow. “He asked you to help with his case?”
I couldn’t blame her for being skeptical. The Mule wasn’t exactly known as a team player. “I offered.”
“Why?”
“The Barracuda was taken from an elderly couple. The husband is a disabled veteran and he’s dealing with some health issues. The car meant a lot to him. I’d like to do what I can to get it back.”
Her brow fell back into place, and she looked at me from under it. “You’re a beat cop, Officer Sharpe. Investigating isn’t really your place, is it?”
Once again, my place in law enforcement was in question, just as Deputy Archer had questioned it when I’d chased the car thief into Chatham County. But, despite jurisdictional issues and job descriptions, weren’t we all on the same team at the end of the day? “Maybe it’s not my place,” I admitted. “But the Mule’s got a big caseload and could use some help. Besides, I’d bet a lot of people thought a woman didn’t belong on the SWAT team, either.” I gestured to the photo on her wall and arched my own brow back at her.
“Touché.” Rather than chastising me for my insubordination, she seemed to appreciate my determination. That’s what made her a great boss. She didn’t need her ass kissed, and she brought out the best in her force. “What the heck, Sharpe,” she said. “Show me what you’ve got. Just don’t let it get in the way of your other duties.”
“I won’t. Thank you, ma’am.”
Permissions secured, I returned to the cubicle and phoned the couple who owned the Bel Air, Violet and Harry Wellborn. Luckily, they were home. I hopped on my motorcycle and drove out to their place to speak to them. They lived in a brick townhouse, an end unit with flowering purple rhododendron bushes out front. I rounded up my laptop from my hard-sided saddlebag and carried it to the door with me.
Like the Beaumonts, the Wellborns were a retired couple. They invited me inside, where I was offered a seat on an outdated velveteen sofa and a glass of sweet tea. I took both and, after a sip of tea, launched into my questions. “How long had you owned the car?”
“Not long,” Harry said in that non-specific southern way of talking that begged for a follow-up question.
I had to hazard a guess at how long not long was. “A month or two?”
Violet clarified for her husband. “Two years and three months. I bought it for Harry for our golden anniversary. His first car was a Bel Air. Harry and I were high school sweethearts, and we went on dates in the car.” She nudged her husband in the ribs with her elbow. “We had some fun times in that car at the drive-in, didn’t we?” When Harry blushed, Violet laughed and turned her attention back to me. “He got rid of his Bel Air shortly after we were married. It was an old car even then, and had become a money pit. As we were coming up on our anniversary, I was looking through our wedding album and saw photos of us leaving the ceremony in the Bel Air. Our friends had tied tin cans to the back bumper. Made all sorts of racket as we headed off.” She smiled, as if the memory brought her joy. “Harry had mentioned the Bel Air now and then through the years, and I thought it would be fun to surprise him with one like it.”
“Best surprise I ever got,” he said. “Fortunately, this one had a rebuilt engine and ran good.”
As I readied my pen to take notes, Violet said she’d found the car online, on a site called VintageVehicles.com. “It was over in Knoxville, Tennessee, but the guy who owned it was willing to drive it here for me to look at.”
I jo
tted down the information. “Detective Mulaney said you haven’t taken the car to any classic car rallies, but has there been anyone who’s shown an interest in the car somewhere else?”
“Too many people to count,” Harry said. “Someone’s always commenting on it when we’re at the gas station or getting in or out of it in a parking lot.”
“Have you noticed anyone following you home?”
“No,” Harry said. “But we haven’t been looking, neither.”
I twiddled the pen between my fingers. “Has anyone who’s admired the car asked where you lived, or asked your names?”
“Hmm,” Harry said, looking up at the ceiling as he seemed to be thinking back. “Seems like some guy at a gas pump gave me his name and offered his hand awhile back. Asked me what year model the car was, took a look in the windows to check out the interior.”
“Do you remember the man’s name?”
“Not at all. Didn’t seem important at the time.”
“Did you give him your full name?”
“More than likely,” he said. “If a fellow gives me his first and last name, it’s my habit to give my full name back. My mama taught me that was the polite thing to do.”
With a full name, the guy could have tracked Harry Wellborn’s address down through the property tax records or landline listings. Good manners, coming back to bite him in the butt. “Which gas station were you at?”
“Couldn’t tell you to save my life.” Harry raised both his shoulders and his palms. “I don’t go to any particular one regularly. I just stop at whichever one’s around whenever the tank runs low.”
“Do you remember what the guy looked like?”
He consulted the ceiling again. “If I recall correctly, he was a white guy with dark hair. What I could see of it anyway. I believe he was wearing some type of hat and sunglasses.”
“Any facial hair?”
“Could be he had a beard. Seems all the young men have beards these days.”
“Age?” I asked.
“Thirty or so?” he said, unsure.
“Do you remember what kind of car he was driving?”
“Couldn’t say. I’ve got only a hazy memory of talking to the feller.”
It was understandable. After only an hour or two, I’d be hard pressed to identify a driver I’d pulled over and cited. Our minds move on and don’t retain details that seem inconsequential.
I booted up my laptop, inserted the thumb drive, and showed him the video footage from the medical center. Pointing to the screen, I asked, “Is that the same guy you spoke to?”
“Can’t say for sure one way or another,” Harry said. “It’s been a while and, like I said, I didn’t get a good look at the guy.”
I thanked Harry and Violet for their time and the tea, returned to my motorcycle, and pulled out my cell phone to call the owner of the Charger. He was at his bartending job in a Mexican restaurant, but said he could speak to me if I came by. Fifteen minutes later, I was sitting on a stool while he worked on the other side of the counter, stocking glasses on the shelves. The guy was mid thirties, Latino, and looked like he worked out in his spare time. I asked him about the car.
“I’ve always had a thing for muscle cars,” he said. “Got it from my grandfather. He was a mechanic, owned a garage here in town. He left me the Charger when he passed away a few years ago. I love the feel of older cars. You’re really in control, you know? The cars made these days are so automated they practically drive themselves.”
Heck, in some cases, cars actually did drive themselves now. I asked him the same questions I’d asked the Wellborns. Unfortunately, his responses were similarly vague. People often commented on his car when he stopped for gas. Nobody in particular stood out to him. He didn’t recall anyone asking his name.
I’d brought my laptop into the bar and set it up on the counter. “Take a look at this security camera footage.” I showed him the video clips from the Bel Air and Barracuda thefts.
As he watched, his eyes narrowed and he rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “This could be nothing, but about a month ago I came out of the restaurant and found a guy bending down next to my car. He told me he’d dropped his phone. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but the guy in these videos could be the same guy. He was wearing sunglasses and had a beard.”
“Was there anything else distinctive about him?”
“There were blue flecks around the edges of his beard. Looked like glitter. I thought maybe he’d visited that strip club down the block, picked up the glitter during a lap dance.”
Glitter might not be the only thing he’d picked up. “Any chance you saw the vehicle he was driving?”
“No. I didn’t pay any attention to where he went when he walked off.”
It crossed my mind that the guy might not have actually dropped his phone. He might have been placing a magnetic vehicle tracker on the car. The devices cost less than a hundred bucks and allowed a person to track a vehicle’s precise location from their computer or cell phone. It also crossed my mind that the guy could have been painting a car, disguising it under a different-colored coat so he could sell it without raising suspicions. While most house paint would be flat in color, metallic paint, such as that used on vehicles, would sparkle like glitter. The final thing that crossed my mind was that it was nearing lunchtime and the Mexican food cooking in the kitchen at the back of the restaurant smelled muy bueno. Of course, lunch would be more fun with an amiga. I texted Amberlyn, who met me there for chips, salsa, and enchiladas. Being on the clock, we had to forego margaritas.
After lunch, I headed to an office building downtown to speak to the owner of the Aston Martin, an attorney who specialized in wills and estates. Judging from his posh penthouse office, his well-tailored suit, and the Cartier briefcase resting on his credenza, helping people plan for death was a good way to make a living. From his window, I could look down into the Durham Bulls ballpark where the Triple-A baseball team played. The water tower at the American Tobacco campus stood even with his window, the words LUCKY STRIKE on the metal having faded over the years. The tower at Duke University Chapel loomed a mile or so away, the gothic structure reaching up to the sky.
“May I offer you a sparkling water?” he asked.
Who was I to refuse some hoity toity H2O? “That would be great. Thanks.”
He retrieved a bottle from a mini fridge cleverly disguised in a cabinet and poured it into a glass for me. I took a sip, the bubbles tickling my nose and causing me to sneeze. Snit-snit. Classy, huh?
We took seats at a glass-top table and I showed him the videos. He didn’t recognize the thief in either clip, though he did mention a clean-shaven, ginger-haired valet at an upscale restaurant in Raleigh who’d seemed especially interested in the ’64 Aston Martin DB5. “He recognized it as the car James Bond drove in several movies. That’s precisely why I bought the car. I’m a big Bond fan. At any rate, the valet asked if he could take a selfie behind the wheel.”
“Did you let him?” I asked, curious.
“Gladly,” the man said. “He’d been polite enough to ask permission, and a car like that is meant to be enjoyed. Of course, someone else is enjoying it now, I suppose.”
I figured the valet was unlikely to be the culprit who’d taken the vehicles. None of the other victims had mentioned a valet, or anyone with reddish hair. And anyone intent on taking the car would probably have been more subtle.
We wrapped things up and I returned to the District Four station to update the Mule.
I plopped myself down in one of his wing chairs and told him what I’d learned in my interviews. When I asked Detective Mulaney if he thought the blue paint flecks could be an important clue, he expressed both interest and a healthy amount of skepticism, the latter developed over years of chasing false leads.
“The paint might mean something,” he said, “or it might mean nothing at all. We don’t even know if the guy had anything to do with the disappearance of the Charger. You said the
bartender wasn’t sure the guy he saw by his car is the same one from the videos. That said, if the thief is painting the cars, he’d need a place to do it. A garage or a barn with good ventilation. He’d also need some skill in that regard. Hell, he could’ve learned in prison. They teach the inmates how to paint vehicles in the auto shop classes. They repaint government vehicles, fire trucks and whatnot.” He suggested I search the criminal database and police reports for anyone in the area who had been convicted or accused of car thefts in the last ten years. “Go talk to them, see if you get any suspicious vibes. Let me know what you find out.”
“So first you treat me like I’m meddling, and now you actually want my help?”
“Hell, yeah,” he said. “You not only have the biggest balls in the division, you’ve got the biggest heart, too. You give a shit. That’s why you work so hard. I might as well put your concern to good use.”
Though I was again flattered by his words, I knew my fellow officers cared about their work, too, about the people they served. Those who didn’t have an aptitude for public service generally didn’t last long in this stressful and often thankless profession.
I left the Mule’s office and went down the hall, where I slid into a cubicle to search for any car thieves who might be in the area. But before I checked the criminal records, I decided to take a look at the report for that long-ago visit between my mother, Mr. Yancey, and the two male officers who’d responded. I’d never pulled it up before, tried to pretend it had never happened and move on. But pushing my feelings down hadn’t been worked. Trixie said I should confront things head on. Reading the report would be my first step.
Chapter Seven
Better Left Unread
My gut twisted as I read my mother’s statement. Though I’d been too young at the time our car had been towed to fully understand what had taken place in that metal building at the tow lot, as I grew older I suspected my mother had been forced to give the creep at the tow yard a “happy ending” in order to get our car back. Her statement confirmed it. She’d told the officers that she’d had insufficient funds to redeem our station wagon, that the man at the tow lot took advantage of her desperation, and that she’d felt she had no other choice but to give the creep the hand job he’d demanded in order to get our car and belongings back. No wonder she’d nearly scrubbed her skin off in the burger joint’s bathroom. As noted in their report, the officers on duty saw the situation differently, suggesting my mother had engaged in an act of prostitution by providing sexual gratification to pay the towing fee. Fortunately, things had evolved since that time, and people were generally more sensitive to the nuances of such situations. Even so, it was a damn good thing the two officers had since retired from the department, or I just might have taken my nightstick to their nards.
