"Cash?" he pressed. Morgan told him the purchase had been legitimate and documented, but that her finances had nothing to do with operating the vehicle. Nolan clicked his tongue. "A lot of people get fancy paperwork for things they shouldn't have," he said, holding her registration between two fingers. "I'm going to make sure this one wasn't stolen."
Morgan felt heat rise behind her ears, though the air inside the cabin was still cool. She asked, politely, why she had been stopped in the first place. Nolan answered that she had been traveling eighty-nine miles an hour in a seventy-mile zone. Morgan looked at her silent speedometer and then back at the officer.
"My cruise control was set at sixty-nine," she said. "Did you record my speed with radar or another device?" Nolan leaned down until his sunglasses reflected her own face. "Are you accusing me of lying?" he asked.
"I'm asking how the speed was measured." She paused, allowing him a chance to answer. His jaw shifted, and he told her she should be more concerned with proving the car was hers than questioning the officer who had stopped her. Morgan did not repeat the question because she could see it was making him angrier, and she did not want an argument on a narrow shoulder beside fast-moving traffic.
Nolan returned to the cruiser carrying her papers. Henley stood beside the rear quarter panel and looked at Morgan through the passenger window. He appeared uneasy, but when she asked whether she could speak to him, he said that the primary officer was handling the stop. He then walked back to the cruiser without meeting her eyes again.
Inside, Nolan entered the plate and identification into the terminal. The returns came back almost immediately: current registration, insured vehicle, no stolen-vehicle entry, no wanted-person notification, no conflicting ownership records. Henley read the results over his partner's shoulder and saw that every factual question about the car had been answered. He waited for Nolan to announce that they were done.
Instead, Nolan opened another window on the terminal and searched for nearby theft reports. He found an old bulletin about luxury vehicle theft in a different part of the state and pointed at it as though the words confirmed his suspicion. Henley knew the bulletin did not mention a McLaren Senna, a woman matching Morgan's description, or that stretch of highway. He said so carefully, framing the observation as help rather than disagreement.
"I'm not letting a car worth that much drive off because a computer says it's clean," Nolan replied. "Somebody can make a computer say anything." Henley looked again at the registration and considered calling their supervisor. He knew the appropriate question was whether the initial stop had a legitimate basis, and he knew Nolan had not described any radar reading when they first pulled out. But the older trooper was already speaking into the radio, asking dispatch to check for an available canine unit.