Insurance matches. There's nothing on it. I heard you, Beckett. Go stand by your unit.
Toiver never even turned around. He leaned through the empty window frame and began pulling the car apart. He found a phone charger, reading glasses, gas receipts, and a church bulletin from that morning. He checked under the seats and in the rear compartments, and nothing he found gave him a reason.
Then he opened the glove box, found the photograph, and held it up between two fingers so Lennox could see it. This your daddy? He washed cars for a living? He fixed them for men who never learned his name. Guess he never learned his place either. Toiver dropped the photo on the passenger seat, face down into the broken glass.
That was the moment Cara would remember later more than the windows. She would remember the way Lennox's jaw moved once, very slightly, and then went still again. She had seen angry drivers and frightened ones. She had never seen a man hold that much inside himself and let none of it reach his hands.
She stepped closer to the Bentley without really knowing why. That was when she noticed the small black device mounted beside the rearview mirror, its indicator light glowing a steady green. Wade, there's a camera. How long has that been running? The whole time since before you stepped out of your car. Then it's coming with me.
If you're seizing that device, Deputy, document the chain of custody, bag it, log the time you took it. I know how evidence works. Then you know why it matters. Toiver straightened up so fast he'd cracked his head on the door frame, and now he stared at the little green light the way some men stare at a snake.
Everything was on it. The calm refusal, Cara confirming ownership out loud. The baton, every window, the photograph. He reached through the broken windshield and tore the camera off its mount.
Toiver set the camera on the hood of his patrol car. No bag, no label, no note. Cara watched him do it and said nothing. And she would think about that silence for a very long time.
A pickup truck rolled to a stop 40 yards back. An old black man in a faded Carolina Panthers cap climbed out slowly and lifted his phone with both hands, the way people do when they are not used to filming anything but grandchildren. Sir, keep moving. This is an active investigation. I'm off the road, son.
I ain't interfering. I'm just watching. You want to be next, old man? I'm 71 years old. I've been next before.
Toiver turned his back on him and came straight at Lennox. Turn around. Hands behind your back. Am I under arrest?
You're being detained. For what offense? I said turn around.