Twelve light bars came alive together. Red and blue flashes crossed the service-bay doors, the showroom windows, the faces of the two officers, and the puddle holding the reflection of the big red sign. The synchronized lights made no sound, which somehow made the moment more striking. The crowd stood silent until an elderly customer said, "Good Lord. Those are all police cars."
Sherman looked along the row the way a mechanic looks over completed work. "Every one of them assembled right here," he said. "Your department watched the equipment checks and signed the burn-in sheet. We did the job the city hired us to do."
Hagen demanded that Clayton turn the lights off. Clayton pressed again, and the row went dark. The silence afterward felt like the brief pause after a power failure, when everyone is waiting to see which machine will begin again. Lel opened the driver's license at last. He read Clayton's name, checked the photograph, then looked toward the business sign and the vehicle labels.
"Reed," he said, more to himself than to anyone else.
"That's right," Clayton replied. "Now read the contract, and you can see why these cars are here."
A white pickup came through the gate several minutes later. Deputy Chief Merl Sutcliffe stepped out wearing a dark command shirt and an expression that hardened as soon as he saw the gathering. He was fifty-eight, with thinning gray hair and the smooth, practiced manner of a supervisor accustomed to difficult situations becoming smaller when he gave an order.
Sutcliffe recognized Clayton immediately. He had attended a fleet evaluation meeting and stood across the table from him while the city discussed acceptance standards. He did not need to look at a license or an identification badge to know who the man was.
"Take those cuffs off Mr. Reed," Sutcliffe said.
Lel released them. Clayton stood slowly, feeling the wet denim cling to his knees. The first sensation that came back was pain in his wrists, followed by the hot embarrassment of realizing strangers had watched him kneel. He resisted the urge to rub the marks because he wanted his hands visible when he spoke.
Sutcliffe extended a hand. Clayton left it there. "I'm sure we can call this a misunderstanding," the deputy chief said, smiling thinly. "The officers received a theft complaint and responded in good faith."
"They had my identification," Clayton said. "They had witnesses, they had the city fleet behind them, and they had a badge that said owner. One of them read it out loud and threw it into a puddle. That isn't a misunderstanding about a name."
"Mr. Reed, officers can't ignore calls because someone claims to be a businessman."
"I didn't ask them to ignore a call. I asked them to investigate it. They refused the most obvious facts available to them." Clayton could hear Margaret Ellis breathing sharply behind him. He knew she wanted to speak, but he shook his head slightly to let her know he was all right.