"Please," she said. "That was my mother's handwriting. She died this spring."
"Then you should've left it at home."
Kincaid turned her against the driver's side of the car. Her forearm scraped the edge of the side mirror as he forced her arms behind her. Metal cuffs closed around her wrists, and the left shoulder seam of her blouse tore as he pulled her upright. Audrey counted to four, then to four again, trying to keep her attention on individual facts instead of the anger moving through her chest.
"For the record," she said, "this is the second time I have requested a breath test at the scene. You have declined both times."
"For the record," Lyman answered, "nobody cares."
"Somebody will read the record."
"I write it, lady. Nobody reads it except me and a clerk who signs whatever I hand over."
Audrey looked directly at him. "Then I'll read it."
In the back of cruiser seven, she found a blue cooler at her feet. Its lid had not been pushed down all the way, and half-melted ice knocked softly against the plastic while Lyman spoke to the tow operator outside. The bottle had been sweating; the cooler was cold; the cruiser was Lyman's. Audrey did not yet have the connecting record, but she had a question she intended to remember.
"Deputy Lyman," she called when he came near the door. "What's in this cooler?"
"Lunch. Ham and cheese. You hungry?"
"At eleven-fifty?"
"Early lunch," he said, and walked away.
The tow truck raised her sedan onto its hook. Lyman patted the silver roof and announced that both car and cash were evidence now. Audrey asked again for the crumpled envelope and the earring, explaining exactly where Kincaid had dropped it and where Lyman's boot had landed. Lyman asked Kincaid whether he had seen any jewelry. Kincaid said no, although he had stared at the fallen earring only moments earlier.
"Then there's no earring," Lyman said. "That's how a report works."
"It's how your report works," Audrey said. "I understand the distinction."
The cruiser pulled back onto the interstate. At the first curve, Kincaid turned with a clipboard and asked her full name, letter by letter. She gave it, then requested that he note the denied breath tests and the injury to her arm. When he asked for her occupation, she looked through the rear window at her sedan moving away on a tow truck.
"I'll put my occupation in writing at the station," she said.
Lyman laughed into the rearview mirror. "You sign one piece of paper, you go home. You refuse, you stay until Monday and you still don't see that cash. Most folks learn to sign before I finish explaining."
"How many folks?" Audrey asked.
"Enough to keep this cruiser running," he said. Kincaid laughed with him.