Chat - Archer Mayor [76]
Barely visible in the gray, flat daylight, a strung-up sign of extinguished lightbulbs was attached to the low, arching stone overpass that carried the railroad tracks between the depot and the rest of the city, to the south. The sign spelled out, “City of Bright Lights.”
Sam popped open her door and got out into the kind of harsh cold that only miles of concrete can exude, the wind whipping between the nearby buildings and shredding the warm cocoon around her. She stood next to the car, getting her bearings and noticing the contrast between the bland, towering, modern Mass Mutual building in the distance, and the ornate, Italianate campanile beside city hall behind it—the only sign of grace within sight. Her contact had told her, on the phone, to park where she had and that everything else would become obvious.
It did. She saw, over the tops of a row of salt-streaked, dirty parked cars, a clearly marked police van, the glimmer of some yellow tape, and several cold human shapes standing around, most nursing coffee cups. She crossed the street and walked down the length of cars to join them.
As she drew near, a tall, white-haired, red-faced man in a down jacket that made him look like a tire company mascot broke away from the small group and approached her.
“Agent Martens?” he asked. “Steve Wilson, Springfield PD.”
She nodded in greeting, not bothering to shake, with everyone wearing gloves. “How’d you know?”
A wide smile broke his craggy face. She imagined he was old-school—hard at work, hard at play, and no stranger to the bottle. Some stereotypes existed for a reason. “You walk like a cop.”
That made her smile. A cop was all she’d ever wanted to be. She pointed to a small, dark sedan parked almost nose to nose with the police van and surrounded by the yellow tape. “Don’t tell me—that’s the car, right?”
He laughed. “I wish I could tell you we’d wrapped the wrong one on purpose, but that’s it, all right. Good detective work.”
Several of Wilson’s companions chuckled in the background, eavesdropping and, she knew, checking her out. Not that she minded especially. Guys she could handle. Women cops were tougher to figure out.
She stepped up to the car’s hood and looked at the vehicle straight on—a dark blue Ford Escort, several years old, but in pretty good shape. A middle-class car, economical and dependable. Its inspection sticker was up to date and issued from Connecticut.
“You run the registration yet?” she asked.
Wilson nodded. “Frederick Nashman. A couple of old moving violations, nothing big. That’s assuming the car wasn’t stolen to get it here.”
She looked at him.
“It’s not reported stolen. I’m just saying . . .”
“Got ya.” Sam went back to studying the car, slowly walking around it, her hands in her coat pockets. “Anybody notice it out here before we raised the alarm?”
Wilson was walking with her. “Nah. Would’ve happened eventually, but they can be parked out here a long time.”
She finished her tour and straightened to give him an eye-to-eye, as best their relative heights allowed. “This when you tell me you’ve gone through it all already and have everything bagged and tagged in the back of the van?”
His eyes and eyebrows expressed theatrical shock, but his laugh gave him away. “It did cross our minds, what with the weather, but given the respect we have for . . . What do you call yourselves again?”
She gave him a friendly sneer. “Cute. You got the paperwork at least?”
He nodded, adding, “And we popped the lock, just to make sure we wouldn’t be screwed after you got here. Thing opened like a soda can. No one’s been inside yet, though.”
Sam nodded. “That was nice—I do appreciate it.”
“No sweat,” he said,