Takeover - Lisa Black [6]
The exterior of the Mercedes had been well maintained, even beyond the fancy after-market paint job, its only flaw being a slight dent in the back bumper. The tires were beginning to bald, however, and the front right showed irregular wear.
“Camber’s off,” Don said. “The wheel is angled inward just a touch. Probably hit a pothole or something.”
“How do you men do that? You can’t remember your mother’s birthday, but you know the timing sequence on a ’68 Mustang.”
“The same thing happened to a Riviera I used to have. And I never forget my mother’s birthday. Or yours.”
Theresa brushed black fingerprint powder over the glossy paint. The tedious work frustrated her, but she knew that the exterior of a vehicle is an ideal surface for prints, and she needed to collect them before any more people, including herself, climbed in and out of the car. The security guard and their young patrolwoman, at the very least, had already been too close to it. She forced herself to work calmly, without missing any of the surface.
“They must have left it running when they went into the bank.” She spoke aloud, trying to get her mind around the events of the morning. The pictures would not form. What would Rachael do if he died? How would she react? She didn’t seem to love Paul, not yet, but he had been well on his way to becoming a second father to her. “The security guy would hardly have the keys to it, so it must have been running when he came out and moved it, which seems really weird to me, but apparently that’s the protocol: contain the bad guys and cut off their escape.”
“Wouldn’t it be safer to let them take the money and run?” Don asked, lifting a piece of tape just enough to slide a card underneath it, lest the weak breeze blow the card away. “Then capture them later when there aren’t a bunch of civilians standing around?”
“This is a federal bank.” Theresa brushed the powder liberally over the surface, holding her arm out as far as it would go to prevent the fine black grains from settling back on her. “They don’t let nobody take nothing.”
“A federal bank does things differently?”
Clear finger marks sprang to life; Theresa could only hope they belonged to the criminals. She concentrated, to keep herself from devolving into panic. “It’s a Federal Reserve bank. It’s like a bank for banks. The Fed lends money to banks, oversees all transactions by check, and controls the physical amount of currency in circulation.” She noted her coworker’s raised eyebrows. “I chaperoned Rachael’s sixth-grade field trip.”
“But it’s still a bank, right?”
“I guess so. But they’d have been better off going to the Fifth Third across the street.”
The young officer returned; her body appeared fit, but her face flushed red from the heat, and she had used the short trip to her vehicle to snag a bottle of water. She offered her own theory: “Maybe they meant to, and then they got the wrong building. They ain’t too bright, and that’s a fact.”
Enough speculation, Theresa thought. “Who’s the car registered to?”
“Robert Moyers. Resides in Brookpark, no record, doesn’t answer his phone.”
“And hasn’t reported it stolen?”
“Hasn’t reported squat.”
Theresa lifted a palm print with wide, clear tape. “How old is he? Could he be one of the robbers?”
The young woman shrugged again. “Moyers is twenty-seven. But they’re wearing hats and sunglasses, so who can tell?”
“Driving your own car to rob a bank is so dumb it should be a charge in itself,” Don said. “But then we’ve already established their level of intelligence. Or lack thereof.”
The cop wiped her face again. “All I know is, it’s too early in the summer for it to be this hot. It’s freakin’ June, feels like August, and I got to work a special detail tonight at the lake tonight, too. Mosquito heaven.”
Theresa stripped off the black-smeared latex gloves and donned a fresh pair, finally ready to move inside the car. She glanced up at the Federal Reserve building, as she had every five seconds since arriving. For a moment she felt