Franklin knows the stakes as well as I do. If this car is a clone, the cops could be on to the scam as soon as they try to confirm the VIN. As long as they don’t, it’s clear sailing for us.
I see Liz Whittemore’s hand go up. She doesn’t wait to be called on.
“Lieutenant? Is this carjacking related to the blue Mustang incident? Or do you think this one is a separate incident?”
I jab Franklin with an elbow. “Damn. That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. I was going to ask it myself. But not in front of everyone during the news conference.”
Zavala takes a step back from the microphones, confers behind his hand with a plainclothes colleague and comes back into the lights.
“That’s under investigation,” he says.
“Yay,” I whisper. “They’ve got nothing.”
“The perps carjack so they snag the keys, right?” A tough-guy Globe reporter points to the front with his pen, attempting to demonstrate his cop-speak cred. “But why would the skels dump the Ex in a garage?”
I see a few officers trying to hold back sneers.
“We don’t know what’s in the minds of the perpetrators,” Zavala says.
“Hope not,” I whisper.
“Shush,” Franklin says.
There’s a rustle of notebooks and clicking of ballpoints as reporters look at each other, wondering if someone else has thought of a question they should be asking.
“Anyone else?” Zavala surveys the pack in front of him. No one speaks. A few photographers, knowing the end’s in sight, unfasten their cameras from the tripods.
“If not,” Zavala says, adjusting his cap, “we’re done here. Thank you all for coming.”
No one seems to care about any of it. Except Franklin and me.
“Okay, okay, let’s do it.” I can barely hold myself back. Some of the photographers roll off a few desultory shots of the recovered car, one go-getter even bothering to come up closer to the crime-scene tape. To them, this is as routine as it comes. There’s no suspect, there’s no excitement. It’s just the police proving their Auto Theft Unit can find a stolen car from time to time, a public relations move to prove they’re on the job.
Unless there’s a body in the trunk, which there can’t be because there’s no trunk, this video will go straight to the newsroom “hold” stacks and only make it on the air if the cops eventually blow the lid off a huge and dangerous carjacking ring.
Which they won’t. Because we’re going to break an even bigger story. First.
Reporters and photographers toting their bags of gear click open their cars, electronic beeps from key rings echoing against the concrete walls. A few colleagues wave a hand in salute, off to their next assignment. Franklin makes his way oh-so-casually toward the crime-scene tape. I’m standing by. We’re playing this by ear.
“How’d you draw the short straw on this piece of crap, McNally?” A familiar voice, speaking close to my ear. I hear one sentence, but a million memories return.
I turn, smiling, to greet an old pal.
“Is that cop talk for ‘hello, great to see you’?” I haven’t seen Joe Cipriani for more than a year. Detective Joe Cipriani, in his usual rough-knit fisherman’s sweater and leather jacket, is the heartthrob of the Boston PD. I give him a quick peck on the cheek, appropriate for what we went through together a couple of stories ago, when he arrived just in time to rescue me from the gun-wielding sociopath I’d proved was mastermind of an insider-trading scheme. His curly hair has gone a little grayer, but he’s still wearing that same cologne. This time, he hasn’t arrived to save my life.
I smile as I pull away, changing my mind. Perhaps he has.
“Great to see you, too,” I continue. “And I happened to be in the neighborhood. You know me, can’t stay away from watching the good guys in blue win. What’s your excuse, Detective? They bust you down to the auto squad?”
Over Joe’s shoulder I see Franklin’s now standing right next to the Explorer. A uniformed cop is pantomiming “this is as far as you get, buddy.” He’s not close enough for the camera to get a usable shot.
“Brass wanted a big show,” Joe says. “You heard Henry Z. S’posed to remind the public to be vigilant, you know the drill. Plus, looks good they found the car. Driver wasn’t hurt. Case closed.”
I can barely keep from smiling. And I feel a bit guilty about what I’m about to attempt. But all’s fair in TV, pretty much. And we can always get an authorized picture of the VIN later.
“Yup, that’s a good outcome,” I say. “And nice work about the wheel-well thing.”
“Well, it’s part hard work. And part luck.”
Couldn’t have put it better myself. And here comes a little of each. I pretend to be annoyed, even performing a little foot stamp with my boot. “Rats.”
“What?” Joe says.
“Oh, Liz and her cameraman are gone,” I gesture vaguely behind me, my voice laden with concern. “I never saw them get a close-up of that wheel well. The exec producer is going to nail her for that. Could I-”
I stop midsentence. Oh. Rats. And this time I mean it. Franklin has a camera, but I totally forgot it’s the hidden camera. So I can’t ask if we can get a picture with it. Putting both hands on my knees, I pretend to have a brief coughing fit, giving myself some time to think.
“You okay?” Joe says.
I hold up a palm, standing back upright. “Fine. All this car exhaust, I bet. Anyway, as I was saying. Could I take of picture of the wheel well for Liz? With my cell-phone camera?”
If he lets us get right up to the car, I’ll snap a photo of the wheel well with my cell to distract the cops while Franklin gets the VIN on his hidden camera.
Joe looks back at the car. The black-and-yellow tape is being taken down. Franklin is chatting earnestly about who-knows-what with a crime-scene tech. I know Franko’s stalling. Or strategizing. Most of the other uniforms have gone. A BPD flatbed tow truck that had been parked to one side is being waved into place. The Explorer won’t be here for long.
“Sure,” Joe says. “For you? I can make that happen.”
“I’m driving. You know I can’t look at the video,” Franklin says. “But I got it, right? It’s our VIN? Every number and letter shows up? The first few numbers are going to be the same on every Explorer of the same year.”
“Duh.” I’ve got the hidden camera on my lap, the flip-screen open, and I’m pressing Rewind. I watch the jaggedy video spin by, backward, once again. “Let me rewind again, check it, to be sure,” I say. “But I think it’s fine. Great job.”
We’re winding back down the twisting ramps of the parking garage, heading back to the station. If the VINs match, and I’m confident they do, our story is about to accelerate into high gear.
“I suppose,” I say as the humming tape continues to rewind, “we could go on the air without knowing who’s behind this, you know? Just show that cars are being hijacked and cloned, and that Michael Borum was a possible casualty of this potentially far-reaching, dangerous and-”
“And lucrative,” Franklin puts in.
“And lucrative scheme,” I finish. The camera clicks, signaling the tape is at the beginning again. “So let’s check with Kevin. See if we can go with what we’ve got. I mean, let’s say we do find the mastermind. What am I supposed to do, go confront him? Then say, hang on, sir, we’re putting this all on TV next week?”
“Or ma’am,” Franklin says, pulling up to the cashier’s exit booth. “You have the ticket?”
“In the sun visor.” I point to the flap. And then push Fast-Forward on the camera.
“I know I’m right,” I continue, my eyes glued to the tiny screen. “We don’t have to know who’s behind it. We’re not the cops. Let Jeremiah Soroff and his crew go after some real bad guys for once. Once they see our story, they’ll-”
“Twenty-four dollars?” Franklin’s voice, directed out his open window, is incredulous.