I click the phone closed as we once again pull a parking-lot ticket from the automatic dispenser. Now we’ll see if the cops arrive. And what happens after that.
Bubble-Gum Girl is oblivious as the metal arm rises to let us drive past. “Remember, fifth floor left, space 93. No, wait, go to the fifth floor. Then we’ll decide what to do,” I say, peering into the shadowy garage. Then I get an idea. “Let me have your hat.”
“I’m not even going to ask,” Franklin says. He pulls the black knit cap from his head and hands it to me.
We pull around the twisting ramps leading up onto the second floor. Flipping down the sun visor, I make sure all my hair is tucked under Franklin’s cap. For as long as possible, I don’t want Skith to recognize me. I wish I could wear my sunglasses to complete my semi-disguise, but I’ll never be able to shoot video with them on.
By the time we hit floor three, I’m spinning out the story at light speed. I’m up to the part where I figure out the phone number indicates the address and the location of the stolen cars.
“It just hit me, you know? I guess it was when I saw the phone number on Bubble-Gum Girl’s ticket booth.”
“Who?” Franklin eases the car around another too-tight curve, avoiding a careening van full of teenagers. “I told you it wasn’t a phone number.”
No Windveil Blue Mustangs have passed us going the other way. And although this garage is an incomprehensible maze of curves, I’m pretty sure there’s only one way out. Even if my scheme failed, Doug is still in the garage and on his way down. We could follow him. If my scheme worked, he’s still in space 93. Trying to figure out why his car won’t start.
“True, it wasn’t a real phone number,” I acknowledge. Franklin loves to be right as much as I do. I tell him about finally finding the Mustang and about the arrival of No-Hat. “He told me his name is Doug ‘Skith,’ can you believe it?”
“Because Smith sounds too made up?”
“That’s what I thought, too.” I look at my watch, frowning. “Do you hear sirens or anything?”
“Nope.”
I tell Franklin the rest of the story, the short version, as we drive, fast as we can, up the ramps. My tale ends with me assuring Doug his car is fine, giving him a fake e-mail address and letting him walk me to the elevator as if we had been on some blind date in bizarro-world. Thankfully, the elevator doors opened instantly for the first time in my life. I pushed the button for G with a vengeance, never so relieved to be headed for an exit.
“So, who knows what he did after that,” I finish. “If my battery move was successful, he’s probably pretty darn angry about now.”
Finally I hear sirens.
“I guess we caught the same 911 call you did? Guy in a black parka, stolen Mustang?” I’m talking to Lieutenant Henry Zavala. The camera viewfinder is still up to my eye, no need to hide it, and I’m rolling on every bit of the cops’ shakedown of an irate and fuming Doug Skith. Zavala, head of the Auto Theft Unit, is overseeing the operation.
“We were still in the neighborhood, so we got here pretty fast. So what’s the skinny? This a stolen car? Or what? That guy under arrest? Seems like you all are having a big day at the parking lot.”
“Could be,” Zavala says, answering most of my questions at once. He shrugs his narrow shoulders, then adjusts his chunky black utility belt. Radio. Nightstick. Big gun sticking out of a snapped holster. “Guy told us this is not his car. We’re holding him, under suspicion, while we run the plate.”
I forgot to look at the Mustang’s license plate. I wonder whose it really is.
“Thanks,” I say, moving so I can get a better shot of the rear of the car. “Let me know.”
Two black-and-white Boston police cruisers are blocking the Mustang into space 93. Sirens off, blue lights making glaring swirls on the shiny parked cars and flashes of shadow on the concrete walls. The arrival of the police has made it one-lane-only up and down the parking-lot ramp. A cadet cop in an orange cap officiously waves rubbernecking drivers past the scene.
Doug, legs spread, arms splayed and palms against the hood, is leaning up against a third police cruiser. Luckily, his face is planted in the roof of the car, so he hasn’t seen me in my new role. So far. A blue-uniformed officer pats him down, checking his parka, his blue jeans, his work boots.
“No car keys,” the officer calls out.
Another cop sits in the cruiser’s front seat, typing on the keyboard of a computer affixed to the dashboard.
“Let me get a shot of you talking to the police,” Franklin, standing behind me, whispers. “This’ll be great in our story.”
I hand Franklin the camera, still rolling.
“We may have a problem,” I say.
“What problem?” Franklin’s pointing the lens at Doug, who’s still spread-eagle against the car.
The computer-clicking officer hauls himself out of the front seat, shaking his head. “Plates are clear. No reports of this car as stolen.” He moves his hat with one hand, scratches underneath with the other, then looks at Zavala.
“That problem,” I mutter. “They’ve certainly got this covered, they use plates from another matching car or something. This car’s not gonna show up as stolen. That’s part of the scam. It’s why it works. It’s a clone.”
“Ya run the VIN?” Zavala asks.
“Doing it.” The officer ducks back into the car.
“I see what you mean.” Franklin’s voice is low. “The VIN’s not going to come back as stolen, either.”
“I told you it wasn’t my car,” No-Hat yells into the police-car roof, slapping one of his flat palms against the white metal. “You have to let me go. I got rights.”
One officer answers him, hand on his weapon, leaning close to his prisoner and saying something I can’t hear. Apparently it was effective. Skith says no more.
“Right,” I answer Franklin. I press my lips together, trying to think over the rising cacophony of blaring car horns, angry motorists annoyed at having their ride home delayed.
“They’re not going to be able to arrest him,” I say, my heart sinking with the realization that we’re seeing, up close and on video, how diabolical this cloning scheme actually is. Even when police officers actually find a stolen car, they’ll have no idea it’s stolen. “When they run the VIN, they’ll find-wait.”
“What?” Franklin asks. “You figure out something?”
“Lieutenant Zavala,” I say, raising my voice over the honking and giving Franklin a surreptitious thumbs-up. “Can we get a close-up shot? We need to see the VIN number.”
“VIN’s clear,” the computer cop calls from his front seat. “Not on the stolen-car list.”
“Let me go, you jerks.” Skith is now performing in full wronged-innocent-citizen mode. “Police brutality. This is not my car. I’m not stealing it. I didn’t steal it. I was walking here. I was only looking at it. It’s a free country. Whatever. Let me go!”
I take Franklin’s arm, not waiting for Zavala’s reply, and head both of us toward the VIN. Franklin moves closer to the car’s windshield, camera pointing in the right direction. We’ve got to get shots of those numbers for our story. Plus, if the police let Skith go, our proof goes with him. He’ll send some crony back to retrieve the not-stolen car. Game over.
“Loot?” the cop next to Skith calls out, waving him over. “We holding this guy as a suspect?”
“Lieutenant Zavala?” I call out, waving him toward me. “Please? First? Listen, quick question for you.”
Zavala assesses the increasingly infuriated Doug, then looks back at me, then back at Doug. He holds up one finger to the officer by the cruiser, signaling.
“Stand by one, Hartwell,” he says.
“Listen, Lieutenant,” I say. He’s giving me one minute, too. I dig into the purse that’s slung over my shoulder, searching for the notebook that’s inside. “I know this is off the wall. But remember the carjacking in the South End? The murder? The blue Mustang? The one where-”