Drive Time

Chapter Twenty-Two

“You have to slow down. So you can take a ticket.” Franklin points to the black-and-white ticket-dispensing machine, all that’s standing between us and the cops. And, we hope, between us and a lovely close-up VIN view of the carjacked red Explorer. “Push the green button, Charlotte.”

“I know how parking garages work, I’m going to take a darn ticket,” I say. I am almost too impatient to wait for an automatic gate. I hit the brake grudgingly, lean out the window and punch the flashing green dome. It spits out a magnetic striped ticket and the long metal arm slowly, agonizingly slowly, lifts to allow us in.

The Garage at Fifty-Five Friend Street is a multi-storied, poorly lighted, perfect place to hide a car, because it’s where all the other cars are. We could never have found the stolen Explorer. The cops did. According to the faxed news release from HQ that’s now safely in my coat pocket, the license plates had been removed, but unfortunately for the bad guys, remnants of a telltale beach-access parking decal were still in place on the rear window.

“They’re having a news conference, can you believe it?” I say. The car barely clears the gate as I drive through and go up the ramp to the fifth floor, where the police have notified the media they’ll display their find.

“The cops are going to show off this car, trying to prove they’re cracking down on the carjacking situation. But it’s the key to our story. The solution to our where’s the-car dilemma. And it’s right here, served up nicely by Boston’s finest. You’ve got to love it.”

“If it actually is the clone of our Explorer,” Franklin says. He pauses, pulls a tiny spiral notebook from the side pocket of his suede jacket and starts flipping pages. “There are-let’s see-5,600 Explorers in Boston. Possibly fifteen percent of them are red. Plus, if No-Hat, as you’ve now indelibly dubbed him in my head, didn’t get a chance to have his buddies transform the stolen car into a clone, it’ll be a total bust. I mean, it’ll be just another red Explorer.”

“Eeyore,” I say. “You’re always Eeyore. How long can it take to slap on three VIN plates? So I’ll distract the cops while you get a nice shot of No-Hat’s nefarious handiwork with that lovely hidden camera you’ve got. We’ll use the wide shots from Liz and her photog, since they’re covering the news conference.”

I sneak a quick look at Franklin as we hit the straightaway of the second floor.

“Cheer up, partner. We’ve done the hard part, getting video of them stealing our VIN. And now we’re about to be presented a perfect view of the result. I’ll bet you ten thousand dollars it’s the clone of our car.”

Franklin and I always bet ten thousand dollars. Sometimes one or the other of us is down a hundred thousand or so, but it always, eventually, evens out. I ease the car up around the corner, noticing a black-and-red sign indicating we’re on Two Left. With a chill of sadness I realize there might not be time for any new big money bets to even out.

“Where’d they say it was again?” I ask. Changing the subject.

“Left side, space number one, according to the news release.” Franklin says. “And I suppose it’s in the best interest of the cloners to change the car’s identity as quickly as possible. So, we’ll see. All we have to do is get to the VIN number.”

Third floor.

“And since the cops will impound this baby anyway,” I say, “we won’t have to worry about anyone messing with it. They’re actually protecting it for us. Nice. We are having one big fat lucky day.”

I look at Franklin as we head around the curves of the fourth floor, remembering. “Except that you’ve announced you’re leaving me, of course.”

The red Explorer is cordoned off with black-and-yellow plastic tape. Crime Scene, Do Not Cross, it announces in black letters, over and over. Although this is not technically the scene of the crime. There’s no way for us to get close enough to see the VIN. Yet.

Between us and the car, I count six television crews arranged in a semicircle. Six reporters, creating a rainbow of multi-colored parkas, hover next to six photographers. Six cameras with battery-powered lights mounted on top are at the ready on tripods. There’s no power to plug in big portable lights, so the area stays dim, fluorescent tubes across the concrete ceiling struggling to make it approach daylight. The newspaper reporters keep to themselves in a pack to one side. Their parkas, aggressively rumpled, a dimmer rainbow of gray to tan, telegraph their disdain for their on-air competitors.

They’re all waiting for the huddle of blue uniforms to come to a bank of microphones precariously rigged up with gaffer’s tape and retractable metal stands.

Franklin and I stay behind them all. Waiting for our chance.

“Strange, though, that they’d carjack, you know? Why not just steal a car? This is so-out there.”

“Stop fidgeting, Charlotte,” Franklin whispers. “Here they come. They’ll talk, the gang will ask questions, they’ll all leave. Then we can try to get closer.”

“We only need one shot,” I say. I’m calculating the ways we could manage it.

All at once, the garage goes bright. In the instant heat and flare of six battery-powered spotlights, a parade of uniforms approaches the microphones.

“I’m Lieutenant Henry Zavala, Z-A-V-A-L-A, head of the Auto Theft Unit.” A lanky forty-something with a bristling cop-issue mustache and matching eyebrows steps forward. The lights glint on his silver badge. “We are pleased to announce today we’ve recovered…”

“Yeah, yeah, you found the car, big deal,” I mutter as Zavala continues. “So who took it? You know that? That’d be worth a news conference.”

“Shush,” Franklin says. “Maybe they do know.”

The news conference sputters along, a series of self-congratulatory back-pats by the police officers, followed by solemn warnings to citizens to be watchful and keep their car doors locked, followed by fake-aggressive questions from reporters who have no idea they’re on the edges of a real story.

No suspects, the cops finally admit. Victim barely saw the carjackers, can’t describe them. The victims want to be anonymous. Won’t do interviews. Fingerprinting to come. A cop had spied the car on a routine patrol. They confirmed it by the beach decal and a key the owners had hidden under the left front wheel well in a magnetic tin box.

“They haven’t checked the VIN,” I whisper. “Yay.”

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.

“We were barely here for an hour, hour and a half at most.” I push Stop and lean across him, adding my two cents.

The attendant, who looks as if she has a supersize package of Dubble Bubble working, points to a glowing electronic readout that says $24.00, then to a hand-lettered and imaginatively spelled sign that reads “Attendant at Fifty-Five Friend cannot altar parking fees.” The sign also offers a phone number to report problems or complaints. As if anyone’s going to call some phone number.

I pause, staring at nothing, trying to retrieve an elusive thought.

“Fine, fine,” Franklin says. He takes his wallet out of his inside jacket pocket, and with a show of annoyance, hands over a twenty and four ones. “Receipt, please.”

“Gigi in accounting is going to flip,” I say. What is it that I’m trying to remember?

We pull out of the lot, Franklin still grumbling, and turn onto Friend Street. It was light when we went in, but it’s almost dark now, the weirdness of New England winter in daylight savings time. Franklin clicks on the headlights, then pulls the car to the curb. “Let’s see the tape, at least. If the numbers are there, it’s worth having Channel 3 bilked out of twenty-four bucks.”

I hand over the camera, part of my mind yanking my attention somewhere else. And then I have it. Not fully formed. But enough. It’s my song. My phone number song. I think I know what it means.

“Franko?” I say.

“What?” He’s only half listening, his eyes focused on the screen.

“I’ll be right back, okay? I’m going to check on something in the garage. I’ll leave my stuff here,” I say, pointing to my purse and tote bag. “I’ll be right back.”