He confirmed two officers from the day shift, Tucker Brennan, sergeant, and Lane Murchison, rookie, were the next two units in the dispatch queue for vehicle recovery calls within the Briarwood Glen zip code. He confirmed they did not know anything. At 11:00, I went into the garage. I lifted the bay door. I rolled the Mustang halfway out into driveway, front end pointed at the cul-de-sac, the way I'd been doing once a month for 2 years.
I connected the battery. I cranked the engine. I let it warm for 6 minutes. I shut it down. I left the hood open.
I got a clean chamois and a bottle of detail spray. I knelt at the front bumper and started polishing the grille. I wore jeans, a faded UGA cap, a worn navy t-shirt with a small bleach stain on the left collar from a load of laundry I'd done wrong in 2020. I clipped my body camera into the inside breast pocket of my t-shirt, so the lens peeked out at the top of the fabric. I activated it at 1:30.
The red light blinked twice and went solid. Tate came down at 12:45 and went upstairs to his bedroom on the second floor. He opened the window that overlooked the driveway. He set his iPhone on a small tripod his mother had bought him for his 14th birthday. He hit record on the camera.
He gave me a thumbs up from the window. I gave him one back. At 1:42, Hadley Lockwood walked out her front door across the cul-de-sac. She wore a coral blouse, white capris, gold sandals, same outfit as the pound cake day. She had a manila folder in her left hand.
Bryson followed her, taller than her by half a foot, wearing tennis shorts and a polo. He had a printout in his hands. Hadley walked to the foot of her own driveway. She stopped. She crossed her arms.
She was facing my driveway directly. She wanted to be seen. At 1:45, I saw the dispatch ping on my phone over my wristband notification. I had cloned the feed. I watched a single line of text scroll across.
CV DSP, vehicle recovery, 4815 Briarwood Glen. Caller reports stolen Mustang. At 1:47, two units acknowledged. C12, Brennan. C-19, Murchison.
En route. I went back to polishing the grille. I did not look up at Hadley. I did not look up at her son. I did not look at the upstairs window where my own son was filming.
I just polished the chrome the way my wife had taught me to polish the chrome in long slow circles from the center outward, the way she'd shown me on her father's 1957 Chevy in the summer of 1996. At 1:54, a Cederville patrol unit turned into the cul-de-sac. The patrol unit was a 2022 Ford Explorer with the new Cederville PD blue and silver livery. Sergeant Tucker Brennan was driving. He's 34, 6 years on the force, good cop.
Lane Murchison was in the passenger seat, 23, out of the academy 14 months. The unit rolled at 5 mph up the cul-de-sac and stopped 20 ft from my driveway. Hadley Lockwood across the street smiled. Brennan stepped out first. He adjusted his utility belt.
He looked at the Mustang. He looked at the man in jeans and a UGA cap kneeling at the grille. He started up the driveway. Murchison followed two paces behind him with his thumbs hooked in his belt. "Sir, Cederville PD."
"We have a report of a stolen vehicle at this address. Can you stand up and identify yourself?"
I set down the chamois. I stood up. I turned around. I took off my cap. Tucker Brennan stopped walking.