"Okay," Brodersen said. "Let's see."
He took hold of the white strip at the top of the bag with both hands.
"Please don't," Lorenz said. "Please. Sir. If you open it, it says void. The bank won't take it. My boss, she is in the hospital in Indianapolis with her husband, she trusted me with this, she—please. It's sealed. You can see it's sealed. Take it to the bank in the morning. Let the bank open it. They'll count it in front of you."
"You're consenting to a search or you're not?"
"I'm not. No. I don't consent. It's not mine to consent. It belongs to Baird's."
Brodersen considered this for perhaps two seconds. "I've got a guy pulling a bag out of a night depository," he said, "in an active theft pattern, with a wad of unexplained cash on him. I don't need your consent." And he tore the strip.
It made a long, ripping sound, and as it tore the blue word appeared down the length of the plastic, VOID VOID VOID VOID, like a stain spreading, and Lorenz closed his eyes.
When he opened them the cop had walked around to the front of the cruiser and spread the contents of the bag across the hood under the spill of the headlights. He was counting. Lorenz could see him through the windshield, bent over the hood with his flashlight wedged in his armpit, licking his thumb, laying the bills down in rows. He counted for a long time. He counted the quarters in their paper rolls, ten dollars a roll, tapping each one. He picked up the two checks and read them. He unfolded the slip and read it. And then he did something Lorenz had not expected: he counted it all again. Twice. The way Dorrit's card said. Lorenz almost laughed, and the almost-laugh caught in his chest like a fishbone.
Brodersen came back to the open door with the slip in his hand.
"It's right," he said. "To the penny."
"Yes."