Somebody had put a hotel pan in the chute of the night drop.
And under his own bag on that pan there had been a blue bag. COPPERL.
On the dash speaker, the dispatcher's voice came again, and this time, in the silence of the closed car, he heard it clearly.
"—sergeant's en route, ten minutes. Brodersen, detective division says if this is related to the Copperline case they want a call before you transport, and they'll want—"
The rest was lost in static.
Lorenz sat up so fast his shoulder hit the window.
Copperline. COPPERL. He did not know what the Copperline case was. He did not need to know. He leaned toward the door and hit the glass with his shoulder, once, twice, hard enough to hurt, and when the cop turned around and looked at him through the windshield he shouted, "The blue bag! Officer! There's a blue bag! It says Copperline!"
Brodersen came around the side of the cruiser and yanked the door open. His face was dark.
"You do that again—"
"There is another bag in the chute," Lorenz said. He said it as fast and as clearly as he could, the way you call down to the engine room when the oil pressure drops. "In the wall. Under where mine was. A blue bag, the zipper kind, with a lock. White letters on the side. Copperl—I couldn't see the rest, my bag was on top of it. You said Copperline. On the radio. I heard it. It's in there. It's still in there. Sitting on a pan."
Brodersen stared at him.