Brodersen was already on his feet. He stood with his hand pressed to the radio on his shoulder and his head tipped toward it and called it in, white cargo van, Ford Transit or similar, high roof, roof rack, last seen northbound Broadway from Taylor approximately twenty minutes ago, unknown plate, and then he stood there with his hand still on the radio after he had finished, looking across Broadway at the empty auto-parts lot under its one sodium lamp, and Lorenz saw something go across his face that he recognized, because he had seen it in the galley mirror on mornings after storms. It was the face of a man doing arithmetic he did not want the answer to.
"I've seen it," Brodersen said. "That van. I've seen that van every night I've been out here. It's always over there or down at the church lot. I thought it was a plumber. A night job somewhere. Plumbers work nights." He sat back down on the curb, heavily. "I ran the plate once. Week two. It came back to a commercial lease company out of Indianapolis. I thought, plumber, and I let it go." He laughed, a short dry sound. "Five weeks I've been sitting on this bank in the gas station lot down the block with my lights off, watching the box. And they've been sitting right there watching me watch the box. Waiting for me to clear. I clear, they cross the street, open the box with a key just like yours, lift out whatever's on the pan, put the pan back, go home. And I'm down there writing up the bar manager."
Lorenz said nothing. There was nothing to say to that that would not be cruel or a lie.
"I've got the sergeant's exam in January," Brodersen said, after a while, not looking at him. "You know that? I've got a letter in my file from the chief about the Copperline case. Proactive investigation of a property crime pattern. That's what it says. I asked my lieutenant for this detail. I wanted this. I've got a kid, she's eight, and I see her every other weekend and Wednesday nights, and I'm paying for a house I don't live in anymore and an apartment I do. Sergeant's another eleven grand a year." He rubbed his face with both hands. "That's not an excuse. I'm not saying it like it's an excuse. I'm just telling you that's what I was thinking about. Sitting in that lot. I was thinking about the exam."
"The horse," Lorenz said.
"What?"
"In your car. The picture. The purple horse."
Brodersen was quiet for a moment. "Her name's Clover," he said. "The horse. My daughter's never seen a real horse except at the county fair. She draws one every weekend I have her. That one's got five legs, if you count. She says the fifth one's for going fast."
Lorenz smiled in spite of himself. He looked down at his hands, his left one still mottled red and white where the cuff had been. "My son is thirteen," he said. "Last week he asked me, if a policeman stops you, do you keep your hands on the wheel, even if your nose itches. A boy at school told him."
Brodersen didn't answer that. He looked at the asphalt between his boots.