"Travis."
"It's from April of last year."
"Has it been updated?"
"I don't—it's still active in the system."
"That's not what I asked." She turned to the woman in the grass. "Ms. Phan?"
"Yes."
"Sergeant Benitez. You can come over here. Slowly. Let me see what you've got."
Thuy Phan came across the grass, limping a little on the stockinged foot, and stood in front of the sergeant and handed her the green title first. Benitez took a small flashlight off her belt and turned it on and read both sides of the title in its beam, slowly, the front with the VIN and the previous owner and the back with the reassignments, and then she walked to the front of the van and leaned into the open driver's door and read the VIN plate at the base of the windshield with the flashlight, and came back.
"Matches," she said. She held out her hand, and Thuy Phan gave her the tablet. "What am I looking at?"
"The state's permit system. That's my login, my dealer account. This is the issuance record. That's the permit number on the back of the van. Time stamp is five forty-seven p.m. Buyer is Alton Cole, Forty-one sixteen Tanyard Road. That's the VIN. It shows my access was reinstated September twenty-fifth. You can see the reinstatement here, in the account history."
Benitez looked at it for a long time. Then she handed the tablet back. "You said you had the state investigator's number."