Free Pulse by Edna Buchanan Page B

hated to get up this early. You never did if you could help it.” She touched his cheek. “Did you sleep well? How do you feel?”
    “Excellent. It feels great to be back in harness.”
    She smiled indulgently. “Well, please don’t do too much. And do come home by two. That’s when the Guard-Tec consultant and that detective will be here to discuss the security system.”
    He slapped a palm to his forehead. “I nearly forgot. I’ll be back. If I’m a few minutes late, just work with Lucca and give him whatever he needs. You’ll like him. He’s good.”
    He stopped at a Burger King drive-through for black coffee and scanned the morning paper. Still nothing about a lostboat or a drowning victim. He blamed the paper. The local section had become lackluster. That’s what happens in a one-newspaper town, he thought. Coverage suffers without competition. The story had gone unreported, he thought, or the boater had somehow saved himself.
    He drove with the flow of traffic, windows open. Unlike the stifling hot dead air of summer, there had been cooling fall breezes almost every day. He felt eager and energetic, ahead of rush hour, which would soon stream in the opposite direction, toward downtown. Unscrambling figures, making numbers talk until they spit out the bottom line, had always been an irresistible challenge. Heady with anticipation, he made the turn onto Rory’s street. A police car sat in her driveway. He stopped, overtaken by dread. There were two uniformed officers, one retrieving something from his cruiser, the other near the front door, which stood open. He snatched his briefcase, locked the Mercedes and hurried up the walk.
    “What’s wrong, Officer? Is there a problem?”
    Rory appeared in the doorway, wearing blue denim, her hair loose, down her back. She seemed to be all right. From behind her, a small boy stared at the policemen.
    “I don’t have my license and registration,” she told the cop. “They’re in the glove compartment.”
    “Swell.” The cop shook his head. “That’s not smart.”
    “I know, I know.” She pushed back her hair and turned to Frank. “My car was stolen last night.”
    “Right out of your driveway?” He turned and stared in disbelief down the shady residential street as though the culprit might still be lurking, eyeing his Mercedes.
    “I woke up this morning and it was gone. And it’s my week to drive the kids to school …”
    “We haven’t had many auto thefts in this immediate area,” reported the taller cop, the one with the clipboard.
    “You sure another family member didn’t take it in for repairs without telling you?”
    “There are no other family members,” she said quietly, curling a protective arm around her small son’s shoulders, “just us.”
    “Notice anything unusual, any strangers around here lately?”
    Her eyes turned to Frank.
    “I swear I didn’t take it. Not guilty.”
    “Of course not,” she said.
    “A Mercury Sable station wagon is not exactly the hottest set of wheels in the world of professional car thieves,” the shorter cop commented.
    “How old you say it was, a ninety-three? Musta stole it for parts.”
    “Three forty-two?” The voice of the dispatcher sounded crisp and clear on the taller cop’s hand-held radio.
    “Three forty-two,” he responded.
    “Three forty-two, that’s affirmative on that vehicle at your QTH, it’s on the list.”
    “Affirmative? Thank you. QRU.” The cop capped his pen, exchanged glances with his partner and gave Rory a withering look.
    “Nobody stole your car, lady. It was repossessed.”
    “Repossessed?” She sounded shocked.
    “Yeah.”
    “But how could that be?”
    “Simple premise, lady. You don’t make the payments, the repo man takes the car. Let’s go, Bill.”
    “But wait,” she protested, “my license, registration and some of my son’s baseball gear, his uniform and his mitt, they’re all in the car.”
    “You’ll have to take it up with the lender,