time. “This is part of an FBI investigation.”
“Not the one that’s been in the paper where they’ve been having those shootings?”
“Actually, yes.”
“I’ve got to admit you look like an FBI agent, but I’ve had enough dealings with cops to know the first thing they do is show a badge. You didn’t.”
“I was fired today.”
“Was that you in the shooting?”
“It was.”
“Fired for what?” the owner asked in a way that told Vail if he answered the question correctly, they would be on the same side.
“Not letting management in on things they would screw up.”
The owner laughed. “Now you know why I started my own business thirty-seven years ago. Bill Burton.” He held out his hand. “Besides, business has been slow, so I’ll do anything short of extremely illegal to keep from going nuts.”
They shook hands. “Steve Vail. That’s more or less how I got here.”
Burton turned the cap upside down. “There’s some numbers stamped inside. I can’t read them.” He handed it to Vail. “Can you make them out?” Vail read them and the owner wrote them down. “Come on in the back. I never throw anything away. I think I’ve got every parts catalog all the way back to the stagecoaches.”
Once they reached the large storage room, Vail discovered that Burton hadn’t been exaggerating. The shelves were organized but crammed full. Boxes were stacked along the walls almost to the ceiling. Burton stepped behind a six-foot tower of them and said, “The old catalogs from the fifties are back here. By the construction, that’d be my first guess when your car was manufactured.” On the floor were piles of stained catalogs. He handed them out to Vail a dozen at a time until he had more than fifty of them. “This’ll go a lot faster if you can give me a hand.”
“Just show me what to look for.”
For the next two hours, they pored over the catalogs, Vail occasionally asking for clarification. A couple of times customers came in and Burton stopped to wait on them.
Finally the owner said, “I’ve got it.”
Vail stepped behind Burton, reading over his shoulder. “A 1957 Packard Clipper. That’s the right number.”
“Do you know what they look like?” the owner asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“Yeah, you’re a little young. They were huge. You could run one of today’s cars into them and you’d total it, but that old Packard wouldn’t even be dented. Come on, I’ll show you what it looks like.” Vail followed him into an even more cramped office. Burton typed on his computer and after a few seconds turned the monitor so Vail could see it. “There it is. The thing’s a tank, isn’t it?”
Vail studied the boxy vehicle with the heavy rolled chrome bumpers and could see how it would have been indestructible. “I need to find the one that distributor cap belongs to. Any ideas?”
“I suppose there are a few around belonging to collectors, but I haven’t seen one in—I’ll bet—thirty years. I don’t know where you’d even get parts for one.” Burton started to say something else, but Vail’s focus had become distant, causing the owner to stop speaking.
Finally Vail said, “I think I do.” He held out his hand to the owner. “Thanks to you, Bill.”
THE HOUSE ON SPRING STREET where they’d found Bertok’s body looked the same with the exception of the yellow crime-scene tape, which was a little more windblown and droopy because of the recent rain. A newly installed hasp and lock again secured the front entrance. The iron gate protecting it was also relocked. Vail pulled into the driveway and turned off the engine.
He grabbed the distributor cap, got out, and walked over to the fence that separated the house from the auto graveyard. Turning it in his hand almost as if it were a compass, he now understood its importance. He hadn’t taken the time to consider why Salton was watching the house the day that Kate and Vail discovered the secret to Stan Bertok’s “suicide,” or why he would be driving around with the three million dollars in his trunk. It had nothing to do with the house. He, and possibly Radek with the two million in his car, was there to hide the money in the salvage yard. Then, having spotted Vail, they would know that their frame of the dead agent was going to blow up if they didn’t do something about it.
Vail found the two fence boards that were not nailed at the bottom, pushed them to the side, and