Becoming Quinn by Brett Battles

Berit he had to be related to the old man.
    “Can I help you?” Stanley said.
    She showed him her badge and said, “I’m Berit Davies, with Phoenix PD. We talked earlier?”
    “Right. What can I do for you, Detective?”
    She cringed a little on the inside as he made an assumption of her position, but said nothing to correct him. “We talked about a car that had been brought in here yesterday. I’d like to take a look at it if I could.”
    “Sure thing. This way.”
    He put a hand under the counter and lifted a section like a drawbridge so she could get through, then led her out a back door into the lot. As they stepped outside, the machinery at the concrete plant whined and churned in a constant rhythm, creating a rumbling soundtrack that paid no attention to property lines.
    The first row of cars was actually a double stack of vehicles, the top cars raised into the air by metal car holders to create space for another to be parked underneath. As far as Berit could tell, all these slots were filled.
     “The newer cars are over this way,” Stanley said, raising his voice slightly to be heard over the machinery noise. He took her around the stackers to the third row back. No stackers here, just two parallel rows of cars parked side to side and trunk to trunk. “That was a Mercedes, right?”
    “BMW,” she told him.
    “Oh, right. Yeah, I remember now. It’s right down here.”
    They walked past more than a dozen cars—sedans, station wagons, trucks, SUVs, Fords, Toyotas, Hyundais, Volkswagens. Whatever the make or model, the yard seemed to have one.
    She saw the BMW before they reached it. Its black coat showed a layer of dust and grime that had accumulated since the night the car’s image had been captured by the traffic camera.
    “This is it, right?” Stanley asked.
    She checked the license plate number. “Yeah. This is it.”
    “I gotta head back inside. Take as long as you need.” He started to turn away, then stopped. “Doors are unlocked. Didn’t have a key.”
    “Okay. Thank you.”
    She waited for him to move away, then she walked around the car. As she did, she removed a pair of latex gloves from her pocket and pulled them on. If Jake was right, this car would soon be part of a crime investigation, and the last thing she wanted was for her own fingerprints to cover up any evidence.
    She was careful, though, not to touch anything on this first pass, and used only her eyes to do the examination. She’d hoped that she might spot some obvious fingerprints brought to life by the dust, but no such luck. When she reached the point where she’d started, she was satisfied that there was nothing else she could learn without getting more physically involved, so she opened the driver’s door, and looked inside.
    No visible hairs or marks. A little dirt on the floor mats, but in the desert that was to be expected. She leaned in and looked under the seat. Nothing. Not even a scrap of paper or a candy wrapper.
    The center console had two empty cup holders and a fold-down armrest that appeared to have a storage compartment under the padded leather. She wanted to open it, but she knew that would probably be pushing things too far. Leave that to the detectives if the car did indeed turn out to be evidence.  
    She stood back up and opened the rear door. The backseat and footwells were empty. Not even any dirt on the floor. She moved around to the other side and opened the front passenger door. This time she went against her better instincts and popped open the glove compartment. Absolutely nothing inside. She was pretty sure the car had been stolen, but it was hard to believe that the owner hadn’t at least kept a manual or his registration in the box. The men who had stolen it must have emptied it out, then wiped it down.
    She closed the box, did a fruitless search for any hair or visible fingerprints on the seat and dash, then shut the door. The only thing left to check was the trunk.
    She went around back,