The contents hidden in the built-in wooden compartment of the truck were real, however. The metal bars.
Wade Turner's and Morgan Lanier's captain called them into his office four days after the truck had driven off the side of the highway. He told them that he figured they deserved to know the result of the investigation up to that point, not that the result was going to add up to much because they were pretty well stymied. But the captain told them all about the stolen vehicle and about Teddy Angel's nonexistent fingerprints. And about the bars they'd found just sitting in the back of Teddy's truck.
They weren't gold. They weren't silver.
They were platinum.
Solid, pure, unidentifiable and untraceable platinum bars.
Three million dollars' worth.
PART ONE
1
Justin Westwood was experiencing a combination of emotions he was not particularly used to, and he wasn't sure exactly how he felt about it. For one thing, he was relaxed. For another, at least for the moment, he was content. If push came to shove, he realized, he might even describe himself as happy. He was well aware this was not his normal state of mind, and he couldn't help but wonder what the hell was going on.
The good feelings came partly from the very cold Ketel One vodka martini he was sipping, his second in the past half hour, each with two spicy jalapeno-stuffed olives filling up the bottom of the glass. He'd also indulged in a few hits of a superb joint. He wondered what would happen if one of East End Harbor's young police officers happened to walk into his house sometime to find him happily getting stoned. Probably nothing, he thought. It was one of the few advantages of being the chief of police.
Things had been quiet in the small Long Island resort town for nearly a year now. And quiet was good.