The Witness (Badge of Honor 4)

“Right,” McFadden said. “Okay. From the thief’s angle. You steal a car, and you can do what with it?”

“Strip it or chop it,” Malone said.

“What’s the difference?” Matt asked.

“A quick strip job means you take the tires and wheels, the radio, the air-conditioner compressor, the battery, anything you can unbolt in a hurry. A chop job is when you take maybe the front clip—you know what that is?”

“The fenders and grill,” Matt answered.

“Sometimes the whole front end, less the engine,” Malone said. “Engines have serial numbers. Or the rear end, or the rear quarter panels. Then you just dump what’s left. Clip job or strip job.”

“Or you get the whole car on a boat and send it to South America or Africa, or someplace,” McFadden said. “You don’t think that’s what Holland is doing, do you, Lieutenant?”

“Holland is selling whole cars.”

“With legitimate VIN tags,” McFadden said. “Where’s he get those?”

“From wrecks,” Malone said. “There’s no other place. He goes—he doesn’t go, he sends one of his people—to an insurance company auction—”

“A what?” Matt interrupted.

“You run your car into a tree,” Malone explained. “The insurance company decides it would cost too much to fix. They give you a check and take your car. Once a week, once every other week, they—not just one insurance company, a bunch of them—have an auction. The wrecks are bought by salvage yards, body shops, people like that.”

“And Holland just takes the VIN off the wreck and puts it on the stolen car, right, and says it’s been repaired, and puts it on one of his lots?” Matt asked.

“That’s how I see it,” Malone said.

“Well, if we know that,” Matt asked, “what’s the problem? All we have to do is—”

“Let me tell you, Payne, all we have to do,” Malone said, more than a little contempt in his tone. “Let me give you a for example. For example, we take Tom Lenihan’s car. We go back to Holland with it and say it’s stolen, and where did you get it? They say, ‘Gee, whiz, we didn’t know it was stolen. We carefully checked the VIN tag when we bought it at the insurance auction. See, here’s the bill of sale.’ So then we go to the insurance auction, and they say, ‘That’s right, we auctioned that car off for ABC Insurance, and sure, we checked the VIN tag. No, we didn’t check for the secret stamping, there’s no law says we have to, all the law says we have to do is check the VIN tag and fill out the forms for the Motor Vehicle Bureau. We did that. Besides, we are respectable busin

essmen, and we resent you hinting we’re a bunch of thieves.’”

“Oh,” Matt said, chagrined.

“If we went out there tomorrow morning, with Tom Lenihan’s Pontiac, which we know is stolen, you know what would happen? First of all, nobody would get arrested. Lenihan would have to give the car up, because it’s stolen. The original owner would get it back, but would have trouble with Motor Vehicles because the VIN tag doesn’t match the stamped ID on the frame somewhere. Holland would piss his pants, he was so sorry that this happened to an honest man like himself and an honest man like Lenihan. He would give Lenihan another car, maybe even a better one, to show what a good guy he is. Holland would then have his lawyer sue the auction for selling him a hot car. It would take years to get on the docket. There would be delays after delays after delays. Finally it either would die a natural death or the auction would settle out of court, and as part of the deal, both parties would agree never to divulge the amount of the settlement. You getting the picture, Payne?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And then he wouldn’t steal any more cars until he figured we didn’t have the time to watch him anymore,” Malone said.

“Then how do you plan to catch Holland, Lieutenant?” McFadden asked.

“I’ve got a couple of ideas.”

“That’s what I’m asking,” McFadden said.

“If Inspector Wohl finds out I haven’t listened to all the good advice I’ve been given to forget Holland, in other words, if you tell him you saw me at the body shop, or Payne tells him about tonight, what’s the difference?”

“The only people I told about you being outside the body shop is Matt and Hay-zus.”

Jesus, he has told somebody!

“Who’s—what did you say?”

“Hay-zus, Jesus in English, Martinez. He was my partner when we was undercover in Narcotics.”

“And how many people do you think he’s told, since you told him?”