Escorted to the Station

The station came into view after less than fifteen minutes, a clean brick building set back from the road, with two stories, a public office sign by the door, and a small placard about records requests. The lot was half full. Sunlight bounced off the windows.

Karen sat up straighter as Halverson parked. If they were going to write this down, she wanted every piece of it named right. The stop, the cuffs, the tow, the time. All of it.

Kavalik opened his door. “Move.”

Karen looked at the building, then at the paper sign by the entrance. “Good. There’ll be records.”

Halverson held the heavy glass door open, letting a wave of cold air hit Karen’s neck.

The lobby smelled of floor wax and fresh toner. A sign on the wall listed public office hours beside a stack of records-request forms, while a small vase of plastic yellow flowers sat on the front counter. After the heat on the shoulder of the road, the fluorescent lights made everything look washed out and thin.

Kavalik guided her by the elbow toward the counter partition. He didn’t push, but the weight of his palm stayed firm against her leather jacket.

Behind the counter, Linda Mercer looked up from a stack of manila folders. Her silver reading glasses hung from a beaded cord around her neck. She took in Karen’s locked wrists, then Kavalik’s flushed jaw.

“Afternoon, Dale,” Linda said.

“Need a full pull on a red Ducati,” Kavalik said, reaching around Karen to drop her driver’s license on the laminate top. “Halverson’s got the plate number. Run it against theft reports in the tri-county area.”

Halverson read the plate off a scrap of notepad paper. He leaned against a filing cabinet, looking everywhere except Karen’s face.

Karen kept her feet planted flat on the linoleum. “My registration and insurance card are inside the breast pocket of this jacket,” she said. Her voice remained even, though her shoulders ached from the angle of the steel cuffs. “Before you run theft reports, you might check dispatch time stamps. The flatbed was called before Deputy Halverson turned on his flashers.”

Kavalik turned his head an inch. “You’ll get your chance to talk when we process the hold.”

“I want the timeline in the record,” Karen said.

Linda picked up the license. She looked at Karen’s face, then back at the photo. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard for a second before she began to type. The steady clatter of keys echoed in the quiet room.

“Owner couldn’t produce title on the roadside,” Kavalik told the air above Linda’s head. “Vehicle value doesn’t match the operator’s profile for the neighborhood. Suspected unregistered transfer.”

“That isn’t a statute,” Karen said.

“Quiet,” Kavalik said.

Linda’s keys clicked five more times, then stopped. A low hum came from the tower under the desk as the state motor vehicle portal refreshed.

The screen reflected across Linda’s glasses, green and white lines replacing the blue search box. Her hands left the keys and rested on the blotter. The printer stayed silent. She didn’t hand the license back to Kavalik. Instead, she leaned forward two inches, her gaze locked on the center of the monitor, and the room went dead quiet.