Drive Time

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

  “You got the number wrong.” Franklin swivels. He looks at me, his voice almost accusing. He points to the screen.

  That’s weird. And unlikely.

  “No, I didn’t,” I finally reply.

  At least, I hope I didn’t. That’s just what I don’t need this morning. There’s no “wrong” in TV. I scoot my chair toward Franklin’s desk, squinting for a closer look at the monitor and get an uncomfortable thought. Because I was in a hurry, on the way to the Head’s party, I didn’t actually see the VIN. “I mean, I suppose Annie could have read it to me wrong.”

  “Yes, well, whatever. This can’t be the VIN of Annie’s white Ombra.”

  “Okay, fine, it’s not the VIN of Annie’s white Ombra.” If I’m wrong, which I suppose I could be, I might as well take the hit. Who cares, anyway? I can always go back and get the number again. But I’m curious. “How do you know it isn’t?”

  Franklin begins to sort through the brown cardboard box of tape cassettes parked next to our television monitor. “Do you have the logs from the Rental Car King? Let me show you something on the video.”

  “Can’t you just tell me, without making a big drama of the whole thing?”

  Franklin ignores me. “The logs?”

  I hand him the stapled sheets of paper, lists of numbers and descriptions typed by our current college-student intern. Ashley’s watched our undercover video, keeping track of what pictures correspond to the time codes electronically burned into the tape. Unlike counter numbers, which can be reset to zero-zero-zero with the push of a button, a tape’s time codes are always the same. That makes things easy to find.

  Franklin slides the cassette into the viewer, then consults the log. “Zero one, fifteen, zero eight,” he mutters, twisting the fast-forward dial to find one hour, fifteen minutes and eight seconds.

  The pictures speed by until Franklin whaps the yellow Pause button. The counter shows 01:15:00. He twists the machine’s fat black dial to click the seconds forward. At 01:15:06, the camera lens flares with a hit of sunshine, then auto-irises down. The hood of a white car wobbles into view. The camera lurches as Franklin walks closer to the vehicle. At 01:15:07, the lurching stops and the video settles into focus. At :08, it shows a white Ombra.

  Franklin looks at me, gesturing dramatically at the picture. “Here’s the proof you’re wrong. This car, in the RCK rental lot, has the same VIN number you gave me. So you must have written down Annie’s VIN incorrectly.”

  He pushes the red eject button. The tape pops from the machine. Franklin leaves it, half in, half out, as if it’s sticking out its tongue at me.

  “Unless Annie’s new old car can be two places at once. Which it obviously can’t be.” He crosses his arms across his starched yellow oxford shirt. Waiting for my answer.

  With one quick motion, I lean over and push the tape back into place. The motor whirs as the tape threads into position. I push Play, then Pause. Stare at the screen. A white Ombra. With the same VIN as Annie’s. Impossible. Impossible for a car to be two places at one time.

  But actually, I know it is possible. And I know exactly how.

  “Franko, listen. I mean, look.” I twist my chair around, and scoot back to my own computer. I punch up Google, and type in three words.

  As soon as we find Annie’s car, we’ll know.

  “There it is, on the end. By the yellow lines. See it?” Annie’s parked her Ombra in Bexter’s tree-lined student lot. Seniors go back a week earlier than the other kids. Which, today, is lucky for me and Franklin.

  “I see it,” Franklin replies. He steers his Passat past a row of cars, each labeled with the elaborate gothic B of the Bexter parking stickers.

  Garrison Hall is in the distance, which makes me wonder about Alethia. No word from Josh yet this morning about her. Last night’s police interview had been short, the cops divulging nothing. Afterward, we’d dumped the sweater and scarf mélange from my bed and collapsed together, exhausted, without even getting under the covers. We’re both going on about four hours’ sleep. But my Google search has given me quite an energy boost. I can be tired later.

  Franklin pulls up beside Annie’s Ombra. He leaves the engine running, and we hop out into the cold afternoon, our words puffing white in the January chill.

  “There’s no dealer sticker that I can see. And no dealer name tag around the license plate,” Franklin says, going around to the rear of the car. “Do you know where Annie’s parents purchased this?”

  I tug lightly on the driver’s-side door. Locked. That means I can’t check the VIN on the metal plate attached inside. “Nope, no reason to ask. But let’s just see what Annie’s parents really got here. I’ll read you the dashboard VIN, okay? I can read that through the windshield. Ready?

  “One. Y, B, one…” I begin. Seventeen digits. A one-of-a-kind combination. Supposedly unique. Like a car’s DNA.

  But if my theory is right, and I bet a million dollars it is, at least two white Ombras have the same VIN. Because one of them is a fake. A copy. A clone. And it might be this one.

  “Yup, the number’s the same,” Franklin confirms. “Weird.”

  I lean against the hood of Franklin’s idling Passat, grateful for the engine’s heat coming through my winter coat. Branches rustle around us, a late-afternoon wind kicks up. Towering gray clouds invade the once-sunny sky. More snow coming.

  “Not weird. Auto identity theft.” The three words I searched on Google.

  “Auto identity theft?”

  “Yup. One of the fastest-growing crimes in the country. Let’s say someone swipes a car, say, a white Ombra. All the crooks have to do is find another white Ombra. They copy its VIN number, make new VIN plates and replace the ones on the stolen car.”

  I make a gesture like a magician with a wand. “Prestochango. The stolen car disappears. And if cops are looking for a stolen vehicle with a certain VIN, well, that VIN doesn’t exist anymore. The bad guys can easily sell the clone because the stolen VIN comes back as clear. Pure profit.”

  Franklin leans into Annie’s windshield, peering at the VIN, then shakes his head. “You’re right. It’d be so easy. VINs are just numbers on metal plates. A snap to reproduce, a snap to put into place. Man.”

  He opens the Passat door, slides into the driver’s seat and buzzes down the window. “Now what?”

  I take a last look at Annie’s mystery car. Then I pull out my cell phone and click a camera shot of the VIN. And then a wide shot of the car. Good enough for now.

  “Now what? Well, curiouser and curiouser,” I mutter to myself, considering. I knock the snow off my boots, one against the other, before I’m guilty of trailing deadly slush into Franklin’s always-pristine interior. Yanking on my seat belt, I turn to face him.

  “Here’s ‘now what.’ Seems like someone has a cloned Ombra. It could be Annie. If her parents were sold a stolen car.”

  “And if that’s true, she’s got a problem. You’ll tell her parents, right?”

  “Of course. But there’s another possibility. Besides the unrepaired recalls and the missing air bags, it could be the Rental Car King—whether he knows it or not—is also renting stolen cars. I think it’s time to give him a call.”

  I pull out my cell again.

  “Either way, it’s blockbuster.” Franklin reaches a flattened palm in my direction.

  I return his high five with a flourish and a smile. We’re back.

  “Either way,” I say. And I punch in the phone number.

  Chapter Ten

  T rying to channel Mike Wallace, I step onto the journalism tightrope. Here’s where I’m balancing our quest for a good story with my guilt-ridden reluctance to throw a Bexter bigwig under the bus. The result? I’m afraid the Rental Car King may end up with tread marks.

  Holding up my mirrored compact between me and Randall Kindell, I pretend to check my lipstick so I don’t have to chitchat with him. Small talk, especially right before a potentially contentious interview, is impossible. You can’t b
e nice, because you’re about to nail someone. You can’t be aggressive, because the interviewee might walk out before you get the good stuff. The old “checking my makeup” stall always works. Men never interrupt it.

  Franklin is adjusting the tiny lavalier microphone on Kindell’s pin-striped jacket, tucking the thin black cord behind his lapel. J.T. clicks a cassette tape into his camera and twists his molded earpiece tighter into place. He’s ready.

  We’ve rigged up a portable tape player on a round walnut side table next to me. Someone familiar with television interviews would get the instant message there was trouble ahead. If someone’s going to show you video and have a photographer tape your reactions, you probably will not be happy with what’s on the screen. Kindell, however, seems unfazed.

  Kindell had surprised us by instantly and amicably agreeing to our request this afternoon for an on-camera interview at the Rental Car King office. I used my best “it’s a consumer-education story and it will help the public” pitch. Within an hour, J.T., Franklin and I had packed up our portable tape player, our pile of video logs, our biggest light kit and all our story ammunition, piled into the car and arrived at RCK. Ready for battle.

  Kelsey Kindell, in a lacquered updo and op art fingernails, greeted us from behind her counter. At least, she greeted J.T. Franklin and I were apparently invisible.

  She led us down a narrow fluorescent-lighted hallway and unlocked a gray metal door. A brass nameplate on it announced President. She gestured us inside with her clanking ring of keys.

  “I didn’t know you were from TV before.” She checked out J.T. more brazenly than Emily Post would approve of, settling a hand on one cocked hip. “Do you guys ever need, like, interns?”

  “In here?” I had interrupted the impromptu job interview, gesturing J.T. and Franklin inside to save them from having to answer. Then I stopped myself from judging a book by its cover.

  “Sure,” I told her. “But only for college credit.”

  She shrugged. End of job interview. “My uncle says he’ll be with you in five.”

  The Rental Car King’s throne room pays homage to his own good-guy credentials. Curliqued “Man of the Year” plaques from several local chambers of commerce, gilt trophies flanked with generic winged goddesses, chunks of crystal perched on ebony holders. A sleek model of a flashy convertible emblazoned RCK—20 Years of YES. Silver-plated frames display the stubby, broad-shouldered Kindell in smiling foursomes; golf outfits, tennis outfits, dinner jackets. Kindell, the curls of his almost comb-over hidden by a baseball cap, surrounded by grinning kids with bats and balls.

  I’m about to throw him a curve.

  He thinks—because that’s what I told him—this is an interview about the importance of repairing recalled cars. He thinks—because that’s what I told him—that we’re interviewing him because of his stature in the car-rental field. But after I pitch him those puffballs, we’re going to hit him with our video. Show him Annie’s car and then the one in his own lot with the same VIN. If he’s truly surprised, he should try to help us with our investigation. That would be good.

  If he’s angry and defensive, that means he might be involved. That would be good.

  He might even throw us out. That would be even better. We’ll have the whole thing on video.

  Ambush interviews like this are not my favorite. But they’re effective. Revealing. And always great television.

  I close my compact, tuck it under my thigh in case I need it later and turn to J.T.

  “Ready?” I ask.

  “Rolling,” J.T. replies.

  “You’re one hundred percent certain these numbers are correct? Beyond a shadow of a doubt?” Kindell leans back in his chair, staring at the still-frame of video on the monitor. It’s a close-up of Annie’s VIN. We transferred my very successful cell phone snapshots to tape so we could display RCK’s white Ombra and Annie’s white Ombra side by side. It’s irrefutable.

  “We checked the numbers again this morning,” I reply. J.T. is still rolling, of course, and we got the perfect images of Kindell’s face as I showed our evidence ten minutes into the interview. First he was baffled. Then calculating. Of course, I’m not revealing Annie’s name. “We confirmed the private car. And the one in your parking lot. It’s still there, in fact. You can check for yourself.”

  I glance at Franklin, who’s sitting off to the side, out of Kindell’s view. He makes a surreptitious motion, slam dunk.

  “So, Mr. Kindell? What’s your reaction to that?” I ask. “And to the unrepaired recalls we found in your cars? And to the missing air bags?”

  I wait while Kindell mulls my tricky-to-answer questions, deepening the already-etched lines across his forehead and along his boxer’s nose. I’m patient.

  Kindell holds up a hand. “Let’s turn off the camera.”

  But two can play this game.

  “No, I’m sorry, Mr. Kindell. I’d like to get your reaction on camera.” If he doesn’t want to talk, what he doesn’t want to say is exactly what I want to hear. I’ve got the power of videotape and I’m not giving it up. “These are critical questions. And we need your answers.”

  Kindell smiles. He nods, acquiescing. “I understand. The question again?”

  That’s the boldest move I’ve seen in a while. He’s taking me on?

  Franklin raises his eyebrows. I feel J.T. shift position.

  “Rolling on a two shot,” he murmurs from behind me, letting me know I’m also in his picture. Okay, rental-car king. You’re up.

  “What’s your reaction to the missing air bags and unrepaired recalls?” I ask again.

  The silence is so profound, I can almost hear Kindell thinking. He crosses one leg over the other. One black wingtip taps, gently.

  Suddenly, he sits up straight, planting his feet on the floor. He points to me.

  “Miss McNally, you’re right. I’ve got a problem. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. Be assured, I’m going to take care of it.”

  I’d been expecting Mr. Defensive. Big bluster, sputtering derision and instant dismissal. What I’m getting is “good guy”?

  “That’s great, Mr. Kindell. How will you—”

  “First,” he interrupts me, holding up one index finger. “First, I’m instantly requiring my employees to check all our cars to make sure there are no unrepaired recalls. We do our best to follow up when we get notifications from the manufacturers, but sometimes things fall through the cracks. Be assured, by this time day after tomorrow, not one car on my lot will have an open recall. You have my word on that.”

  I hear the zoom of J.T.’s camera motor. He’s going in for a close-up. J.T.’s skeptical of instant capitulation. I am, too. It’s an old trick designed to get reporters to go away and forget to follow up. Not gonna happen here. I’m not going to “be assured” of anything just yet.

  “In addition, I’m going to contact my colleagues in the business. Inform them of the recall situation and urge them to do the necessary repairs of their inventories. If it’s happening here, it’s happening elsewhere.”

  He pauses, clearing his throat.

  “Finally, I run a clean business. There’s no VIN cloning or air bag swiping around here. I’d know it.”

  A knock at the door. It half opens. Kelsey’s head appears around the edge.

  “Oh, sorry,” she says. “Uncle Randall? You wanted me to remind you when it was five o’clock.”

  “Thank you, Kelsey. We’re fine.” Kindell waves her away, then shrugs at me. “Just a precaution. However. As I said, no VIN cloning. No air bag stealing. If my cars have been harmed? I’m a victim, too. I’ll do whatever it takes to find the culprits.”

  He stops, jaw set, his eyes locked on mine. As if daring me to question his sincerity.

  “That answer your questions?” he says.

  He’s certainly persuasive. And seems sincere. And I’m surprised to realize that I’m, tentatively at least, won over. If he’s guilty, why would he be this helpful? Our investigation
won’t stop here, that’s for sure. Time to test the limits of his helpfulness. And I know how to do it.

  “Terrific,” I say. I’ll buy his version of the truth. For now, at least. “And we’ll certainly include that in our story. But there is one additional way you can help. Can you give us all the past year’s rental agreements for the white Ombra? And also for the car J.T. and I rented?”

  “Not a problem,” he says. “We done with the interview?”

  “What is it you want me to see?” I ask. As J.T. packs up his gear and Franklin heads off with a foot-dragging Kelsey to copy rental agreements, Randall Kindell said he “wanted to show me something” in the company garage. After I agreed, I followed him out the back door and into a separate building in the rear. He buzzed open double-wide doors, flicked on a series of long fluorescent lights and gestured me into the concrete-walled space. Two cars are up on lifts, two others parked side by side in a bay, but the place is deserted. Chilly. Unlike the impeccably organized Power House, the RCK mechanic shop is layered with oil and gas and dirt and grease. Tall stacks of tires form towering rubber columns in every corner. Toolboxes, lids left open, reveal expanding drawers full of bolts and screws and fuses.

  Kindell hasn’t said a word. J.T. and Franklin will be waiting, so if Kindell is setting me up for a deadly attack, he’s not going to get away with it. Although justice for the bad guy won’t matter if I’m conked to death with a lug wrench or something.

  “Mr. Kindell? Again, what is it you want to show me? Franklin and J.T. are going to be looking for me.”

  “There’s nothing to see. I just needed a private word with you.” Kindell, wearing just his suit, no overcoat, is barely as tall as I am, but now I decide he’s almost handsome in a craggy, aging-athlete sort of way. He leans against one of the parked cars, looking across at me. “I helped you. Now you help me.”