That one had been slipped into my mailbox with a business card from a restoration broker

I still had the card because Laura used the back to write a grocery list before she became ill

I told Dana I would bring it to her

She asked whether I was certain the card had arrived after the funeral

I corrected myself and explained that the broker had handed it to Laura at a car show several years earlier

The card had remained on our kitchen counter until she wrote on it

Someone later reused the same card to contact me after her death

Dana asked whether the brokers name was visible

I told her it was and gave her the name from memory

She wrote it down and exchanged a brief glance with Marcus

Neither investigator told me what the glance meant

Instead Dana asked me to describe every occasion when Meredith or Conrad had shown unusual interest in my garage

I remembered a neighborhood inspection during which Conrad had walked past my open door and asked whether the car still had its original engine

He had asked whether I possessed the title and whether Lauras name remained on it

At the time I considered those questions nosy but harmless

Now they sounded like a checklist for a transaction I had never authorized

Dana asked whether anyone else had heard that conversation

I said Eileen had been trimming roses beside the fence

Marcus wrote her name and thanked me for not embellishing what I remembered

The interview ended with Dana warning me against contacting Conrad or the broker myself

I promised to leave their work to them

Outside the building I found Tyler Stanhope standing beside a vending machine

He looked thinner than he had on the morning the Mustang rolled down his driveway

His wrist remained in a brace and he held a paper cup with his uninjured hand

He asked whether I had a minute

I told him we could speak in the lobby where everyone could see us

Tyler agreed immediately and seemed relieved by the condition

He said he had given Marcus his statement about taking the Mustang

He had admitted that his mother told him the car was legally seized and available for his use

He also admitted that he had seen the warning tag on the steering wheel

I asked why he tried to move a car that warned him it had no brakes