He was wearing a red-and-blue hunting jacket, and under that the cream-colored shirt and cream-colored slacks that, along with the badge on his chest, made up his uniform. Brennan was well over six feet tall, a wide, solid-built man, with less paunch than most men his size, age, and disposition. When he first came in, accompanied by his deputy Lou Brown, he was all business, and brusque but not offensive in his questioning. I had told him some of the details over the phone—I’d caught him, not a deputy, when I called—but he was taking it all down again, and some new stuff I hadn’t got around to saying before, writing it all in a little notepad. I told him I couldn’t be sure how many of them there had been, but at least three and probably four. When I mentioned the red-white-and-blue GTO, license number three, Deputy Lou Brown chimed in, “That’s Pat Nelson’s car. He called it in stolen.” So much for remembering license-plate numbers. Nonetheless, Brennan had called the local and state police to let them know about the GTO and the green van.
