Reed put the VIN printout in his folder and looked at Victoria. He had the calm, steady expression he used when he was about to ask a question he already knew the answer to.
"Ma'am," he said, "the VIN check shows no transfer pending. But that only tells us what the police system shows. The DMV has its own records. Have you filed anything with the DMV about this car?"
Victoria hesitated. It was the first time all morning she had not answered right away. She looked at the Mustang, then at the street, then at her hands.
"I may have filed a form," she said at last. Her voice was quieter than it had been. "As Jason's representative. To start the transfer."
The driveway went very quiet. I could hear a lawn mower starting up somewhere behind us, but in our little circle, there was nothing.
"You filed a title-transfer application," Reed said. It was not a question. It was a statement, and he was giving her a chance to correct it if he was wrong.
"I did," Victoria said. "I thought it was the right thing to do. If the sale was valid, then the title needed to be updated. I was helping my son."
Torres's pen was moving fast now. "When did you file it?"
"A few weeks ago," Victoria said. "After the bill of sale was signed. I went online and filled out the form."
"Did you sign it as Jason?" Reed asked.
"No," Victoria said. "I signed it as his representative. I put my own name. I did not pretend to be him. I was acting on his behalf."
"Did Jason know you filed it?" Torres asked.
Victoria looked away. "He knew we were buying the car. He knew I was handling the paperwork."
I felt a cold anger rise in my chest. It was not loud. It was not hot. It was the kind of anger that made you very still, and very clear.
"Victoria," I said, "you filed a transfer for a car I never sold you, using a bill of sale I never signed, and you did it without telling me?"
"I told you," she said, her voice rising again. "I came here today to tell you. I brought the paper to show you. I was not hiding it."
"You came here after you filed it," I said. "You filed it first, and then you came to tell me the car was no longer mine."
Reed stepped in before it could turn into an argument. "Ma'am, do you have a copy of the application? A confirmation number? An email from the DMV?"
Victoria shook her head. "I have it at home. I can get it. I think I got an email when I submitted it."
"Was the application approved?" Torres asked.
"I do not know," Victoria said. "I have not heard back. I assumed it was being processed. That is why I came here. I wanted to get the car before the paperwork went through."
That stopped me. She had wanted to get the car before the paperwork went through. She had known the transfer was not complete, and she had still come to my driveway and told me the car was sold.
"So you knew the title had not transferred yet," Reed said slowly.
"I knew it was pending," Victoria said. "I thought it would go through. The bill of sale was valid. I did not think there would be a problem."
Reed looked at Torres, and Torres looked at me. This was no longer just a dispute about a piece of paper. This was a person who had taken a disputed document and used it to start a legal process to take someone else's property, without that person's knowledge or consent.
"Ma'am," Reed said, "if the bill of sale is not valid, then filing a transfer based on it is a serious problem. If the signature on it was not Frank's, then the application was based on a false document."
Victoria's face went pale. "I did not forge anything," she said. "I did not make that bill of sale. It was given to me. I just filed it."
"Who gave it to you?" Torres asked.
Victoria did not answer. She stared at the ground, and for a moment I thought she might actually tell us something true. But then she shook her head.
"I do not remember," she said. "It was in my files. I found it when I was going through paperwork."
Reed wrote something in his notebook. "We are going to need that application," he said. "The confirmation, the email, the copy of what you submitted, all of it. And we will need to contact the DMV to find out where it stands."
"I will get it," Victoria said. Her voice was small now, almost a whisper. "I will bring it to the station."
"You will need to," Reed said. "Do not file anything else. Do not contact the DMV to push it through. Do not try to take the car. If you do, it will make this much worse."
I stood there, looking at the Mustang, and I thought about how close this had come to working. If I had not stood my ground, Victoria might have walked away with the car, or at least with a pending transfer that would have taken months to untangle. She had filed the paper first and come to collect the car second. That was not a mistake. That was a plan.
And the plan had depended on one thing: that I would not fight back. That I would see a piece of paper with my name on it and believe it. She had not counted on the police running the VIN, or on me asking the simple questions.
"Frank, we will follow up with the DMV today. We will make sure nothing moves forward without your knowledge."
I nodded. I was grateful, but I was also shaken. The Mustang was still in my driveway. The title was still in my name. But someone had tried to take it with a form filed online, using a signature I had given her for a petition about park lights. It was a quiet kind of theft.