"We've caught the man."
When Director Bru called, Lance was somewhat surprised, "I thought you'd need more time to find him."
Lance already knew Charlie's car had been found, but at the same time, the man was missing.
They weren't personally over there searching for Charlie; it was good enough that the sheriff or highway police could continue pushing this matter forward. You can't expect them to do everything right away; that's not realistic.
Lance speculated that it might take some time, especially if Charlie was desperately hiding, it wouldn't be easy to find him.
And now, nobody knew whether he'd already left the town, which route he took, or where he was headed; all these were unknowns.
All that could be said was that they were getting closer to Charlie.
But he didn't expect the capture to happen so soon.
