"What can I do for you, then?" Tim asked, getting down to business.

Joe pulled a sc.r.a.p of paper from his pocket and handed it over. Tim recognized its contents immediately.

"I take it there's a punchline?"

"Stamped on a Taser tag. It-and only it-was under the motel room bed of a guy we found dead elsewhere, stripped of all identification."

Tim looked up at him. "The floater on that BOL you sent out a while back? No s.h.i.t. I circulated his picture at every one of our shift briefings. Got nothing, of course. And you only found the one tag? You know there are supposed to be up to forty of these things in each cartridge."

"Meaning, whoever used it tried their best to clean up," Joe agreed. "It got one of my guys wondering if maybe a cop was involved."

Frowning, Tim considered the sc.r.a.p of paper a moment longer before placing it on his knee and stating, "I bet you're going to say you traced this serial number to us, right?"

"You have a cartridge go missing?" Joe asked.

But Giordi shook his head. "Not that I heard. Of course, I might not've been told, either." He got up, reached for the phone on his desk, pushed the intercom b.u.t.ton, and asked the voice on the other end to join them. His demeanor had lost its earlier joviality.

An older woman appeared at the door thirty seconds later. "Chief?"

"Kathy, did we have a Taser cartridge disappear anytime recently?"

The woman glanced quickly at Joe, whom she didn't know, and immediately fell into professional mode. "I don't know, Chief. I'll get hold of Matt and have him report to you directly."

Giordi nodded. "Thanks. Right away."

She disappeared as Tim turned to Joe. "The s.h.i.t just hit the fan there. We run pretty close herd on that kind of equipment, for obvious reasons, and Matt Aho, being the supply officer, is the go-to guy. If I were Kathy, I'd be telling him to put on a flak jacket right now."

But he was smiling as he said it, lessening Joe's apprehension about what might happen next.

A minute later, a concerned-looking young man showed up, a three-ring binder in hand.

"Something missing, Chief?" he asked.

Joe and Giordi got up as the latter made the introductions. "Matt Aho, this is Special Agent Joe Gunther of the VBI." Tim handed over Joe's note before continuing, "This belongs to a Taser tag. His people found it at a crime scene down south-a homicide. Apparently, it belongs to us."

Aho crossed over to a side table and laid his binder open. He began flipping through pages of equipment log entries. Finally, he stopped and ran his finger down the length of one particular sheet.

"Got it," he announced at last, his voice tense.

Both men leaned forward to see the line just above his index.

Aho explained. "Last month, three cartridges were issued to Brian Palmiter. He was on airport security then." Aho glanced at Joe. "Yours was one of them."

"Did he ever report it missing?" Tim asked.

"Not that I heard," Aho answered cautiously. "He sure hasn't asked for any more, which implies he didn't use them up."

"You said he was on airport detail then," said Joe. "Is he still?"

"I think he rotated off," Aho answered.

Tim crossed back to his phone and dialed a number. "Locate Brian Palmiter and have him report to my office right away."

He listened for a moment before responding, "Great. That's perfect."

He hung up and looked over at Joe. "Got lucky. He's in the building."

Giordi walked back to Aho. "That's it for the moment, Matt. Leave the log behind. I'll make sure it gets back to you ASAP."

Aho nodded to Joe and took his leave without further comment. In the next few minutes, Joe could imagine the air thickening with the murmurings spreading from just outside Tim Giordi's office door. He was all too familiar with how police departments were hotbeds of gossip, rumor, and randomly circulating tidbits. Long after this little mystery was resolved, people would be discussing what "really" happened, notwithstanding the chief's official explanation-and that would be only if the conclusion was wholly innocent. G.o.d forbid if something untoward had actually occurred.

There was a knock on the open door, and a tall, angular man stood awkwardly on the threshold.

"You called for me, Chief?" he asked warily.

He was young, obviously not long on the force, and still looking slightly out of place in his uniform. Giordi brought him over to the table with the open binder. He gestured toward Joe as he did so, and repeated the introduction he'd made earlier to Matt Aho.

Not surprisingly, this only increased the concern plainly stamped on the officer's face.

"What Agent Gunther is trying to find out," Giordi explained, seeking the exact line on the opened page, "is the whereabouts of a Taser cartridge our records say was issued to you."

Giordi tapped on the entry with his fingertip. Palmiter bent at the waist hesitantly, as if expecting the entire binder to come leaping for his throat.

"Yes, sir," he said without meaning or understanding.

Giordi looked at him quizzically. "So, have you used or lost a Taser cartridge?"

Palmiter straightened, stung by the suggestion. "No, sir. I've never even fired one except in training."

His boss studied Palmiter's duty belt. "How many cartridges do you carry?"

"Two. I'm supposed to have three-one in place and two backups-but they only issued me two."

"When was this?" Joe asked.

The young officer pointed at the open page. "Then-when I was working at the airport. That's when I got Taser certified. I was issued the Taser and the holster." He tapped the weapon on his belt. "You can see where it's got places for two backup cartridges, but only one of them's full." He undid the Velcro flap on one of the compartments to reveal its emptiness. "I figured they'd run short or something," he continued. "And, to be honest, since there's not much action at the airport, I didn't see bothering them for extras."

He looked worriedly at his chief. "I hope I didn't screw up. I didn't think it was a big deal."

"Have you been down to the southern half of the state anytime recently?" Joe asked him.

"No, sir. I don't know anybody down there."

Giordi considered the binder thoughtfully for a moment before nodding in Palmiter's direction. "Okay, Brian. Give me your Taser and get issued a new one. I want to hang on to yours for a while."

The chief waited until the door had closed behind his now very nervous officer. He hefted the plastic gun in his hand. "I'll have someone run the computer memory in this thing-find out when it was fired last. What do you think?" he asked Joe.

Joe made a face. "On paper," he answered, "either Palmiter is lying or Aho screwed up. But my gut tells me it's neither. Something else must've happened."

Tim pushed out his lips thoughtfully before murmuring, "Once you get me some more information about all this, I'm still going to put them both through polygraphs, just to be sure. What've you found out about your John Doe?" he then asked. "And do you know for sure a Taser was even used on him? They do leave holes."

"The ME has the body," Joe answered, crossing the room and considering the view of the park outside. "She told us there were no outward signs of trauma. We don't even know the cause of death yet, much less anything about the guy. Complete mystery. I'm seeing Hillstrom next, since I'm in town, just to kick the tires personally."

He turned to face his old friend. "Tell me about Aho and Palmiter."

Giordi raised his eyebrows. "Fair question, if a little painful. I'm not too crazy about all the possibilities here."

Joe held up his hand. "It's just a question."

"Aho, I've had with me for years. He's solid, dependable, never messed up before. He worked as a street cop before becoming the supply officer, also for this department. I know his family, and everything seems stable there, too. Palmiter, I don't know quite as well. The kid's only twenty-one and he hasn't been with us long. So far, so good, though. He gets good ratings from his sergeant."

He paused to run his hand through his short, graying hair. "I will tell you I'll be checking this whole thing out with the proverbial fine-toothed comb-and probably making some procedural changes, at least."

"You asked me what I thought," Joe said. "How 'bout you? Any idea how the cartridge left the building?"

Giordi looked a little hapless. "You know how it goes, Joe. We do the best we can. We have the usual bells and whistles, but a lot of people go through this building every hour of every day. How big is one of those cartridges? Half a deck of cards?" He frowned before adding, "I'll be shaking things hard to see what falls out, but don't be surprised-and for Christ's sake don't think I'm holding out on you-if, in the end, I've got nothing to show for it."

Joe again made an appeasing gesture before shaking Tim's hand and retrieving his coat from where he'd draped it over a chair. "Not to worry," he told him, heading out. "I appreciate both the help and the pickle you're in. I promise I'll be in touch, and don't worry too much until you have to. At least I know for sure where that little tag originated-whether that's relevant or not, we'll both find out."

Giordi shook his head. "Let's hope so."

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Chapter 13.

The office of the chief medical examiner, whose t.i.tle was reduced throughout law enforcement to simply OCME, was located across town from the Burlington Police Department, in the c.u.mbersome embrace of the awkwardly rebuilt Fletcher Allen Medical Center, Vermont's largest hospital and the home of the University of Vermont's nationally regarded medical school.

The OCME hadn't started here. As Joe first maneuvered through Burlington's dense traffic and then poked through the hospital's confusion of hallways and interlinked buildings, he recalled how Beverly Hillstrom had once kept an office down the block, above a dentist's office, and worked on her cadavers in the hospital's bas.e.m.e.nt, not far from the loading docks.

It was a credit to her longevity, her efficiency, and her political prowess-not to mention a few friends in the right places-that all that had been replaced with a clean, modern, highly professional workplace, albeit one hard to locate for the uninitiated.

Joe was certainly not among those, having been here dozens of times. As a result, once safely aboard, he was honor bound to spend a few minutes with whichever staffers he encountered on his way to Hillstrom's corner office, catching up on local gossip.

"I thought I heard your voice," Beverly Hillstrom greeted him when he finally reached her threshold. She stood and came around her desk to kiss him on the cheek, an unheard-of familiarity in the old days, when, for years, they had addressed each other formally, by t.i.tle-an eccentricity she maintained with everyone else outside the office.

He surveyed her with a smile. She was perfectly squared away, not a hair out of place, her clothes unwrinkled and pristine-an image of uncanny precision enhanced by her dust-free, immaculate office. If he hadn't gotten to know her all-too-human and vulnerable side, she might have remained as scary as she appeared to almost everyone else. But she had granted him that access at one point, and while he understood that it allowed him no special liberties now, he was grateful that it had welcomed him into a highly restricted personal inner sanctum.

"You look great, Beverly," he told her.

She smiled, flushing slightly. "Well, I should. Life is good, both here and at home."

He knew not to pry, but that was happy news. Their single night of intimacy had been partly created by her husband walking out on her. Joe had since heard that the two of them had been working to mend that rift. Clearly, things were paying off.

She considered him seriously. "I heard about your family and the accident, Joe. How are things progressing?"

"As well as can be expected," he told her. "My mom is completely fine. My brother survived, which is saying a lot, but he's touch-and-go in a coma."

"I know it will sound trite," she said. "But if there's anything at all I can do . . ."

"I know," he interrupted her. "And I appreciate it. I promise, I will call if I need to."

She nodded once. "Good." She then brightened somewhat and changed the subject, moving them both to firmer ground. "A wild guess tells me," she continued, "that you're now going to try to upset my apple cart a little. You are here for at least one of your John Does, are you not?"

He laughed, as much at the comment's phrasing as at its content. Hillstrom was unique among his friends in her use of an almost textbook English. "I am, but I'm hoping it'll just help things along. We've discovered something that might tie in to the first one we sent you-the floater in the stream. Do you still have the clothes he arrived in?"

She nodded and moved toward the door. "We do, although we were about to ship them to the crime lab for safekeeping." She pa.s.sed over the threshold and headed toward the lab in the back, speaking as she went. "So you're not here for the body at all?"

"I may be," he explained, "but I've got to start with the clothing."

"Ah. A mystery in the unfolding. I like a little intrigue."

She eventually took him to a wing off the autopsy room, beyond the coolers where, he knew from past experience, the two men he'd shipped her were still stored, and placed a couple of oversize plastic tubs on a nearby examination table.

"Brattleboro John Doe Number One, as we're calling him-or at least his personal effects," she announced, standing back.

Joe stepped up to the table and opened the tubs. Unlike when he'd first seen them, the clothes were now dry, though still soiled by some of the debris they'd picked up in the water.

By instinct, he started with the upper torso coverings, reconstructing the layering from skin contact to outermost garment, and then began poring over the fabric's surface, inch by inch.

Hillstrom finally yielded to curiosity. "What are you looking for?"

Gunther laughed. "Maybe nothing, but it was too interesting to pa.s.s up. We're pretty sure we found out where this guy spent his last night. He checked into a cheap motel with a small overnight bag, no car, paid in cash, and used a phony name-Norman Rockwell, in case you're tempted to change your John Doe."

Hillstrom wrinkled her nose. "Not the way this is going, I'm not. Rockwell deserves better."

"If it helps," Joe suggested, "my team's calling him Wet Bald Rocky, versus Dry Hairy Fred." He resumed his scrutiny. "Anyhow, we're playing with the idea that he met someone at the motel, which person then immediately rendered him harmless before transporting him to the stream."

Hillstrom was already nodding in comprehension, following where he was leading. "And it's the rendering him harmless that you're looking for? What did you find in that motel room?"

He paused to look over his shoulder at her. "You're good. It was a single identifying tag belonging to a Taser cartridge."

"A Taser!" she exclaimed. "But they work with wired barbs. I would have found skin defects on the body."

"Only if the barbs reached the skin," Joe explained. "They don't have to in order to work." He straightened, holding up the decedent's leather belt, adding, "They just need to close the circuit. By digging into something like this."

She came in close to see what he'd found. In the center of the belt's surface was a small hole with a minuscule jagged edge to it, as where a tiny barb might have left a tear upon being extracted.

"Oh, my Lord," she murmured. "It is possible, isn't it?"