Kate was growing exasperated. Surely to god if there was one thing you could count on in modern life it was a paper trail.

She compared Allen‘s file to Gammons‘s, spread out on the floor side by side, page for page. A couple of average guys, similar in age, height, weight, health, and, evidently, lack of ties. It wasn‘t an unusual story in Alaska, the state was a magnet for the rootless adventurer every bit as much as it was for those on the run from past lives. About the rudest thing you could say to an Alaskan was, Where are you from? Many cheechakos embraced anonymity as a rite of Alaskan passage, and all sourdoughs respected it as a simple right.

Jim could run a wants or warrants on Allen, which might tell them something. But it would take time. The ME ID‘d the body as Gammons‘s, she said out loud. If I‘m right, it‘s Allen‘s. Which means the files got mixed up.

She sat back on her heels and surveyed the disassembled files. Before she‘d ripped them apart, they had been neat and orderly. Lyda had had a system for the personnel files, each required form in the same place in each file, organized with colored tabs so the relevant part could be accessed without hesitation. The medical section was the second section in each file, marked with a red tab, with patient history, tests, results, and physician‘s evaluation in the same order in every file. Blood tests were the third page down in the medical section.

Jim.

He grunted.

Did you hear me? The files got mixed up. That‘s how the body was misidentified. Yeah, I heard you.

The problem is, no way did Lyda mix them up. I‘ve never seen files like this. Woman could have given lessons in organization to Genghis Khan.

Problem with that is, he said, it would be just as easy for an unauthorized person to find something in the files as it would be for Lyda.

It wasn‘t quite a question. Yes.

He looked up from the monitor to meet her eyes. So someone switched out the blood tests.

Easier just to swap out the entire med section. But yeah. Just as easy for someone to switch the blood tests.

Gammons and Allen pretty similar, physically?

Kate looked down at the two employee head shots, Allen on the left, Gammons on the right, and their physical data. White, brown/brown, medium/medium. Faces are similar enough, I suppose. Always hard to tell from a head shot.

Jim sat back and linked his hands behind his head. Okay. So the DB has Gammons‘s blood type.

Yes.

But the DB isn‘t Gammons.

No.

Allen went missing the same time as Gammons.

Yes.

And our favorite bigamist overheard a conversation where the two of them were talking about ways to die.

Yes.

A suicide pact? He couldn‘t believe the words coming out of his own mouth, but if you didn‘t enjoy the weird you had no business becoming a cop in the first place. Kate shook her head. Then why switch the files?