Joe nodded once. “Okay. That’s it. We all know more or less what to do. Any questions, Sam’s your go-to person for the night. Sorry about the midnight oil. I hope you all drink coffee and that you got a good night’s sleep twenty-four hours ago, ’cause it ain’t gonna happen tonight.”

Joe took Beverly’s elbow as he saw her split away to walk to her car, on the edge of what had become a ground fog of light, colorful and pulsing like a fanciful castoff of a Christmas long past.

“I sense a groggy workday in your future,” she said, slipping her arm around his waist as they entered the calming darkness.

“I don’t guess you’ll be getting much sleep, either,” he replied. “Not if you’re going to open up Mr. Kalfus in the morning.”

“Oh, I read between the lines,” she said, leaning against the fender and unzipping her coveralls. “Even if you didn’t give me marching orders.”

“I would love to know if there’s more to find,” he admitted. “He sounds like a serious player, whether the porn is his or not.”

She opened her car door and sat down to remove the rest of her Tyvek suit. He took advantage to admire her coming into better view.

“You’ll be going to New Hampshire, from what it sounds,” she commented, not looking up.

“If we reach the right people in the right order for permission,” he agreed. “With what Jim found on that computer, and the fact that Kalfus clearly hasn’t been dead long, we need to move fast.”

“Why not call in their state police?”

“We could, but they work differently than we Vermonters do. Here, a cop has jurisdiction border-to-border. Over there, the only true equivalent is the federal route Willy brought up. You still have to bow and scrape to be polite, but you can go anywhere you want, complete with subpoena and warrant powers. It’s pretty slick.”

“And you get to keep the case,” she added with a slightly raised eyebrow.

He bent down to kiss her. “Takes a bloodhound to love a bloodhound,” he said.

“It certainly doesn’t hurt,” she agreed.

CHAPTER TWO

Brattleboro Police Department was under twenty miles away from Rockingham, in Vermont’s southeastern corner. Gone were the deputies, the road troopers, the fire and EMS crews, and even the wrecker, which had deposited its cargo in an enclosed holding area off the PD’s sally port. What remained was a pared-down, tightly focused group, working toward solving a puzzle containing many more questions than answers.

Among the state’s earliest settlements, Brattleboro was named after a Brit who never set eyes on it. Location always played in its favor. Once the beneficiary of being on the edge of the Connecticut River, the region’s watery turnpike to points south before paved roads, it still has New Hampshire and Massachusetts within striking distance and is, centuries later, the only town in Vermont with three exits off of Interstate 91.

Modern times have reduced these advantages. Brattleboro remains the first bite of Vermont that any northbound, high-speed visitor consumes of the state. But in truth, the rest of Vermont has essentially left it behind, and most tourists are inclined to travel beyond those first off-ramps. Burlington, 150 miles away, in the state’s opposite corner, and on Lake Champlain, is far bigger; Killington, Stratton, and Stowe have the ski slopes; even Waterbury has Ben and Jerry’s. Brattleboro, for its lingering cachet of having been a harbor in the countercultural sixties, remains a town of some twelve thousand people often wondering how to stay viable.