“Jim found something you’ll love,” Willy added, his tone thick with irony.

Jim Collins was the CSST leader, whom they found seated near the front after clambering into the truck. He was situated before a rectangular container with a glass viewing window cut into its top and two holes into which he’d thrust his hands to work on something inside.

“Joe, good to see you. Sorry I can’t greet you formally.” He nodded toward the box holding his hands. They knew what he was doing. Standard search protocol regarding electronics dictated that officers first and foremost protect all phones, tablets, and computers from possible self-destruct signals sent remotely by their owners. They do this by using so-called Faraday pouches, designed to shield devices from outside impulses until they can be delivered to the lab. However—given the unlikely yet fortunate circumstance of a computer lab readily available by the side of the road at night, complete with an even larger, full-fledged Faraday box—an initial quick peek was too hard to resist.

“There were only six phones recovered from the car,” Jim was saying, “so I thought, what the hell, right? This being the only one without encryption, why not take a look? You might be glad I did.”

Joe peered over the top of the man’s Tyvek-hooded head to look into the lighted box. The portals Jim had used for his hands were fitted with gray metallic gloves inside, making the box’s interior as secure in its way as a miniature biohazard vacuum room, and Joe could admire how Collins’s fingers were expertly manipulating the phone’s controls to reveal its contents.

“Kiddie porn,” Jim explained, scrolling through images of pale, hairless, exposed young flesh. “Found it in an email where the sender said that if the recipient likes what he sees, there’s more available, quote-unquote, the usual way.”

Joe straightened, sadly not surprised. “Swell,” he said darkly. “Just what we needed.”

Blessedly, Vermont was no hotbed of child abuse, but it had enough of its share to make these images depressingly familiar.

Willy was standing within earshot. “It might be. Jim says the phone’s also from New Hampshire. All this—the car, the body, the contents—is looking more and more like a dump job, although there’s no saying the guy in the trunk wasn’t killed over here.”

Joe turned toward him. “Keep going.”

Willy indicated the Faraday box. “That email could legally give us cross-border access to New Hampshire. Underage porn is a federal rap, and those photos are date-stamped recently enough to maybe make them an ongoing crime, not to mention the peer-to-peer implications of the text, which point to trafficking. We could use all that to mother-may-I the AG’s office and get the ICAC task force activated. Keep us involved, regardless of jurisdiction.”

Collins spoke without looking up. “If you do cross the river, Fred Houston’s your man—he’s ICAC out of Cheshire County and a federal task force officer, to boot. Incredible resource. Nice guy, too.”

Joe listened without responding, processing Willy’s suggestion. ICAC stood for Internet Crimes Against Children, the umbrella organization representing dozens of task forces across thousands of police agencies nationwide, all aimed at interdicting and prosecuting the offenses advertised in its name.