Meeting this form of criminal activity on its own terms, ICAC overrides the usual limited local jurisdictional reach by creating units trained by Homeland Security, armed with federal laws, that travel where they’re needed.

There’s little regional pushback. Local cops are more than happy to have ICAC task force officers—also called TFOs—take these often costly, always technical, and certainly viscerally unpleasant cases away.

What Willy had suggested, however, went beyond handing over the sex crime aspect of this investigation to ICAC. Joe, Lester, Willy, and Sam had received special training several years ago and were themselves certified as TFOs, qualified to interact with Homeland Security not only in internet child sex offenses, but drug investigations and other crimes as well.

Given the disparate layers they were already facing here—a hot car from New Hampshire full of stolen electronics, some of it containing pedophilia, and equipped with a dead body—the option of maintaining jurisdictional control was very appealing.

“It’s not like we get to play our TFO card very often,” he said softly.

“The ME’s here,” a trooper called into the truck’s interior. “Wants to know if she can have at the body.”

Joe turned, smiling broadly. “The ME herself? The chief?”

“I didn’t ask for her ID, but yeah,” was the answer.

Joe was delighted. That meant Beverly Hillstrom had made the trip from Burlington to Rockingham township in person, to support her local investigator. This was a rarity, and only seen in major cases. There were but two forensic pathologists for the entire state, and they usually stayed put to conduct the hundreds of autopsies called for every year. A trip across the state by one of them happened once or twice a year, at best.

None of which had anything to do with Joe’s reaction. Beverly also happened to be his romantic other half, whom he got to see once a week if each of their schedules allowed it. He suspected her arrival tonight had less to do with the importance of the case and more with their not having seen each other in a fortnight.

Willy, unknown for his subtlety, laughed, stood back, and ordered everyone in the truck, “Make a hole. Special Agent Gunther needs to show proper respect.”

Sammie scowled at her partner and said, “You are such a dork,” as Gunther made his way toward the exit, unconcerned, already used to Kunkle referring to the chief medical examiner as Joe’s “special friend.”

He returned to the ditch-bound car to find the scene considerably altered. Now that the search team had finished with the vehicle’s exterior, a tarp had been laid out at the edge of the trunk, lights repositioned, and a half dozen people summoned for the body’s extraction and examination.

Beverly, tall, athletic, her fair hair tied back, gave Joe the smallest of half smiles as he came into view, not an expression she universally wore. Her decades-long renown for following procedure, bordering on severity, preceded her within the ranks. You minded your step around Hillstrom.