Ten minutes later, Nate was showing his badge at the evidence lockup. “I filed into evidence a printout on case #541982A and requested a translation of the material from German. Is it done yet?”

The gray-haired woman typed at her terminal. “Case 541982A, you said? I can’t find anything under that record number.”

“Yes, that’s the case number.”

She frowned at his badge. “Let me try your name.” More typing at the computer and the woman lifted up her glasses and peered at the screen. “Okay, yes. I see a record that you submitted something for lab analysis, but nothing for translation.”

“One second.” Feeling frustrated, Nate yanked his smartphone from his pocket and flipped through his photos. He found the picture he wanted—of an evidence receipt with a barcode on it. He showed it to the woman.

“Here’s the receipt I received when filing it. I was told it would take a couple weeks. It’s been a couple weeks.”

The woman waved a barcode scanner over the image, then checked her computer. “Huh. The computer says there’s no record of that.”

Nate cursed loudly, and the woman’s face paled.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But how’s that possible?”

The woman shrugged. “I really don’t know. I can call our IT department if it would help. They’ll probably know what’s wrong.”

Nate scowled. “Ma’am, what’s your name?”

The woman looked uneasy. “Janice.”

“And Janice, how long have you been working evidence?”

“About twenty years.”

“And in those twenty years, how often has evidence gone missing?”

Janice looked indignant. “It doesn’t.”

Nate pointed at the image of the receipt on his phone and cleared his throat.

“W-well,” Janice stammered. “It never did before we computerized.”

“Are you saying it now happens on occasion?”

“I mean… no. Well, not really. It’s not so often as that. But once or twice. A couple records have vanished in the system even when I still had hard copies of the original evidence submission.”

“And what did you do?”

Janice shrugged. “Filed a report to IT. That’s what I’m supposed to do.”

Nate took a deep breath and tried to contain his anger. “Well then, do that. Find my evidence. I’ll be back.”

Without waiting for a response, he turned and stormed out.

###

“Are you sure about that?” Jeff asked, turning from his PC and staring at Nate across his desk. “That’s a serious accusation.”

Nate’s blood was still boiling as he sat in his supervisor’s office. “I’m sure. Both the print and audio recordings that I filed into evidence have gone missing.”

“Okay, I’m not denying that that’s a problem. But before flying off the handle, let’s give them a chance to track it down. Why do you need that evidence so urgently, anyway?”