I held up the transparent evidence bag containing the sample size of Vita spray.

“Who has one of these?” I asked, looking around the room.

Four people raised their hands.

“Who has used it?” I then asked. “I need to know if absolutely anybody has.”

Cleta, a clerk from the front office, looked frightened. “Why? What’s the matter?”

“Have you sprayed this on your face,” I said to her.

“On my plants,” she said.

“Plants get bagged and burned,” I said. “Where’s Wingo?”

“MCV.”

“I don’t know this for a fact,” I spoke to everyone, “and I pray I’m wrong. But we might be dealing with product tampering. Please don’t panic, but under no circumstances does anyone touch this spray. Do we know exactly how they were delivered?”

It was Cleta who spoke. “This morning I came in before anybody up front. There were police reports shoved through the slot, as always. And these had been, too. They were in little mailing tubes. There were eleven of them. I know because I counted to see if there was enough to go around.”

“And the mailman didn’t bring them. They had just been shoved through the slot of the front door.”

“I don’t know who brought them. But they looked like they’d been mailed.”

“Any tubes you still have, please bring them to me,” I said.

I was told that no one had used one, and all were collected and brought to my office. Putting on cotton gloves and glasses, I studied the mailing tube meant for me. Postage was bulk rate and clearly a manufacturer’s sample, and I found it most unusual for something like that to be addressed to a specific individual. I looked inside the tube, and there was a coupon for the spray. As I held it up to the light, I noticed edges imperceptibly uneven, as if the coupon had been clipped with scissors versus a machine.

“Rose?” I called out.

She walked into my office.

“The tube you got,” I said. “Who was it addressed to?”

“Resident, I think.” Her face was stressed.

“Then the only one with a name on it is mine.”

“I think so. This is awful.”

“Yes, it is.” I picked up the mailing tube. “Look at this. Letters all the same size, the postmark on the same label as the address. I’ve never seen that.”

“Like it came off a computer,” she said as her amazement grew.

“I’m going across the street to the DNA lab.” I got up. “Call USAMRIID right away and tell Colonel Fujitsubo we need to schedule a conference call between him, us, CDC, Quantico, now.”

“Where do you want to do it?” she asked as I hurried out the door.

“Not here. See what Benton says.”

Outside, I ran down the sidewalk, past my parking lot, and crossed Fourteenth Street. I entered the Seaboard Building where DNA and other forensic labs had relocated several years before. At the security desk, I called the section chief, Dr. Douglas Wheat, who had been given a male family name, despite her gender.