Chat - Archer Mayor [53]
He paused to run his hand through his short, graying hair. “I will tell you I’ll be checking this whole thing out with the proverbial fine-toothed comb—and probably making some procedural changes, at least.”
“You asked me what I thought,” Joe said. “How ’bout you? Any idea how the cartridge left the building?”
Giordi looked a little hapless. “You know how it goes, Joe. We do the best we can. We have the usual bells and whistles, but a lot of people go through this building every hour of every day. How big is one of those cartridges? Half a deck of cards?” He frowned before adding, “I’ll be shaking things hard to see what falls out, but don’t be surprised—and for Christ’s sake don’t think I’m holding out on you—if, in the end, I’ve got nothing to show for it.”
Joe again made an appeasing gesture before shaking Tim’s hand and retrieving his coat from where he’d draped it over a chair. “Not to worry,” he told him, heading out. “I appreciate both the help and the pickle you’re in. I promise I’ll be in touch, and don’t worry too much until you have to. At least I know for sure where that little tag originated—whether that’s relevant or not, we’ll both find out.”
Giordi shook his head. “Let’s hope so.”
Mandi144: Boring
JMAN: what do u lik 2 do?
Mandi144: Hang out. Try nu things
JMAN: I lik nu things. Lik wat?
Mandi144: Fool around
JMAN: kool. ASL
Mandi144: 14/f/Vermont – U?
JMAN: kool. 24/m/Mass
Mandi144: kool
JMAN: U dun that a lot?
Mandi144: Enuf
JMAN: All the way?
Mandi144: Sure
JMAN: kool
Chapter 13
The office of the chief medical examiner, whose title was reduced throughout law enforcement to simply OCME, was located across town from the Burlington Police Department, in the cumbersome embrace of the awkwardly rebuilt Fletcher Allen Medical Center, Vermont’s largest hospital and the home of the University of Vermont’s nationally regarded medical school.
The OCME hadn’t started here. As Joe first maneuvered through Burlington’s dense traffic and then poked through the hospital’s confusion of hallways and interlinked buildings, he recalled how Beverly Hillstrom had once kept an office down the block, above a dentist’s office, and worked on her cadavers in the hospital’s basement, not far from the loading docks.
It was a credit to her longevity, her efficiency, and her political prowess—not to mention a few friends in the right places—that all that had been replaced with a clean, modern, highly professional workplace, albeit one hard to locate for the uninitiated.
Joe was certainly not among those, having been here dozens of times. As a result, once safely aboard, he was honor bound to spend a few minutes with whichever staffers he encountered on his way to Hillstrom’s corner office, catching up on local gossip.
“I thought I heard your voice,” Beverly Hillstrom greeted him when he finally reached her threshold. She stood and came around her desk to kiss him on the cheek, an unheard-of familiarity in the old days, when, for years, they had addressed each other formally, by title—an eccentricity she maintained with everyone else outside the office.
He surveyed her with a smile. She was perfectly squared away, not a hair out of place, her clothes unwrinkled and pristine—an image of uncanny precision enhanced by her dust-free, immaculate office. If he hadn’t gotten to know her all-too-human and vulnerable side, she might have remained as scary as she appeared to almost everyone else. But she had granted him that access at one point, and while he understood that it allowed him no special liberties now, he was grateful that it had welcomed him into a highly restricted personal inner sanctum.
“You look great, Beverly,” he told her.
She smiled, flushing slightly. “Well, I should. Life is good, both here and at home.”
He knew not to pry, but that was happy news. Their single night of intimacy had been partly created by her husband walking out on her. Joe had since heard that the two of them had been working to mend that rift. Clearly, things were paying off.
She considered him seriously.