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  Unconsciously, Willy slipped his hand into his pocket and felt the contours of his cell phone.

  Lambert caught sight of the gesture. “Made you nervous.”

  Willy extracted his hand quickly. “You’re an asshole.”

  The other man wasn’t laughing. “I wouldn’t worry. Cell phones are burning up, too, but chances are you’re okay—law of averages. Mostly, I’m talking about batteries that’re subquality, or somehow get damaged, like the ones you’ll see on the internet. It’s when you breach their integrity in some way that they get nasty. Mostly,” he added with a sly look, “but not always. There’re a few far-out videos of guys with their pants on fire because of their Samsungs. We have less and less of a clue about what we’re doing in this field these days.”

  He tapped on the carcass before them. “As for this one, there’s not enough left of it to tell one way or the other. Where did you find it?”

  Cops are cautious about sharing details of a case, but Willy figured a little insight might be of benefit. “On a railroad bed.”

  Lambert was surprised. “Really? Jesus. I wasn’t expecting that. Was there a train crash?”

  “No. It was just there.” His own statement made Willy wonder—not for the first time—why he was pursuing this. Railroad beds were littered with garbage. Why not a ruined battery?

  The scientist looked back at the item of interest. “Well, no wonder it burned up. If it got wing-dinged by a train wheel or smashed against a track, that would sure as hell set it off. Remember I mentioned knives and clawhammers? That’s because they’re metal. The chemicals in these things are very sensitive to metal.”

  The two of them stared at the battery for a moment, as if expecting it to speak. Willy, however, was now thinking back to those broken teeth—more evidence of a hard and sudden encounter. It was a coincidence he used to reduce his self-doubt.

  “So, if there wasn’t a train wreck,” Devin said then, as if eavesdropping on Willy’s thoughts. “What happened?”

  Willy ignored the question, wanting to get on firmer ground. “You said this is the same thing I got in my phone. But this is the size of a paperback.”

  “Right. Your phone doesn’t pull much energy. Batteries like this run things like drills, Weedwackers, remote-control toys—old-fashioned power-suckers.”

  Willy made a face. He imagined two bums fighting over a stolen Weedwacker in the middle of the night, one of them losing his teeth and the tool being destroyed. Maybe Colin Guyette’s vision of a simple duke-out was right.

  But Lambert wasn’t finished. “This particular one, though,” he was saying, “looks familiar from the old days. I won’t take you down memory lane, but context is everything. Batteries are ordered up and manufactured to fit specific things, right? So your run-of-the-mill Tonka truck cell will be different from the drill I mentioned.”

  “This looks familiar?” Willy asked, interpreting what he was hearing.

  “Yes and no. The size and shape, the way some of the connectors present—or used to. It reminds me of mil-spec stuff I used to futz with in my previous life, before the evil weed brought me down.”

  “Your stupidity brought you down, Devin,” Willy reminded him, perhaps incautiously. “What’re you not saying?”

  Lambert didn’t take issue. He smiled and slid his stool away from the table. “I am dancing around a little. I’m guessing you’ve got something interesting here—maybe something hot. I don’t think it actually does fit a tool or a toy. But there’s not enough of it left to tell for sure. It reminds me of the military-grade units I knew back in the day, but that was … well, back in the day. And in this high-tech world, things change monthly. That’s one problem: This could be something I know nothing about ’cause it’s too new. A second problem is that, by law, anything that’s built for the U.S. military has to be made here. That”—he pointed to the dead battery—“was made in China, so I’m probably wrong.”

  Willy pondered that a moment before grunting. “No shit.”

  “If I’m not wrong,” Lambert continued. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen a little corner-cutting going on where inspectors aren’t likely to look. I only know it’s Chinese ’cause the wrapper burned off. You wouldn’t necessarily find out otherwise.

  “Let’s say you’re a small-fry manufacturer and you get a contract for remote-controlled bomb sniffers for the army. As soon as things’re up and running smoothly and everybody gets relaxed, you swap out the American-made batteries for something like this. Some Chinese-made components are top-notch, after all. So maybe you rationalize it. Either way, it makes a difference, ’cause a Chinese battery’s a lot cheaper for you to buy. All you have to do is disguise it to look like the original. Who in his right mind’s gonna open up a dangerous thing like this to read the fine print?”

  “Where do you get them?” Willy wanted to know.

  “Everywhere. The government might have a law about where they buy their junk, but the rest of us go to China. There are importers in every state in the country with batteries on their shelves.”

  He poked the item before them again. “Course, this is all hypothetical. I just said this reminded me of what I used to see in my old job. CBP or Homeland Security might be able to help you out. They’re the import–export hawks who keep up to date. You’re a cop. You must have federal friends.”

  CBP stood for Customs and Border Patrol, a blending that had emerged after the 9/11 security shakeup. Willy knew people in federal agencies, but his personality and methods usually dictated that he couldn’t call them friends.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll look into that. You said every state had importers. Who’s in Vermont?”

  Lambert looked down at his hands a moment, clearly caught out. “Okay, maybe I exaggerated. Sort of. You’ll have people in Burlington importing general-purpose batteries, or possibly using ones at this level of sophistication on their own assembly lines. But importing them for sale? Not likely.”

  Willy considered where the battery had been found—the town and actual location, both. The Amtrak line ran from just shy of the Canadian border to Massachusetts and beyond. If there was any logic connecting the railroad and Windsor to the battery and the teeth, why not a reasonably situated place of origin?

  “What about Springfield, Mass?” he asked.

  “Sure,” Lambert said without pause. “It’s a major crossroads between Boston Harbor and the rest of the country, which is exactly what Vermont ain’t. Absolutely.”

  * * *

  Willy sat in his car after leaving Devin Lambert and stared sightlessly at the people entering and leaving the building before him. The alarm bell that had gone off in his head when Colin Guyette began his explanation had only gotten louder.

  The major problem confronting Willy, however, remained stubbornly the same: Willy had no proof of a crime.

  * * *

  Even given her mood, Beverly Hillstrom couldn’t repress a smile as she spotted her daughter from across the cafeteria. The day at the morgue so far had been busy, complicated, and bureaucratically charged, and she’d been missing Joe terrifically, somewhat to her surprise. The opportunity of a lunch with her daughter had appeared like a gift.

  Joe had been texting her regularly—a major accomplishment for him—since their arrival at the Frank, and he’d phoned last night. But somehow, the fact that he was out of state, beyond her ability to reach him by car on pure impulse, made him appear impossibly remote. It was a longing no texting or phone call could address.

  “Hi, sweetie,” she greeted Rachel as she reached the girl’s table.

  Rachel gave her a hug and indicated a cup of tea, a bowl of soup, a small salad, and a yogurt. “I know you don’t have much time, so I got those to spare you waiting in line. I hope there’s at least one thing in there you like.”

  In fact, Beverly had bolted down a salad she’d brought from home before crossing campus to get here, thinking of the same time constraint as her daughter had mentioned. B
ut the gesture truly touched her, especially today, and so she positioned the bowl of soup before her as she sat down. “That was incredibly thoughtful. This’ll hit the spot.”

  Rachel beamed, happy to please a mother whose intellect and abilities had overwhelmed her from childhood—not that Beverly had ever lorded over her. The love and admiration were mutual, in fact, as Beverly had always envied Rachel’s artistic abilities, not to mention her engaging people skills. Hillstrom may have been the beneficiary of many talents, but sociability was not among them.

  “Has Joe given you an update?” Rachel asked, having heard of his situation.

  Beverly took a sip of her meal before responding. “Yes. They’re both settled in. Today’s been a familiarity crash course, with lots of meet and greet. Tomorrow will be tests and examinations. After that, it depends on what they find. I’ll tell him you asked.”

  “How’s he taking it?”

  Beverly did not take the question offhandedly. It wasn’t in her nature. Also, she knew that Rachel’s regard for Joe Gunther went beyond his being her mother’s boyfriend. Rachel had worked for him on a case, and the two had greatly enjoyed the experience—all the more so because it was safely over and everyone had survived. Things had gotten a little dicey at times.

  “He’s on edge,” Beverly said honestly. “He didn’t see this coming, and I think his mother’s disorientation has come as a shock.”

  “It must be tough.”

  Beverly took another sip and moved on to what she imagined was the real reason behind her daughter’s invitation. “And what’s been going on with you? The apartment working out? It must feel better living off campus at last.”

  “I have a roommate,” Rachel said brightly, her words a shade more rushed than normal.

  Her mother’s reaction was polite and carefully open-ended. “Really? That’s interesting.”

  “Yeah. I sort of bumped into her, and we’ve become pretty good friends. She’s from New York.”

  “A student?”

  “She’s taking a break, so she’s looking for a job—just something to do while she thinks things over. Also, she’d like … No. That doesn’t matter. Never mind.”

  “What?”

  “I was going to say that since she’s obviously new in town, she’d love to move in with me. For a little while, at least. She’d help with the rent, of course.”

  Beverly kept her expression neutral. “What’s her name?”

  “Charlotte Collins. She’s really nice.”

  “How did you meet? This sounds kind of sudden.”

  Beverly was watching Rachel’s face carefully, expecting the slight signs of tension around her daughter’s eyes that she knew well from past experience. Rachel didn’t disappoint.

  “It’s a little crazy, actually. I wasn’t kidding when I said I bumped into her. I hit her with my car.”

  The normally imperturbable Hillstrom almost choked. “My God, Rachel. When—?”

  But Rachel was already cutting her off. “No, no, no. It was a tap. Nothing happened. It was fine. That’s why I didn’t call you or anything. It was like spilling a drink on somebody’s lap and then becoming friends.”

  “A drink doesn’t weigh a few thousand pounds, honey.”

  “I know, I know. Okay, so maybe it’s not like a drink, but it was just as minor. She might as well’ve walked into the side of my car. It was that light.”

  “All right, but I’m confused,” Beverly said. “Where was she living before this bump? There seem to be a few pieces missing from all this.”

  Rachel didn’t quite roll her eyes, but close. “Mom. No crime was committed. It’s no different from meeting someone at somebody’s house for dinner and hitting it off. People move, they switch jobs. It happens.”

  Beverly pretended to dive in for another taste of her soup while pondering her next comment. From Rachel’s viewpoint, she was absolutely right: People do bump into each other, form a friendship, and sometimes even move in together. That’s what had happened with Beverly and Rachel’s father, after all, when they weren’t any older.

  But somehow, it had felt different, which was giving Beverly the most trouble. Was she reflecting the sensibilities of an aging mother still adjusting to empty-nest syndrome? That’s what she’d seen in Rachel’s expression. Or was she—as she believed—asking the right questions about a chance encounter perhaps too good to be true?

  “Of course it does, sweetheart,” she eventually picked up. “You have to admit that how you met is near the top of the charts. Give me that much.”

  “You’ll really like her,” Rachel said reassuringly. “She’s really cool.”

  Great, Beverly thought—the ultimate praise. What could go wrong?

  She wiped her mouth with her napkin and glanced at her watch. “Well, I hope I do get to meet her. I’m sure I’ll like her as much as you do.”

  * * *

  “Okay,” Sammie said, sitting on the edge of her desk, in part to gain a slight height advantage over her two seated colleagues. “We might as well get started. Our midday briefings have become a habit by now, so I thought we might keep them going while the boss is out of town. Les, I read in the dailies where you got handed a wrinkle on the old Ryan Paine case. What’s that looking like?”

  The dailies were the equivalent of a squad log, or diary, where members were supposed to enter what they were up to. It was less a legal document than a computerized version of an update around the water cooler.

  Lester was noncommittal. “Too early to tell. The prints I wrote about barely featured in the initial investigation—they had enough to close the case without them. And nothing surfaced afterwards to debunk the theory that Kennedy shot Paine after being pulled over for an infraction, and that Paine returned fire and got lucky as he was going down. But the duplicate prints are pretty far out, as discoveries go.”

  “I say they stink to high heaven,” Willy commented.

  “To what point, though?” Sam asked them both. “If they don’t change the end result?”

  “Don’t know yet,” Lester emphasized. “I’ll definitely be digging into it, including checking into any screwup on the lab’s part, after the fact.”

  “Is it going to derail anything else you got going?” Sam asked.

  “Shouldn’t,” he answered. “My other cases’re humming along at a reasonable pace. The prosecutor hasn’t been bitching, has he?”

  She smiled at the familiarity of the complaint. “Not yet.” But the comment did prompt her to look at Willy, about whom the local state’s attorney and their own prosecutor, the attorney general, had voiced concerns in the past. Willy was in fact extraordinarily good with his paperwork, as befitted his compulsive personality. His methods, however, and the coyness with which he alluded to them in his reports, often made lawyers either squeamish or bloodthirsty, depending on which party they represented.

  “How’s your caseload going?” she asked.

  “Good. Yours?”

  She ignored the belligerent undertone. “What about the Windsor thing you mentioned at home? You were AWOL for most of the day. Anything there? There’s nothing in the dailies.”

  Willy laughed shortly. “Uh-oh. Pillow talk making it into the office. Dirty pool. You know how I work.”

  Sammie straightened in surprise. “Where did that come from? I was asking for the briefing.”

  “And I said it was fine. Anyone complaining?”

  She felt her cheeks redden, which increased her irritation. “Don’t be a jerk. If you got something new going on, we need to know about it in case something happens. It’s standard protocol.”

  “Or a yank on the leash,” he argued. “Joe was okay with me wandering off the rez now and then.”

  Sam bit off the rejoinder that she wasn’t Joe and that he’d put her in charge—precisely the comeback she imagined Willy was angling for. She took a breath, struggling to understand why this was happening. “Nobody’s prying, Willy. It’s a security issue. We can’t watch yo
ur back if we don’t know what you’re doing.”

  There was an awkward pause in the room—Sam staring at Willy; he looking stubbornly out the window; and Lester watching them both with his mouth half open.

  As if he had a stiff neck, Willy brought his gaze to bear on her. “Sorry,” he said. “My bad. Complicated day.”

  She looked at him a moment longer before letting it drop and returning to Lester with a face-saving follow-up question of no particular importance.

  As the meeting continued, Willy applied all his self-discipline to keep from bolting from the office. He’d been a juvenile idiot, reacting to her running things in Joe’s absence—which he knew she was doing well—and to the fact that she’d mentioned a case where even he felt he might be chasing next to nothing.

  His response was a self-reminder that he was overdue for some bad news. He’d been happy, stable, rewarded by work and family. It wouldn’t last, and he could smell it nearing an end—even if he was the cause.

  * * *

  The young New York state trooper stood nervously on the doorstep, his finger still hovering above the door buzzer. He hadn’t been on the job long, and found the system and its workings at once scary and intoxicating. And that was just the standard rules, procedures, and protocols. In addition, he was baffled by the maze of alliances, friendships, and unstated understandings that seemed in play wherever he looked. A case in point being what he was doing here, dressed in plainclothes, ringing the bell of a man he’d never heard of, and told to do so by his immediate superior.

  The door opened, promising to put an end to his discomfort.

  “Yeah?” The man before him was slim, young, well dressed, and appropriate to the elegant brownstone to his back. His face, however, reminded the trooper of some of the neighborhood thugs he’d grown up with. There are those whose very features—although outwardly perfectly normal—bespeak menace. This was such a man, to the point where the trooper took a half step backwards.