Presumption of Guilt Read Free Page B

weren’t many cops across Vermont, from the lowest town constable to the commissioner of public safety. As a result—and as Joe had implied to Roger Goodhugh—what was immediately set in motion took much longer to occur. By nightfall, although a tent had been rigged over their crime scene and the perimeter sealed to Jim Matthews’s standards, they were still reduced to waiting for other investigators and/or technicians to appear, including a forensic anthropologist and scientists from the state’s only official crime lab, in far-off Waterbury.
    Things were done professionally and effectively in this nation’s second least populated state, but their tempo was scaled to the locale’s reality. As people were too fond of saying, there was “real time,” and “Vermont time.”
    By the next day, however, everyone necessary was in place, and the wheels put into motion to free Nelson Smith’s discovery from its tomb.
    Also, Joe and Sammie had been joined by the two previously absent members of the local VBI squad—Lester Spinney and Willy Kunkle—both of whom had been out running other cases when this one came in.
    Spinney—absurdly tall and gangly—was a native-born transplant from the Vermont State Police, drawn to the VBI because of its small size and major crimes focus. Kunkle was equally striking, but for radically different reasons. Hailing from New York and NYPD-trained, he stood out because of his demeanor. Sammie’s romantic partner and the father of their young daughter, Emma, he was saddled with PTSD, a history of alcohol abuse, and a crippled left arm, which he kept—for the most part—pinned to his side by shoving his hand into his trouser pocket. Kunkle was irascible, opinionated, brusque, and intolerant; he was also one of the best cops Joe Gunther had ever worked with, which played well for Willy, who owed his continued employment to Joe’s steadily running interference against everyone from the governor on down—all of whom Willy had alienated at one time or another.
    â€œCan’t we rule it a suicide?” Willy asked now, looking down at the calcified finger with the ring, still trapped in place.
    Predictably, Lester laughed, Sam rolled her eyes, and Joe answered evenly, “Probably not, but I like the creative thinking.”
    Given that the next stage here would involve crime scene techs, the consultant anthropologist, and the precisely applied use of more jackhammers, chisels, and finally hand brushes and spatulas, Joe opted to lead his team out of the inner security fence, across the main entry road, to an administrative building housing the company’s media relations department. There they’d been told to expect documents and photographs detailing the construction of the same warehouse that was currently being dismantled.
    These were delivered by an efficient, pleasant, and professional young woman who met them at the door, escorted them down a hallway, and set them up in a conference room whose table was neatly stacked with file folders and a laptop computer.
    She waved a hand at the array as if making introductions. “I put out the computer because I thought you might want to see the old photographs on-screen. You can blow them up that way to see any details, and arrange them into separate folders as you go. Oh,” she added as an afterthought, pointing to a machine in the corner. “You can also print them out, if you want, or put them on a thumb drive if you have one. You know how to do that?”
    Joe spoke for them all. “I think we’ll figure it out. If not, we’ll send up a flare.”
    *   *   *
    It took a while to find their footing. The plant had taken years to construct, and the archives covered the progression from farmland to when the switch was thrown in 1972. Every aspect had been documented, from weld and pour inspections to a thousand general site