The Company She Kept (15 page)

Sam, given her energy and overall style, had made a point of going beyond mere chance encounters to make friends with several of the lab's personnel. This was practical—the efficiencies of asking a favor of a well-placed pal being self-evident. But Sam's interest in forensics was also genuine, and appreciated by the people she befriended.

The lab was located where it had always been—attached to the building housing the Department of Public Safety and the Vermont State Police, among other agencies. But where in the past it had occupied the top floor only—in what had resembled a 1950s high school, complete with lockers lining the hallway—it was now a wing unto itself, modern, up to the latest rigorous standards, and a monument to a small group that had dedicated itself to making this lab one of the best in the nation, despite its small size and budget.

Sam signed in at the reception desk and was met by Christine Hartley, one of the lab's senior chemists, whom Sam had first met ten years earlier.

They exchanged hugs at the door, before Chris escorted her into the facility's bright and spacious embrace.

“I guess you're earning your big bucks on this case,” she commented, leading the way.

“If only,” Sam replied. “I'm not complaining. It's a lot more interesting than the domestics and juvie crimes I used to handle at the PD. But if we get one more major headline thrown at us, we may have to bring in the National Guard just to reach the office. The boss has taken to either meeting in weird places at odd hours or calling us on the phone instead of holding staff meetings. It's gotten a little strange.”

“We get the same thing with the occasional high-visibility murder or kidnapping,” Chris commiserated. “The advantage here is that it's a secure building.” She jerked a thumb out one of the large windows they were passing. “They get stuck out there in the weather; no wandering the halls unescorted. I do love that.”

She opened the door to an airy lab room, empty aside from another white-coated employee, working at something in a far corner.

Sam looked around admiringly. “God. I still can't get used to this building.”

Chris smiled broadly. “Neat, huh? So much space. I can't, either.”

She sat down at a counter strewn with folders and paperwork—her workstation, which Sam supposed doubled as an office.

“Okay,” Chris then said. “Let's talk drugs. That's what you mentioned on the phone, right?”

Sam parked herself on an adjacent stool. “Right. Did you get a chance to check out the marijuana we sent up?”

“I did. And you were right. There was some trace on the packaging, and it did test for heroin.”

“Could you tell anything from it?”

“Like did it have additives or dilutants mixed in?”

“That and anything else,” Sam said. “Could you tell where it came from, for instance?”

Chris frowned. “You know that most of the time we get that from what's actually stamped on the Baggie, right? Horse from Hell, Dragon Tattoo, etc. I've even had 'em with Snoopy on them, which I thought was a goddamned sacrilege.”

“I know, I know,” Sam told her. “But I thought you could identify a geographical source from the chemical makeup.”

“You can,” Chris agreed. “That is, other people can, using what they call stable isotope ratio analysis. We don't do that kind of work here. Don't have the equipment, the expertise, or the money. The DEA's who you want there—but bring a lot of time to kill, 'cause they're wicked backlogged. I also guarantee that they'll rank the request pretty low on their priorities.”

Sam was disappointed. “What about the weed?” she asked.

“Same thing,” Chris replied. “I mean, I can tell you it's terrible stuff, if that's any help—full of dirt and twigs and crap like that. 'Course,” she added with a smile, “that's what I know from the literature—not from personal use. But that being said, I have no idea where it's from. Used to be that most of our marijuana was locally produced, but times have changed, as if you didn't know. Now it's a wide-open market and we're getting product from all over the place—including our own backyard.”

Her friend's disappointment prompted Chris to add, “I did run it through the mass spec, just to see, and I can tell you it's clean in the sense that nothing's been added to it. There was a craze awhile back when they soaked it in nutty additives like PCP. But not this load. It actually reminded me of the kind of grass they'd rake off the production room floor and sell for cheap to idiot teenagers. Before everybody wised up.”

That did little for Sam's mood.

Chris tried another tack. “There were fingerprints on the bag.”

That helped. “Whose?” Sam asked hopefully.

Chris hedged a bit. “Not my department, but they
are
being analyzed by the latent print folks. I can find out for you, outside normal channels. Be a lot quicker.”

“Would you?”

“Of course,” Chris promised. “I'll get right on it. The stable isotope ratio analysis I mentioned might be worth a look, by the way. It's something they were starting to apply as part of the Marijuana Signature Project, around 2006 or so—in Utah, I think—with good results. The nutshell explanation is that plants grown in different settings or regions have different and distinct signatures based on the isotopic composition of a particular region's water. It's like a fingerprint from nature herself. You can see why so many people are using it to trace marijuana.” She made a sad face. “Except us, natch. I am sorry about that. Is it very important?”

“It's so low on the totem pole,” Sam conceded, “that Willy and I are the only ones looking into it. Between you and me, we're kinda stumped on all fronts right now, so we were hoping this might help.”

“As in finding a source for Raffner's stash,” Chris sympathized. “I can see where that might be useful.”

“Is this isotope thing hard to do?” Sam asked.

Chris laughed. “Can't be too hard. My brother does it in California. Actually, he's tons smarter than me—he sure as hell makes more money. But I'm the bratty little sister, so I have to dis him, right?” She let that go, seeing that Sam's smile was forced at best, and resumed in a more serious tone. “Okay, basically, base elements like carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and others are in almost everything on earth, albeit in multiple forms. But each form has a specific atomic mass. You remember that from chemistry class?”

“Can't say I do,” Sam murmured, having never sat in a chemistry class, much less retained anything said in it.

“Never mind,” Chris said. “What matters is that they're called stable isotopes, as against unstable ones, which of course are radioactive. Anyhow, isotopes are attached to everything in the plant world and therefore used to do ecological research. That's what my brother's been doing for years.”

“Sure,” Sam said, barely following.

But Chris needed no prompting, informed or otherwise. “If you and Willy raid a dope-dealing operation in the Northeast Kingdom, say, you might expect to find all local product. But test what you grabbed for its stable isotopes, and voilà,” she said, throwing up her hands. “Turns out some of it's from California or Mexico or Washington State. That would probably be an eye-opener, no? Is that what you're talking about?”

Sam gave her a rueful smile. “Exactly why I'm here, Christine.”

Her friend stared at her, slightly embarrassed. “Of course you are. Okay—a compromise: If you get the proper blessing or Hail Mary or whatever from your prosecutor—SA, AG, whoever's on this case—I'll send a sample to my brother and ask him to give it top priority. Turnaround time should be a few days, tops, and I'll ask him to waive the cost as a family favor. Would that do the trick?”

As a response, Sam leaned forward and kissed her cheek.

Chris patted her back. “Cool,” she said. “And once we get that data, we can run it by the DEA's index of drug profiles, which is growing weekly, and see if we get a match—that should be virtually instantaneous. Drug dealing is becoming so organized by the crooks that there's an impressive amount of product consistency—at least compared to the old days. It'll end up being like quality control in the legal pharmaceutical market. Who knew?”

“Who, indeed?” Sam agreed.

*   *   *

Twenty minutes later, Sammie hit the Off button to her smartphone and let her hands drop to her lap. She'd pulled off the road in Middlesex—almost to the interstate that would return her to Brattleboro—in order to get authorization for Chris Hartley to send her samples out for testing.

It felt odd to be delving back into illegal drugs. Sam hadn't ventured there since she'd gone undercover to shut down what she'd thought was a major drug operation in the making.

It hadn't been, as events had later proven. She'd been an unwitting pawn in a turf war originating in Holyoke, Massachusetts, and acted out in Rutland, Vermont. She'd feared that she'd stumbled upon an assault by drug traffickers on the little-exploited Vermont market, and had seized on an opportunity to infiltrate one of the warring parties, posing as a local dealer.

But it had been a disaster from the beginning. She hadn't cleared her actions with Joe or anyone else, forcing him to rally a support operation too quickly and with too little information. She'd also completely misinterpreted the true intentions of her supposed partners and had almost gotten herself killed not once, but twice. More personally—and never revealed to a single soul—she'd become too close to her partner-in-crime, a smart and urbane man named Manuel Ruiz, and had almost gone to bed with him.

It had all collapsed on her with devastating effect, keeping her on the job, but reducing her self-esteem to levels she hadn't experienced since childhood. The survivor of a home wracked by alcoholism and abuse, Sam had grown up fearful, angry, and doubtful of her potential. Her almost merciless journey through her teens, a brief career in the military, and then her early years as an overachieving cop, resented by many of her male colleagues, had almost been destroyed by what she'd interpreted as a public humiliation.

Joe, as usual, had smoothed things over and salvaged the good from the rubble of her ambition. Furthermore—and most crucially—neither he nor any of her colleagues had ever expressed anything but support thereafter, allowing her time and space to heal in private.

By the same token, she'd steered clear of drug cases from then on, and—she'd noted ruefully—Joe had never assigned her to one. He was a supportive, caring, and considerate leader. He was also no idiot, as this delicate reprimand had proven—although, in his defense, she'd never asked him if her interpretation was accurate, or a figment of her paranoia.

Life had therefore carried on. The VBI—then virtually an experiment—had earned its keep. She and Willy, who'd just started seeing each other romantically, had moved in together and formed a family with Emma. Manny Ruiz—who'd escaped capture—had slipped from the forefront of her memory, as had his embarrassing effect on her emotions.

The corrosive irony of all this—and perhaps one more reason it had struck her so hard—was that she'd rarely enjoyed working a case more than she had that one, perhaps even because of how intimate she'd become with Ruiz. The adrenaline of flirting with exposure while constantly adapting to changing events had been intoxicating, and had left her as euphoric as she imagined many combat vets were after surviving a close encounter. As a result, a persistent, oddly empty sensation had haunted her ever after, and continued to tug at her imagination. Equating her attraction to undercover drug work with the appetite that rules an addict was an overstatement, but with resonance, nevertheless.

Of course, there was also the argument that her longing was based on the need for personal redemption. That possibility hadn't escaped her, either.

Ever since Willy had first broached the topic of drugs, following his meditation on Raffner's sensual needs, Sammie had wondered if this was what she'd subconsciously hungered for—a chance to succeed where she'd once stumbled, achieve absolution, and even put to rest her dormant remorse over having almost cheated on Willy.

The cell phone in her hand disturbed her reverie. She was surprised to see Chris Hartley's name appear on its screen.

“Hi. You forget something?”

“Just the opposite. I wandered down the hall to consult with my latent print colleagues, and they actually had the results.”

“You're kidding.”

“Crazy, right? Anyhow, there were two sets of identifiable prints on the larger of the two bags of marijuana—one belonging to Susan, no surprise there—and one to someone named Margaret Kinnison. That one may be a surprise, huh?”

“Why was she on file?”

“Pure quirk,” came the answer. “Her prints were collected years ago for exclusion only—an embezzlement case where all the employees were printed in order to find the on-staff thief. But the prints were never thrown out, as they should've been. Dumb luck, huh? Gotta love it. Of course, you know you can only use them for investigative purposes—they're inadmissible as evidence. But it shouldn't be too tough to get a separate set on your own if and when you meet her. Anyhow, I thought it was such a fluke, I couldn't resist telling you ASAP.”

“Totally.” Sam matched her enthusiasm, feeling the very rush of adrenaline she'd been contemplating earlier. “You are too much. Thanks, Chris. I owe you big time.”

“I've always wanted to hear that one.” Chris laughed before hanging up.

Sammie glanced at her watch and began heading for Montpelier as she auto-dialed her phone.

“How's the road trip goin'?” Lester asked as a greeting.

“Not bad. Can you take a look at that list kicking around the office? The one with the names we've associated with Raffner so far?”