Chapter 8–Monday, 11:37AM

An hour passed. Then two. Herb finished up his plan of attack for the press conference, outlined its main points on an index card and stuck them in his pocket.

Where was Truman? he thought. The man was usually quick. He’d normally have an answer to any riddle put before him in minutes. It’d been...

“Hey, Chief!” The lab tech stood in the doorway. “Got a minute?”

“Of course, Tru. Come on in. Have a seat.” Herb was always polite to Truman. He was way too valuable to lose. “What’d you find?”

Truman cleared his throat. “Well, not much really. That’s why I took so long.” The tech paused glancing at his notes. “The voice,” he continued, “was obviously altered. I noticed the distortion the first time I ran the tape. So I ran my algorithms on it, the ones I designed to untwist remixed voices. They failed. Every one of them. The voice, no matter what I threw at it, sounded the same. Befuddled, I turned my attention to the department phone records. I’d saved the tracing till last since it would normally be the easier of the two tasks. I logged in to the database, brought up this morning’s incoming calls. There were two from the mayor’s office, about ten minutes each.”

“Yes, they were on the machine,” Herb affirmed. “He was a bit hot.”

“Of course,” Truman hated interruptions. His irritation showed just a bit as he continued. “There were those two calls and, you’re not going to believe this...not one other call.”

Herb jumped from his seat. “What!” he shouted. “The phones were ringing off the hook when I came in. People were talking. There were calls. Lots of them.”

“I’m not saying there weren’t calls, sir,” Truman said, regaining control of the conversation. “I’m saying there are no records showing that there were calls. Someone took a big eraser and wiped the slate clean. Digitally speaking, of course. There isn’t a slate or chalk or an eraser.”

“Yes, yes,” Herb interrupted. “I understand.” Continuing, he asked, “So how could this be done? Wouldn’t someone have to have a password to do something like that?”

Truman nodded his turbaned head as Herb returned to his chair. “You know our system’s security protocol,” he agreed. “Only I and a few others have administrative passcodes. No one without those codes can even see this part of the network. It’s invisible unless you know it’s there and know the right steps to access it.”

“Who knows the codes?” Herb was getting impatient. “Besides you.”

“String, Ted, Jordan, Woodstalk,” Truman ticked off the list in his head. “Oh, and the mayor or someone in his office.”

“What’s a rookie doing on that list?” Herb demanded.

Truman looked a bit puzzled. “You mean Woodstalk?” he asked. “He was top in his class at the Academy in tech work. I gave him the codes when you sent me an authorization form.”

“I sent you the form?” Herb was puzzled. He didn’t remember signing any form.

“Yes, sir,” Truman answered. “I can find it for you if you like. It’d be down at central.”

“No, no, that won’t be necessary,” Herb backpedaled. “I sign things all the time. I just forgot, I’m sure that’s all.” Getting back to the matter at hand, he asked the question that begged for an answer. “So can you reconstruct the erased data?”

“I’ve tried,” Truman confessed. “Same results as the voice fixing. Nothing. Our hacker is good. We simply don’t have the equipment or the software to do it.”

“Does anyone?” the chief inquired.

“VBI has the right stuff,” Truman informed him, “but it’d take them a day or two to get here. Then a day or two more to put all the pieces back together.”

Herb sighed. He hated to give any ground to the feds, but he was desperate. “There’s a VBI team in town, Truman. They’re tracing a suspicious cell phone call made while we were out Sunday night digging through compost.”

“VBI?! Here?! That’s wonderful!” The asparagus was beside himself. He spoke rapid fire. “Why wasn’t I told? Did you mention it at a briefing? I don’t recall having this info. Do they have tech agents with them?”

“I don’t know,” Herb replied, as he rose again from his seat. “I don’t know. But I can find out.” Glancing at his watch, he promised, “I’ll give the agent-in-charge a call right after Redman’s press conference. I’ll be late if I do it now. I’ve got a couple of stops to make on my way. And we wouldn’t want to keep the mayor waiting.”

Truman and Herb parted ways as they left the chief’s office. Truman returned to the lab. Herb walked toward the chopping block.