Scattered Graves

to replace Jin in the crime lab, and Izzy has expressed a desire. He’s also been very helpful and has shown a willingness to learn the process.’’

Chief Monroe nodded his head as though he liked the idea. Diane thought it was probably a done deal as far as the police were concerned. She suspected that perhaps Izzy had already set everything in motion.

‘‘We have an officer who’s injured and we want to put him on a desk job,’’ said Chief Monroe, ‘‘so this will be a good move. Izzy’s a good guy. It’s a shame what happened to his family. What happened to a lot of families,’’ he added.

‘‘Yes,’’ said Diane. ‘‘That was one of Rosewood’s worst times.’’ Worse than now, she thought, because it was young people who died then.

‘‘I’ll put through the paperwork,’’ said the chief.

Diane went back downstairs. She spotted Izzy car rying a file to one of the detectives and waved to attract his attention.

‘‘I’ve cleared it with Monroe,’’ she said when he walked over to her. ‘‘If you want to back out, now’s the time, before he gets the paperwork in.’’

Izzy grinned. ‘‘When do I start?’’

‘‘Chief Monroe will let you know. I imagine it will be right away,’’ she said.

Izzy rubbed his hands together and looked around the room grinning. Diane realized this was his end run around the politics and bureaucracy that hadn’t let him become a detective. He wouldn’t be a detective now, exactly, but he would look like one and on occa sion would get to do what detectives do. She really hoped this was the right course of action.

Janice motioned for Diane to come to her desk. She held a phone next to her ear and looked as if she was waiting.

‘‘At first it looked like all Garnett’s reference bul lets were accounted for,’’ Janice said. ‘‘But the clerk noticed that his file had been tampered with. I told him to verify all the bullets again. I also called the gun range and asked if Edgar Peeks liked to collect rounds. He did. Interesting, huh?’’ said Janice. She looked happy.

‘‘This looks like a good lead, then,’’ said Diane.

Janice nodded. ‘‘I’ll let you know when I find out anything.’’ She got back on the phone and Diane left for the museum.

The desktop screen with all the little rows of soft ware icons was still showing on Jefferies’ computer when she walked into her office sitting room. It looked as if David and Frank had not made any progress. But they both looked upbeat. There were several flash drives lying beside the computer. She pulled up a chair. Frank reached over and squeezed her hand.

‘‘The two of you look happy,’’ she said.

‘‘We’re making progress. David and I pooled our decryption tools,’’ said Frank. ‘‘David has written some impressive ones himself.’’

‘‘Is that what’s on all the flash drives?’’ she said.

Frank nodded. ‘‘We had an idea. Neva’s gone over to the crime lab to get a gadget the mayor had.’’

‘‘A gadget?’’ said Diane.

‘‘You’ll see,’’ said David. ‘‘At first we thought it was a webcam. Actually it is a camera, but I noticed the other day it is also something else. In the mean time, Frank and I have been able to get into several programs. Unfortunately, none of which does us any good unless we want to play solitaire or work in Pho toshop. We can’t get into word processing, spread sheets, calendars, or anything that might have useful information in it.’’

Neva came through the door carrying a box and handed it to David. He opened it and took out what indeed looked to be a webcam. The labeling on the box said it was an iris scanner.

‘‘Iris scanner?’’ said Diane.

‘‘The mayor liked gadgets. He had a lot of them. Most of them we left in the house, but we brought all his computer gadgets here. The picture on the box looks like a webcam and I didn’t actually read the box. Or rather, it didn’t register until now. Frank and I were talking about all the kinds of security measures that could be in effect, and it just hit me,’’ said David. ‘‘Did you get the photographs too?’’

‘‘Of course,’’ said Neva. She handed Frank a folder. ‘‘Photographs?’’ said Diane.

‘‘Of all the principals involved,’’ said David.

Neva pulled up another chair, and they all sat around the computer.

‘‘Where is Rikki?’’ asked Diane.

‘‘She requested the day off to show a friend the museum,’’ said Neva. ‘‘David, being in charge in your absence, gave it to her. She’s probably lurking some where here in the museum. The crime lab is being cleaned. Jin agreed to babysit it while TechClean’s in there doing their thing.’’

David connected the camera cable to the USB port and immediately the software came up on the screen.

‘‘This is good,’’ David said.

‘‘Very good,’’ said Frank.

‘‘What are you going to do?’’ said Diane.

‘‘We’re going to see if the camera will recognize Jefferies’ iris pattern,’’ said Frank.

‘‘It doesn’t seem like it would be much use as a security device if you can use a picture instead of the real person,’’ said Diane.

‘‘It’s not made for unsupervised applications,’’ said Frank. ‘‘If the pictures are high-resolution enough, we should get some action.’’ He smiled at her.

Frank apparently enjoyed this part of his job— decryption. In that respect, he and David were two of a kind.

David selected a full-face glossy publicity photo of Jefferies. He put one eye in the photo in front of the