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asked. ‘‘They in on this?’’
    ‘‘Yeah, an offer of assistance.’’
    ‘‘Cool.’’ FBI has incredible lab and scene analysis people. I suspected they were really in because of the DEA involvement, although when an offer is made like that, you take it without asking. All of which was a convoluted way of arriving at my next point. ‘‘Al, I’m not cleared on all the dope stuff anymore. I’m general criminal investigations.’’
    ‘‘You still the intelligence officer?’’
    ‘‘Yep.’’
    ‘‘That’ll do.’’
    Murders take precedence over dope cases. Especially cases where a cop is killed. At least in theory. But dope cops just hate to give up any information that’s really valuable. Goes against everything they think. Reasons range from fear of jeopardizing informants to having another agency get in ahead of them and get the credit.
    I looked at Dahl. ‘‘You be there?’’
    ‘‘Sure.’’
    ‘‘You and Kellerman were working this one together?’’
    ‘‘Yes.’’
    ‘‘I see.’’
    That meant he was carrying quite a load himself.
    ‘‘Just for the record,’’ he said, ‘‘I had no idea anything like this . . . I mean, I woulda been here for this if . . .’’
    There was a long silence. Then Hester said, ‘‘You’ll want to take a look at Bill? We’re going to have to move him soon.’’
    I hesitated for a second. ‘‘Okay.’’
    We walked downhill on the path.
    ‘‘Doc’s already seen him?’’ I needed to know if I could touch the body.
    ‘‘Yeah,’’ said Hester. ‘‘He’s been done. Johansen found him right about here,’’ she said, pointing at a depressed area of grass and weeds. There seemed to be quite a lot of blood. ‘‘He said that there was still shooting going on, so he dragged him up here to cover.’’ There was a lane of down grass with a thin trail of blood, leading up to the little mound and the log where I’d first seen the two of them. A yellow emergency blanket now covered the remains of Kellerman. He’d been reduced to the lump underneath the blanket. With the little torn blue compress packets like flowers.
    ‘‘There’s not much blood on the track up to this point,’’ she said. ‘‘Doc says he thinks that he was probably either dead or nearly so when Johansen got to him.’’
    Dr. Peters was about twenty yards away, still with Johansen and Lamar. I really wanted him to be there when I looked at Bill, but didn’t want to wait. I put on another glove.
    ‘‘Well, let’s get on with it.’’ I knelt down and pulled the blanket aside.
    Bill was a mess. He was the whitest corpse I’d seen in a long time. Must have completely bled out. From the front, there really wasn’t much remarkable, just some dents in his vest, with little holes in the center. His cammo shirt had some holes in it too. Looked like they’d been made by a pencil or something. Nothing that looked lethal. The ME had apparently undone the Velcro straps that held the vest in place. I lifted it, gingerly. There was a wad of gauze wedged between his vest and his chest. Obviously a futile effort on the part of Ken to stop the bleeding. It was so pathetic, so sad, it hit me pretty hard. I just stayed hunched over the body, not looking up, not doing anything, until it passed. I took a deep breath and continued my examination. There were five ragged holes in his chest, starting just at the top of the sternum and traveling down and to his left. The last one had made a long, gaping rent in his side about an inch in from the entrance. They weren’t in a line, but rather in a bunch that traveled together. I looked for a few moments. Full auto. Rifle, not a pistol-caliber submachine gun. And what I’d assumed to be the last round was probably the first, as the recoil of the rifle lifted its muzzle as it fired. Damned fast rate of fire, I thought, to group this close. Or awfully close to the target. The holes were ragged because the ‘‘bulletproof’’ vest