- Police Department -

When Danny arrived at the police headquarters, at the corner of Main Street and Church Street, he parked his vehicle next to a police car. He walked to the door braving the falling rain. The door was locked so he went back to his vehicle.

He turned the ignition and started to back out of his parking spot. Just then a minivan pulled up alongside. A man hopped out with a laptop bag and headed for the door.

Danny rolled down the window and tried to be helpful, "Sorry the door is locked."

The guy looked over his shoulder, "Its ok I have a key."

The guy, who looked very young, waved for Danny to follow and come inside.

The guy turned the lights on and introduced himself as Tommy Greg. He went into a back room, opposite of the glassed office. Danny followed.

Inside Danny took note of a main room with a few file cabinets by two desks. On one side of the building there was a glassed-in room with a desk. On the desk he could make out the name plate: Paul Garner, Police Chief. Just then the phone rang drawing Danny's eyes over to a table in the back of the room. The man made no move to answer it. Danny saw a fax machine that was spitting out printed sheets. They fell to the "in" tray below that was already about to overflow. I hadn't been cleared for quite sometime.

In the computer room a computer with a sticker said SuSE Linux server. Tommy logged in and his fingers started flying 90 miles an hour.

As the man worked, Danny made a bit of small talk about the weather, how big the town was and about the crime rate.

Tommy gave very uninformative answers. Danny thought, "no matter how good the computer system was, this officer seems to be lost in space somewhere. This guy didn't know a whole lot about the town. No wonder he didn't carry a gun. I am surprised his name isn't Barney Fife."

Danny then asked, "Are you working at restoring FLAP to the office?"

The guy looked puzzled, "Restoring what?"

Danny explained thinking that the guy was new.

"I've heard of that. This is a small town so I guess that system isn't really needed."

"Well, can you please stop working on that thing for a moment? I need your help." Danny asked getting a bit impatient.

Tommy answered, "I guess I can try to help."

Danny informed the man that he was in town on a FBI investigation of a missing person, Kerri Rowan. She had lived in New York but was originally from Ever Falls. Showing his FBI badge and ID, he asked, "Do you have any information on her?"

"Oh" Tommy said, "I'm just the Computer Tech from out of Albany. Handing Danny a card, my company sent me over to service the server. From the looks of the log files I don't think anyone has even logged in since the last time I was here three months ago."

Tommy rambled on for a moment and then finally said, "On your missing person, if you need help with that, you'll have to talk to the chief at the job site. I met him out there earlier. How do you think I got the key?"

"Wait a minute, you've lost me. Job site?"

"Like I said, this is a small town, with a part time police department. If anyone can help you it would be Chief of Police, Paul Garner. He also has a construction company. He's on a job out of town a ways on North Maple Avenue. You'll see the sign out front."

As Danny said goodbye and was on his way, he was thinking to himself, "You gotta be kidding."