Kim tried the door. It opened with ease. He reached in and turned on the light. Except for a larger sheet of the same plywood over the sashless window facing the parking lot, the room looked entirely normal. The broken glass and the rock he'd tossed in had all been taken away.

The left side of the room had a long line of file cabinets. At random, Kim yanked out the nearest drawer. It was jammed full of files so tightly that not another sheet of paper could have been added.

"Gosh," Kim said. "They sure do have a lot of paperwork. This isn't going to be as easy as I'd hoped."

The end of an El Producto cigar burned brightly for a few moments and then faded. Elmer Conrad held the resulting smoke in his mouth for a few pleasurable moments and then blew it contentedly at the ceiling.

Elmer was the three-to-eleven cleaning crew supervisor. He'd held the job for eight years. His idea of work was to sweat like crazy for the first half of the shift and then coast. At that moment he was in the coasting mode, watching a Sony Watchman in the lunchroom with his feet up on a table.

"You wanted to see me, boss?" Harry Pearlmuter asked, poking his head into the lunchroom from the back hall. Harry was one of Elmer's underlings.

"Yeah," Elmer said. "Where's that queer-looking temp guy?"

"I think he's out in the front hall mopping," Harry said. "At least that's what he said he was going to do."

"Do you think he cleaned those two bathrooms out there?" Elmer asked.

"I wouldn't know," Harry said. "You want me to check?"

Elmer let his heavy feet fall to the floor with a thump. He pushed himself up to his full height. He was over six-feet-five and weighed two hundred forty pounds.

"Thanks, but I'll do it myself," Elmer said. "I told him twice he had to clean those heads before eleven. If he hasn't done them, he will! He's not leaving here until they're done."

Elmer put down his cigar, took a swig of coffee, and set out to find Kim. What was motivating him was that he'd received specific instructions from the front office that Kim was to clean the bathrooms in question, and he was to clean them alone. Elmer had no idea why he'd gotten such an order, but he didn't care. All he cared about was that it was carried out.

"This isn't going to be so hard after all," Kim said into his microphone. "I found a whole drawer of Process Deficiency Reports. They go from nineteen eighty-eight to the present. Now, all I have to do is find January ninth."

"Hurry up, Kim," Tracy said. "I'm starting to get nervous again."

"Relax, Trace," Kim said. "I told you I haven't seen a soul in an hour. I think they're all back in the lunchroom watching a ball game… Ah, here we are, January ninth. Hmmm. The folder's jammed full."

Kim pulled a clutch of papers from the folder. He turned around and put them down on the library, table.

"Pay dirt!" Kim said happily. "It's the whole group of papers Marsha talked about." Kim spread the papers out so that he could see them all. "Here's the purchase invoice from Bart Winslow for what must have been a sick cow."

Kim glanced through the other papers, finally picking one up. "Here's what I'm looking for. It's a Process Deficiency Report on the same cow."

"What does it say?" Tracy asked.

"I'm reading it," Kim said. After a moment he added: "Well, the mystery has been solved. The last cow's head fell off the rail onto the floor. Of course, I know what that means after the work I've been doing today. It probably fell in its own manure and then went in to be butchered for hamburger meat. This cow could have been infected with the E. coli. That's consistent with what you found out from Sherring Labs this afternoon indicating that the patty made from the meat butchered on January ninth was heavily contaminated."

In the next instant, Kim was startled enough to let out a whimper. To his utter shock the Process Deficiency Report was ripped from his hands. He spun around to find himself facing Elmer Conrad. While he'd been talking, he'd not heard the man come into the room.

"What the hell are you doing with these papers?" Elmer demanded. His broad face had become beet-red.

Kim felt his heart race. Not only had he been caught looking at confidential documents, but he had the microphone in his right ear. To try to keep the wire out of Elmer's line of sight, he kept his head turned to the right, looking at Elmer out of the corner of his eye.

"You better answer me, boy," Elmer growled.

"They were on the floor," Kim said, desperately trying to think of something. "I was trying to put them back."

Elmer glanced at the open drawer to the file cabinet, then back at Kim. "Who were you talking to?"

"Was I talking?" Kim asked innocently.

"Don't mess with me, boy," Elmer warned.

Kim put his hand on his head then gestured ineffectually at Elmer, but no words came out of his mouth. He was trying to think of something clever to say but couldn't.

"Tell him you were talking to yourself," Tracy whispered.

"Okay," Kim said. "I was talking to myself."

Elmer looked askance at Kim, almost the same way Kim was looking at Elmer.

"You sounded like you were having a goddamn conversation," Elmer said.

"I was," Kim offered. "Just with myself. I do it all the time when I'm alone."

"You're one weird dude," Elmer said. "What's wrong with your neck?"

Kim rubbed the left side of his neck with his left hand. "It's a little stiff," he said. "Too much mopping, I guess."

"Well, you got some more to do," Elmer said. "Remember those two restrooms next door here? Remember I told you that you had to clean them."

"I guess that did slip my mind," Kim said. "Sorry, but I can get right to it."

"I don't want you doing a crappy job," Elmer said. "So take your time even if you have to work past eleven. Understand?"

"They'll be pristine," Kim promised.

Elmer tossed the Process Deficiency Report onto the table and roughly pushed all the papers together. While he was occupied, Kim pulled the earphone out of his ear and tucked it under his shirt. It felt good to straighten his neck out.

"We'll leave these papers for the secretaries to deal with," Elmer said. He reached over to the file cabinet and pushed the open drawer shut. "Now get the hell out of here. You're not supposed to be in here in the first place."

Kim preceded Elmer out of the room. Elmer hesitated at the door to look around one final time. Only then did he put out the light and close the door. Taking out a large ring of keys, he locked it.

Kim was busy rinsing out his mop when Elmer turned to him. "I'm going to keep my eye on you, boy," Elmer warned. "And I'm going to come back and inspect these two restrooms after you're done. So don't cut corners."

"I'll do my best," Kim said.

Elmer gave him one final disapproving look before heading back toward the lunchroom.

Kim slipped his earphone back into his ear as soon as Elmer disappeared from view.

"Did you hear that whole exchange?" Kim asked.

"Of course I heard it," Tracy said. "Have you had enough of this nonsense now? Come on out!"

"No, I want to try to get those papers," Kim said. "The problem is the bum locked the door."

"Why do you want them?" Tracy asked with exasperation.

"It's something more to show Kelly Anderson," Kim said.

"We already have the results from the lab," Tracy said. "That should be enough for Kelly Anderson to make a case for a recall. That's what you want, isn't it?"

"Of course," Kim said. "At a minimum, Mercer Meats' entire January twelfth production has to be recalled. But those papers also show how the industry is willing to buy sick cows, avoid inspection, and then allow a grossly soiled cow head to continue in production."

"Do you think that was how Becky got sick?" Tracy asked emotionally.