"Shit, don't say that…"

Mike and I trudged back up the slope together. I told him I was going to get my camera and do some quick preliminary shots through the door of the shed, and try to get some photos of the tracks in the headlights of our cars. If it was to snow again, or to warm up, all the remaining exterior evidence would be lost.

When I got to my car, I called the office. Radio being so closely listened to on scanners, particularly when everybody was in their homes to escape the terrible cold, I had to be pretty circumspect with my requests, and hope that the dispatcher got the oblique references. I felt secure that my transmissions on the 5 watt walkie-talkie had gone unnoticed, but the 100 watt car radio and the 1,000 watt main base transmitter were a different story. I didn't want anybody to know we had found bodies. Not yet.

"Comm, Three?"

"Go ahead…"

"Yeah, look, we have a seventy-nine here, and we're going to need the whole shebang. Ten-four?"

There was a pause. "I, uh, copy the seventy-nine. Could you ten-nine the rest?"

Well, I could repeat it, but I chose instead to try to clarify. "We will need the usual ten-seventy-eight here."

Silence. 10-78 was the code for assistance. There was no code for crime lab, none for requesting a DCI agent. But, at a homicide, we always needed both. But, cagey soul that I am, 10-78 tends to vary depending upon the situation. Of course. All I had told her was that we needed a coroner, and the usual assistance.

She was new. "Copy you need ten-seventy-eight?" The edge to her voice told me right away that she thought we needed more cops, and fast.

"Negative.