The supply closet was a narrow, windowless coffin of a room, barely wide enough for Radic to turn around in. She stood with her back against a shelf of dusty binders, watching Sub-Officer Kolarov kneel before a small metal waste bin that had been tipped onto its side. The shredder itself sat on a low table nearby, its blades still warm to the touch—a detail Kolarov had noted with the quiet satisfaction of a man who had found something useful.
"There are three full bags here, Magistrate," Kolarov said, his gloved hands carefully separating the plastic liners. "Two are standard office waste—paper cups, torn envelopes, a broken pencil. But the third bag is different."
He lifted it, holding it up to the weak bulb overhead. The contents were uniformly shredded, the strips so fine that they resembled grey confetti. But Radic noticed something else: the strips were not uniformly white. Some were slightly cream-colored, others had faint blue lines—the kind of paper used for official audit sheets, the ones that printed out from the voting machines during the final tally.
"Those are from the receipts," Radic said. "The paper rolls."
Kolarov nodded. "There is more. The bag is only half-full, but the shredder's internal compartment is jammed. Someone ran too much paper through it too quickly. There are fragments still caught in the blades."
Radic knelt beside him, peering into the shredder's feed slot. She could see the glint of shredded strips, but also something else—a corner of a larger piece, not yet fully pulled through. She reached in with a pair of tweezers from her coat pocket, carefully extracting the fragment.
It was a corner of a receipt, about two inches square. Most of it was illegible, but at the bottom edge, she could make out two numbers: 47 and 21. The same discrepancy Danica had mentioned. The rural district count.
"Bag this," she said, her voice tight. "All of it. We'll have a lab try to reconstruct the strips. It may take weeks, but—"
"Magistrate, there is something else." Kolarov had pulled out a second fragment from the shredder's base, this one smaller but more telling. It was a corner of a standard Electoral Bureau memorandum, and it bore a single word in bold type: URGENT.
Below that, barely visible, was the beginning of a sentence: "Pending confirmation of diagnostic authorization #..."
Radic stared at the fragment. Diagnostic authorization. Exactly what Horvat had been planning to request at midnight—the diagnostic that would have run a full integrity check on the rural district machine and exposed whatever had caused the two-vote discrepancy.
"That authorization was never filed," Radic said slowly. "I checked the central registry before I came here. No diagnostics were requested for this district in the past seventy-two hours."
"Then someone shredded it," Kolarov said. "Before it could be submitted. Or after it was rejected."
Radic stood up, her knees cracking. She felt the first true spark of anger she had allowed herself since walking into the counting hall. Not at Horvat's killer—whoever that was—but at the sheer, grinding stupidity of the cover-up. If you are going to murder a man and erase all evidence, you do not leave the shredded pieces in the same building. You do not leave the shredder still warm. You do not let a junior clerk with trembling hands find the body before you have finished cleaning.
This was not the work of a mastermind. This was the work of a bureaucrat who had panicked.
"Who had access to this supply closet?" she asked.
Kolarov consulted his notebook. "The same four tally officers—Horvat, Tomic, Vlasic, Zoric. Plus the cleaning staff. And Registrar Vukovic, who has a master key."
"Vukovic." Radic tasted the name like something sour. "He would have known about the diagnostic request. He would have known that Horvat was going to call central approval at midnight. And he would have known that a successful diagnostic would have invalidated the entire rural district count—which would have triggered a full recount of all districts, potentially overturning the municipal election results."
"Which would have embarrassed a lot of very important people," Kolarov added quietly.
Radic nodded. The Veridian Electoral Bureau was not known for its humility. In the past twelve years, since the introduction of the electronic voting system, it had successfully defended every single contested result—often by citing the "technical infallibility" of the machines and the "procedural rigor" of the tallying process. A public admission that a machine had malfunctioned, even by two votes, would have opened the floodgates for lawsuits, recounts, and accusations of systemic fraud across the entire republic.
Two votes. That was all it would have taken to bring the whole house of cards down.
Radic turned to leave the supply closet, but Kolarov's next words stopped her cold.
"Magistrate, there is a fourth bag. Behind the shredder. It was not in the waste bin—it was tucked under the shelf, as though someone had tried to hide it."
Radic turned back. Kolarov had already pulled out a small plastic bag, its contents unlike the others. These were not shredded receipts. These were strips of plain white paper—but some of them were covered with the same handwriting she had seen in the logbook. The forged signature. The same slant. The same crossed 't.'
"Those are practice runs," Radic breathed. "Someone was practicing Horvat's signature before they wrote the final version."
Kolarov held up one strip that was larger than the rest. On it, someone had written "Horvat" five times in a row, each version slightly different. The last one was nearly perfect—only the final 't' was crossed too high.
Radic felt the cold certainty settle in her bones. This was not panic. This was preparation. Someone had come into this supply closet hours before the murder, practiced the signature, shredded the evidence, and then—carelessly, arrogantly—left the practice bag behind.
She took the bag from Kolarov's hands, sealing it with her own label. "Find out who signed into this supply closet between 20:00 and 23:00. There is a register. All supply rooms have a sign-in sheet."
Kolarov nodded and hurried out, his footsteps quick and purposeful.
Radic remained in the closet for a moment longer, the dim light casting long shadows across the shelves. She looked at the shredder, the waste bins, the practice bag, and she tried to assemble the sequence of events.
Someone—probably Tomic, possibly Vukovic—had come here late in the evening, before the final tallies. They had practiced the signature, produced a forged version of the diagnostic authorization, and then either shredded the original or never submitted it at all. Then they had gone to the counting hall, where Horvat was working on the discrepancy. An argument. A struggle. A death.
But why kill him? If all they needed was to suppress the diagnostic, they could have simply delayed it—lost the paperwork, claimed a system error, buried it under bureaucratic sludge. That was the usual way. Killing a senior tally officer was an admission of something far more dangerous: that the suppression could not be done legally.
Which meant the discrepancy was not a simple malfunction. It was deliberate. Someone had tampered with the rural district machine—or the paper receipt roll—and Horvat had either discovered it or was about to discover it.
Radic walked back into the main corridor, her mind churning. The counting hall was still sealed, the body removed to the morgue an hour ago. But she found herself drawn back to the vault door, to the scene of the crime itself.
She stood at the threshold, looking at the empty floor where Horvat had lain. The chalk outline had been smudged by the forensic team, but she could still see the shape of it—arms slightly outstretched, legs together. A peaceful death, as if he had simply lain down and fallen asleep. No defensive wounds. No signs of a fight.
That bothered her more than anything else. Horvat was a large man, broad-shouldered, a former army clerk who had maintained his physical discipline. He would not have gone down without a struggle. So either he had been taken by surprise—which was possible, if the killer was someone he trusted—or he had been restrained first.
But there were no marks on his wrists. No tape residue. No bruises other than the one on his neck.
Radic knelt where the body had been, her eyes scanning the floor. The linoleum had been mopped, but forensics had used a chemical spray to reveal latent footprints. She could see the outlines of several pairs of shoes—one with a distinctive herringbone pattern, another with a smooth sole, a third with a worn heel.
She traced the pattern of the herringbone shoe. It led from the vault door toward the central table, then toward the supply closet, then back to the spot where Horvat had fallen. It was a precise path, purposeful. Not the wandering of a confused person, but the deliberate movement of someone who knew exactly where they were going.
She followed it to the supply closet door—and stopped. The herringbone pattern was overlaid with another, fainter print: a smooth-soled shoe that had walked the same path, but at a different time, because the prints did not overlap completely. Two people. One with a herringbone sole, one with a smooth sole. Both had walked to the supply closet. Both had walked back to the counting hall. One had left—or had been carried.
Radic closed her eyes, trying to reconstruct the scene. The herringbone person—Horvat? No, Horvat had been wearing the standard issue boots with a treaded sole, which the forensic team had already photographed. The herringbone pattern was different. The smooth sole was different.
She made a mental note to compare the prints with the shoes of everyone on the premises.
Then she heard footsteps behind her. She turned, expecting Kolarov. Instead, she found herself face to face with a tall, gaunt man in a grey suit, his hair slicked back, his expression carved from granite.
"Magistrate Radic," he said, his voice dry as sandpaper. "I am Edvard Krasic, District Facilities Supervisor. I was told you wished to see me."
Radic straightened, wiping her hands on her coat. "Mr. Krasic. Thank you for coming so promptly."
Krasic inclined his head, a gesture that was more condescension than courtesy. "I understand there has been an incident. A terrible tragedy. Mr. Horvat's death is a great loss to the Bureau."
"Incident," Radic repeated. "A man is dead. I would call that more than an incident."
"Semantics." Krasic's thin lips curved into a smile that did not reach his eyes. "We are all committed to a thorough investigation, Magistrate. But I must caution you against—how shall I put it—overreach. The electoral process is delicate. Public confidence is fragile. A prolonged investigation into an unfortunate cardiac arrest could cause unnecessary alarm."
Radic held his gaze, refusing to blink. "Cardiac arrest. That's the narrative you're settling on."
Krasic's smile never wavered. "The body shows no signs of violence beyond the initial contusion. It is entirely plausible that Mr. Horvat suffered a fatal arrhythmia and struck his neck against the edge of the table as he fell. The medical examiner will confirm this, I am sure."
"The medical examiner has not yet arrived. I have requested a forensic pathologist from the capital."
Krasic's smile flickered, just for a moment. "That is—unnecessary. We have perfectly capable examiners at the local hospital."
"I have no doubt of their capability. But I also have no doubt of their willingness to accommodate the Bureau's preferences." Radic stepped closer to Krasic, close enough to see the tiny veins in his eyes, the faint tremor in his left hand. "I have a dead man with a broken neck, a forged logbook, an erased video drive, a shredded diagnostic request, and practice signatures in a supply closet. You are not going to tell me this was a heart attack."
Krasic's smile vanished. In its place was something cold and hard—the expression of a man who was used to getting what he wanted, and who did not appreciate being challenged.
"Magistrate," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Let me speak plainly. There are forces at work here that you do not understand. The election was close. The opposition party is already calling for recounts in three districts. If you pursue this investigation with the same zeal that you are displaying now, you will find things that will embarrass not only the Bureau, but the entire government. Do you want that responsibility?"
"I am a magistrate," Radic said, her voice steady. "I have one responsibility: to the truth. I do not care who it embarrasses."
Krasic stared at her for a long moment. Then he laughed—a dry, brittle sound that echoed off the walls of the counting hall.
"You are either very brave or very naive," he said. "Perhaps both. But I will tell you something, Magistrate, and I hope you listen carefully." He leaned in, his breath sour with coffee and something else—fear, perhaps. "The diagnostic request that Mr. Horvat was preparing—the one that has been shredded—that request would have revealed a problem in the rural district machine. A problem that was not accidental. It was engineered. Someone inserted a false memory card into that machine before the count began—a card that would subtract exactly two votes from the opposition candidate's total."
Radic felt her stomach drop. "Who?"
Krasic shook his head slowly. "I do not know. But I know that the order came from above me. Much above me. And I know that Mr. Horvat discovered the anomaly not because of the discrepancy in the numbers, but because he noticed a scratch on the memory card slot—the same scratch I believe you found on Machine 17."
Radic remembered the fresh scratch, the metal filings. She had suspected tampering. Now she had confirmation.
"Horvat was going to report it," Krasic continued. "He was going to call central approval and demand a full diagnostic. And once that diagnostic ran, it would have shown that the rural district machine had been compromised. The entire count would have been invalidated. The election would have been thrown into chaos."
"So you killed him."
Krasic recoiled as though she had struck him. "No! I did not kill anyone. I am telling you this because—" He stopped, his composure cracking for the first time. "Because I am afraid. Whoever ordered that tampering also ordered Horvat silenced. And I know that whoever did that is perfectly capable of silencing me as well."
Radic studied him, weighing his words. He was not lying—or at least, not entirely. The fear in his eyes was genuine. But so was the calculation. He was giving her this information because he wanted protection. He was offering her the truth as a shield.
"Who ordered the tampering?" she asked.
Krasic shook his head. "I don't know. The instruction came through a sealed envelope. No signature. No return address. Just a district code and a time."
"And you followed it without question?"
Krasic's face twisted with something between shame and defiance. "I have been a facilities supervisor for twenty-two years. I have never received an order like that. But I know how the Bureau works. When an order comes from above, you do not ask. You execute. That is how the system operates."
"That is how corruption operates," Radic snapped. "You are not a victim, Mr. Krasic. You are an accomplice."
Krasic opened his mouth to respond, but before he could speak, Kolarov burst through the door, his face pale, his breath ragged.
"Magistrate," he gasped. "We found something. In Mr. Krasic's office. A sealed envelope, addressed to him, with the district code you mentioned."
Radic turned to Krasic, her eyes blazing. "You said you didn't keep the envelope."
Krasic's face went white. "I didn't—I mean, I should have shredded it, but—"
"You kept evidence of your own crime." Radic's voice was cold, merciless. "Sub-Officer, arrest Mr. Krasic on suspicion of conspiracy to tamper with electoral machinery and accessory to murder."
Kolarov stepped forward, his handcuffs already out. Krasic stumbled backward, his hands raised, his voice rising to a near-shriek.
"You cannot do this! I have immunity! I have protection from the Commission—"
"The Commission has no authority over a criminal investigation," Radic said. "Read him his rights. I will be in his office in ten minutes."
Kolarov took Krasic by the arm and led him out, his protests echoing down the corridor. Radic stood alone in the counting hall, surrounded by the silent machines, the empty floor, the shattered pretense of order.
She had her first real lead. A sealed envelope. A district code. An order from above.
But as she walked toward Krasic's office, a new question formed in her mind—a question that would not let her rest.
If the order had come from above the Bureau—from someone in the government itself—then who had given it? And how high up did the corruption go?
The fluorescent light flickered its seven-second rhythm, and Radic realized, with a sinking feeling, that she was no longer investigating a murder.
She was investigating a conspiracy.
And conspiracies, she knew, had a terrible habit of swallowing their investigators whole.
No comments yet. Be the first to comment!