Edvard Krasic's office smelled like old cigars and polished leather, two scents that Radic associated with men who had never been told no. The room was spacious, with a mahogany desk that could have seated a cabinet of ministers, and a wall of framed commendations stretching back two decades. Krasic had been a loyal servant of the Electoral Bureau for a long time—long enough to believe that loyalty would protect him.
It would not.
Radic stood behind his desk, her gloved hands carefully opening the sealed envelope that Kolarov had found tucked behind a loose panel in the credenza. The paper was creamy, expensive—the kind used for official government correspondence. There was no return address, no signature, no date. Just a single line of text typed in a clean, impersonal font:
"Rural District 17. Memory card substitution. Confirm completion by 22:00 on the eve of count."
Below it, a district code: VR-EL-17-0442.
That was all. No explanation. No threat. No payment. Just an instruction, delivered with the casual authority of someone who expected immediate obedience.
Radic set the letter down and looked at Kolarov, who stood by the door, his notebook ready. "Who had access to this office before we arrived?"
"Mr. Krasic, his secretary, and the cleaning staff," Kolarov replied. "The secretary has been with him for six years. She says she never saw the envelope."
"Of course she didn't." Radic turned the envelope over in her hands. It was unmarked, unsealed except for a plain gummed flap. No forensic value there. But the paper itself—that was another matter. She held it up to the light, examining the watermark. It was a standard government issue, the kind used by every ministry and bureau in Veridia. Thousands of offices had access to it. Useless as a lead.
But the district code was not useless. VR-EL-17-0442 was a specific designation for the rural district machine—the same machine whose memory card had been scratched. Radic had already requested the maintenance logs for that machine, but they had not arrived yet. She had a feeling they never would.
"Sub-Officer," she said, "I want you to go back to the counting hall and inspect Machine 17's memory card slot again. Look for any residue—adhesive, oil, anything that might indicate a card was inserted more recently than the official installation."
Kolarov nodded and left, his boots echoing down the corridor.
Radic sat down in Krasic's chair, the leather creaking beneath her. She felt the weight of exhaustion pressing on her shoulders, but she could not afford to rest. Not now. Not when the threads were beginning to unravel.
She pulled out her notebook and flipped to the section on witnesses. Danica Vlasic had left at 23:15. Filip Zoric had left at 00:05. Slavko Tomic—the deputy, the man Zoric had accused—had not yet been interviewed. Radic had been avoiding him, she realized. Not out of fear, but out of a desire to build the case slowly, methodically. But time was no longer on her side. The Commission had given her forty-eight hours. She had already used twelve.
She stood up, straightened her coat, and walked toward the door. If she was going to interview Tomic, she would do it now, before Krasic's arrest became public and the witnesses started lawyering up.
The witness room was still empty when she arrived, the tape recorder still mocking her with its silence. She sent a clerk to fetch Tomic and waited, her fingers drumming on the table.
Tomic entered ten minutes later. He was a short, compact man with a soldier's bearing and a face that had seen too many hard winters. His grey hair was cropped close, his jaw clean-shaven, his eyes wary but not hostile. He wore a simple brown suit with a tie that had been knotted too many times.
"Magistrate," he said, his voice low and even. "You wanted to see me."
"Mr. Tomic. Sit."
He sat, his posture straight, his hands resting on his thighs. He did not fidget. He did not look away. He simply waited, with the patience of a man who had been interrogated before and knew the rules.
Radic studied him for a long moment. He was not like Zoric, with his nervous energy and his lies. He was not like Danica, with her trembling fear. Tomic was calm, controlled, and that made him either innocent—or very, very dangerous.
"Tell me about the argument," Radic said. "The one you had with Mr. Horvat about the discrepancy."
Tomic's expression did not change. "We disagreed. He wanted to run a diagnostic. I advised against it. The machines are sealed for a reason—breaking the seal requires central approval, and central approval would have taken days. We had a deadline. The results had to be submitted by 06:00."
"You advised against it," Radic repeated. "Why?"
"Because the discrepancy was statistically insignificant. Two votes out of four thousand. It could have been a rounding error, a paper jam, a misread ballot. It was not worth the delay."
"And Mr. Horvat disagreed."
"He was stubborn. He always was." Tomic's voice carried a note of something—exasperation, perhaps, or regret. "He believed in the sanctity of the count. Every vote, he used to say. Every single one. He would have held up the entire election to chase two votes."
Radic leaned forward. "And you didn't share that belief?"
Tomic was silent for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was softer, almost sad. "I shared it once. A long time ago. But I have been with the Bureau for eighteen years, Magistrate. I have seen too many votes lost, too many discrepancies buried, too many sacrifices made on the altar of political expediency. Two votes—two votes are nothing. They are the cost of doing business."
"Business," Radic said. "Is that what you call it?"
"I call it survival." Tomic met her eyes, and for the first time, Radic saw something flicker in his gaze—not fear, but weariness. "The Bureau is a machine, Magistrate. It consumes people like Horvat. People who believe in ideals. People who refuse to compromise. Horvat was a good man, but he was a fool. He thought the system was fair. He thought the rules applied to everyone. They do not. They apply only to those who lack the power to break them."
"Are you telling me you had him killed because he was inconvenient?"
Tomic's eyes widened—genuine surprise, or a very good imitation of it. "No. I did not kill him. I argued with him, yes. I tried to persuade him to let the discrepancy go. But I did not lay a hand on him."
"Then who did?"
Tomic looked down at his hands, clasped in his lap. When he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper.
"I don't know. But I have a theory." He looked up, his eyes piercing. "Zoric. He was the only one with access to the machine after I left. He was the one who stayed late, who kept offering to help with the paper trails. And he was the one who called someone at 22:30—I heard him, the same as Danica. He said, 'The old man won't let it go.' That was about Horvat. And whoever he called—that person told him what to do."
"Zoric says you were in the vault after midnight with a paper shredder."
Tomic laughed—a short, bitter bark. "Zoric is lying. I left at 23:45. I went home. My wife will confirm it—I called her from the car. The call logs are on my phone."
Radic made a note. "We will verify that. But if Zoric is lying about you, then you are lying about Zoric. And one of you is the killer."
Tomic shook his head slowly. "I am not the killer, Magistrate. But I know who is."
Radic felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. "Who?"
Tomic leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial hush. "Registrar Vukovic. He is the one who ordered the camera disabled. He is the one who signed off on the forged logbook. He is the one who shredded the diagnostic request—not because he was following orders, but because he was covering his own tracks."
"His own tracks?"
Tomic nodded, his eyes gleaming with a strange intensity. "Vukovic has been stealing from the Bureau for years. Small amounts—petty cash, travel reimbursements, equipment purchases. Nothing that would raise a flag. But Horvat discovered it. He found discrepancies in the financial records, the same way he found discrepancies in the vote tallies. He was going to report Vukovic to the Commission."
Radic felt the pieces click into place—but the picture they formed was still incomplete. "So Vukovic killed Horvat to prevent exposure?"
"Vukovic is a coward," Tomic said. "He would never dirty his own hands. But he had access to Zoric. He could have paid Zoric, threatened him, convinced him that Horvat was a threat to everyone's career. Zoric did the dirty work. Vukovic provided the cover."
Radic sat back, her mind racing. It was a plausible narrative—more plausible than Krasic's story of a nameless conspiracy from above. The sealed envelope, the memory card substitution, the order from an unknown superior—that could have been invented to deflect attention. Vukovic, on the other hand, was a known quantity. He had motive, opportunity, and a history of ethical lapses.
But something did not fit. If Vukovic was stealing from the Bureau, why would he orchestrate a memory card substitution in the rural district? Electoral fraud was a much more serious crime than embezzlement. The penalty was decades in prison, not just dismissal and disgrace.
"Mr. Tomic," she said slowly, "if Vukovic was only trying to cover his financial theft, why would he tamper with the voting machine?"
Tomic's face went still. For a moment, he looked like a man who had been caught in a lie. Then he recovered, his composure slipping back into place.
"I don't know," he said, too quickly. "Perhaps he was paid. Perhaps he was threatened. I only know that he was the one with the most to lose if Horvat kept digging."
Radic did not believe him. The shift in Tomic's demeanor was too abrupt, the denial too quick. He was holding something back—something that might have been more important than his story about Vukovic.
She decided to push harder. "What did you find in the vault after midnight, Mr. Tomic? The truth, this time."
Tomic's jaw tightened. He looked away, his hands gripping his thighs. "I found nothing," he said. "I was not there."
"Then why does your name appear in the system access log? The vault door was opened at 00:08—three minutes after Zoric claims he left. The log shows your access card."
Tomic went pale. The color drained from his face, leaving him ashen, his hands trembling.
"That is not possible," he whispered. "I was at home. I called my wife at 23:47. I have the phone records—"
"The phone records show a call at 23:47. But the access log shows your card at 00:08. Unless someone stole your card, Mr. Tomic, you were in that vault after midnight."
Tomic's mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. He was not a good liar—Radic could see that now. The earlier composure had been a mask, and the mask was crumbling.
"Who has your card?" she pressed.
"Everyone," he said, his voice hollow. "My staff, my assistants, the cleaning crew. It was in my desk drawer. I never carry it after hours."
"Convenient."
"It is the truth!" Tomic slammed his fist on the table, his composure finally breaking. "I did not kill him! I was not there! Someone stole my card to frame me!"
Radic let the silence stretch, watching him. The anger was real—but so was the desperation. Tomic was a man who knew he was being set up, and he had no idea by whom.
"Tell me," she said, her voice soft but relentless, "if you had nothing to do with Horvat's death, then why did you lie about the argument? Why did you claim it was only a disagreement, when Danica said you shouted at each other for ten minutes?"
Tomic slumped in his chair, his shoulders sagging. "Because I knew how it would look. I argued with him. I told him to let the discrepancy go. And then he died. I was afraid—"
"Afraid of what?"
"Afraid that no one would believe me." Tomic looked up at her, his eyes red-rimmed. "I am a deputy tally officer. I have spent eighteen years following rules, signing forms, doing my duty. And I knew that if I told the truth—that I had shouted at him, that I had tried to stop him—the Bureau would throw me under the cart. They always do. They protect themselves. They don't protect honest men."
Radic believed him—not entirely, but enough. He was not the killer. He was a scapegoat, or the intended scapegoat.
"One more question," she said. "The sealed envelope in Krasic's office—the one with the district code. Did you know about it?"
Tomic shook his head. "I knew Krasic was involved in something. He was always nervous before the count, always checking the machines more than necessary. But I did not know about the envelope until you told me."
"And Vukovic?"
Tomic hesitated. "Vukovic is a weasel. But he is not a murderer. He is too careful for that. If he ordered Horvat killed, he would not have left evidence like the forged logbook. He would have made it look like an accident."
That was true, Radic realized. The forged logbook was sloppy. The shredder was sloppy. The practice signatures were sloppy. Vukovic was not sloppy. He was meticulous—the kind of man who would have wiped every print, disposed of every document, and produced a perfect accident report.
Which meant that the sloppy evidence was either a frame job—or the work of someone who was not Vukovic.
Someone who was panicking.
Radic dismissed Tomic with a warning not to leave the city. He rose unsteadily, his face still pale, and walked out of the room without looking back.
She sat alone in the witness room, her notebook open, her mind churning. She had five witnesses, five contradictory accounts, and five different candidates for the killer. Danica Vlasic, who had left early but could have returned. Filip Zoric, the liar with the mysterious phone call. Slavko Tomic, the angry deputy with the stolen access card. Edvard Krasic, the facilities supervisor who kept a sealed envelope from an unknown superior. And Vukovic, the registrar whose forged signature and shredded documents screamed cover-up.
But there was one name she had not yet considered—one name that had been hovering at the edge of her consciousness since the beginning.
The janitor. The old man who had mopped the corridor. The man whose testimony had been dismissed as "senile confusion" by the prosecution—before there was even a prosecution.
She had not interviewed him. She had not even seen him. He had been mentioned only in passing, a ghost at the periphery of the case.
Radic stood up abruptly, her chair scraping against the floor. She walked out of the witness room and found Kolarov in the corridor, his notebook still in hand.
"Sub-Officer," she said, "the janitor. The one who was mopping the corridor on the night of the murder. Where is he?"
Kolarov frowned, consulting his notes. "His name is Petar Radoslav. He is a part-time cleaner, works the night shift. He was scheduled to work last night, but—"
"But what?"
Kolarov looked up, his face troubled. "But he never showed up for his shift today. He did not report. His supervisor called his home, but there was no answer. He is not answering his phone."
Radic felt a cold hand grip her heart.
"His address," she said. "Give me his address."
Kolarov hesitated. "Magistrate, if you are suggesting that he might be in danger—"
"I am not suggesting. I am telling you. Whoever killed Horvat knows that the janitor saw something. And if he has not reported to work, he is either hiding—or silenced."
Kolarov wrote the address on a slip of paper and handed it to her. Radic took it, her fingers brushing against the rough edge.
She looked at the clock. 14:03. She had thirty-four hours left.
And somewhere in the grey, rain-soaked streets of Porta Caelia, an old man was either cowering in fear—or lying on a cold floor, his mop still wet, his secret carried with him to a grave that had been dug by the same hands that had strangled Drazen Horvat.
Radic tucked the address into her pocket and walked toward the door.
She did not look back. She did not want to see the counting hall, the silent machines, the empty floor where a man had died for two votes.
She wanted to find the janitor—and she wanted to find him before anyone else did.
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