She arrived within seven minutes, alongside six other police and trooper patrol cars, to find Officer James Beed flat on his back, dead in the snow at the base of the porch steps. The officers cordoned off the house and yard with bright yellow plastic police tape, strung from trees to fence posts. The city crime scene van, a large, black panel truck with the logo and insignia of the State of Alaska Crime Lab emblazoned on the sides, weaved through the maze of police cars and came to a halt in the street in front of the house. Two men and a woman in black coveralls and large, puffy black parkas with the words “Crime Lab” stenciled in yellow across their backs climbed out of the van and approached the scene to begin the meticulous process of evidence gathering. “Damn,” said one Fairbanks Police officer, who stared down at Beed’s body. “Jimmy was such a nice guy.” “To think he survived two tours in Iraq with his National Guard unit just to come back here and get killed like this,”
