“How do you know there weren’t any muddy footprints on the pier?” Marino asks him.

“The man from the funeral home told me so. I was waiting in the parking lot until they brought in the body, and he was there talking to the police.”

“This would be Lucious Meddick again,” Scarpetta says.

Bull nods. “He spent a lot of time talking to me, too, wanting to know what I had to say. I didn’t tell him much.”

A knock on the door and Rose walks in, sets a mug of coffee on the table next to Bull, her hands shaking. “Cream and sugar,” she says. “Sorry it took so long. The first pot overflowed, grounds everywhere.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Anybody else need anything?” Rose looks around, takes a deep breath, looks more exhausted and paler than she did earlier.

Scarpetta says. “Why don’t you go home? Get some rest.”

“I’ll be in my office.”

The door shuts and Bull says, “I’d like to explain my situation, if you don’t mind.”

“Go ahead,” Scarpetta says.

“I had me a real job until three weeks ago.” He stares down at his thumbs, slowly twiddles them in his lap. “I’m not gonna lie to you. I got in trouble. You can look at me and tell that much. And I didn’t fall in no oyster bed.” He meets Marino’s eyes again.

“In trouble for what?” Scarpetta asks.

“Smoking weed and fighting. I never really smoked the weed, but I was going to.”

“Now, ain’t that nice,” Marino says. “It just so happens one of the requirements we got in this joint is anybody wants to work here has to smoke weed and be violent and find at least one dead body of somebody murdered. Same requirements for gardeners and handymen at our personal residences.”

Bull says to him, “I know how it sounds. But it’s not like that. I was working at the port.”

“Doing what?” Marino asks.

“Called a heavy-lift mechanic helper. That was my job title. Mainly, I did whatever my supervisor told me. Helped take care of equipment, lifting and carrying. Had to be able to talk on the radio and fix things, do whatever. Well, when I was signed off the clock one night, I decided to slip off near some of these old containers you find in the shipyard. The ones I’m talking about aren’t used anymore, sort of banged up and off to the side. You drive by on Concord Street and you can see what I mean, right there on the other side of the chain-link fence. It’d been a long day, and to tell you the truth, me and my wife had words that morning so I was in a mood, so I decided to smoke me some weed. It wasn’t something I made a habit of, can’t even remember the last time I did it. I hadn’t lit up yet when all a sudden this man come out of nowhere from near the railroad tracks. He cut me up bad, real bad.”