There are at least twice as many uniformed officers stationed about, and I have no doubt that Marino’s made sure the park is surrounded and buttoned up. No one uninvited can come in and out, and I find myself constantly listening for news helicopters, grateful I’m not hearing them yet. I don’t need them hovering low and churning up the scene with their rotor wash.

I reach the tent and for the second time tonight am startled by a figure stepping out of the shadows.

“Marino’s inside waiting for you,” Investigator Barclay says officiously as if I’ve just shown up late for an appointment.

VELCRO RIPS AS I push my way through the side flap of the canopied enclosure. For an instant I’m dazzled by auxiliary lights, the scene as bright as an operating room. I stop just inside, setting down my shoulder bag, placing my phone on top of it.

I survey some forty-by-thirty feet of the John F. Kennedy Park that includes the iron lamp with its shattered bulbs, the bicycle and the body, all of it lit up like high noon. Marino and I are alone, no one else allowed inside until we say so. He moves about in white protective clothing that starkly contrasts with the black-paneled walls and twelve-foot-high black roof supported by a scaffolding of gunpowder-gray aluminum poles.

As I watch him make notes and take photographs I feel as if we’re immersed in a black-and-white postmodern photograph. The only noticeable colors are the margins of green grass, the tawny fitness path, red biohazard warnings, and the dead woman’s light blue shorts. From where I’m standing I can’t see the blood but it will be coagulated, tacky and a dark reddish brown on the way to dry black.

That’s based on what I noticed earlier when I got close, and also on the weather conditions, which remain extreme. Already I can feel the trapped humidity from the river. The hot air is sticky and low pressure like a tennis bubble. There’s a plastic smell, and it won’t be long until the stuffy environment bristles with a foul stench as bacteria teem and dead flesh and fluids putrefy.

“I went through the knapsacks,” Marino calls out to me, and I assume he’s talking about Enya and Anya.

“Are the girls safe and cool in a daisy room, I hope?” I find an equipment case to sit on so I can suit up.

“Eating snacks, drinking sodas. Flanders is babysitting, and I’ve got a couple uniforms making a wellness check on the mom.” Marino’s booming voice is amplified by the enclosure.

“She’s still not answering the phone?”

“Or the door. Poor kids. I feel bad for them.”

“And they’re still saying she’s supposed to be home?”