I click on other photographs, finding a close-up of the copper bracelet, then several others of his body turned on its side to show the odd round burn on the back of his neck. I hope Briggs was instantly incapacitated, that he never saw it coming, and for an instant I envision the drone I noticed earlier, silhouetted blackly against the sun. I think how simple it would be to do something hideous with one.

“I assume you won’t be starting the autopsy right this minute,” Mahant continues talking to me as my thoughts jump disturbingly to another recent case.

“There’s a lot to do before that,” I reply as I think about the Cambridge woman electrocuted this past Monday night.

Molly Hinders was watering her yard at sunset, and was found sometime later dead in the wet grass with a burn on her head.

“And I won’t have much of a staff until everybody starts coming in to work.” I’m not lying but I don’t intend to be helpful—not the way he wants me to be.

“So I should get back here at what time, Kay?” Mahant asks.

“Whatever works for you. We’ll be here.”

“But what time do you plan to do her autopsy exactly? I’m assuming you have an electronic schedule I can access so I don’t have to bother you? Anyway, set the time and I’ll plan to meet you.”

“We don’t really schedule autopsies in the way you’re describing. We’re not like a hospital OR or a doctor’s office.” I sound perfectly reasonable and not the least bit condescending even as I marvel over how uninformed he is.

“Yep. What’s the hurry when your patients are dead?” Wyeth quips.

“Why don’t we just set a time.” Mahant isn’t asking, he’s telling, and he’s about to be a real thorn in my side if I let him.

“That’s a little tricky because first she has to go into the CT scanner …” I start to say but it’s too much to explain.

I’m not sure the Boston division’s second in command has ever been inside my building. I know I’ve never worked with him, and that’s no surprise. Officials like Mahant are pencil necks and suits, as Marino calls them. They’re not out in the field investigating, and when they do show up at a scene or the autopsy room you can be assured it’s political. There’s an agenda that likely won’t be shared, and no matter how friendly and collegial the relationship begins, it goes off the rails fast and rarely ends well.