I look out the windows, and the park and the river are just minutes ahead. I can see the brick Widener Library with its teal cupola, and the stone slate-roofed department of linguistics. I’m surprised and unsettled by what Marino just told me. If Tom Barclay was the source of the information, that’s unfortunate.

“I see,” I again say. “So it wasn’t a patrol officer who was the first responder.”

“Nope. It was Clay,” Marino answers, and Clay, or Investigator Barclay as I know him, recently was transferred from property crimes to the major case unit.

I haven’t really worked with him directly but one of my medical examiners had a case with him earlier in the week and complained about him. Barclay is much too sure of himself and doesn’t know when to shut up. He may have attended the crime-scene academy but that doesn’t give him the expertise to identify and interpret artifacts such as rigor and livor mortis, and other changes that occur after death. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing when you’re cocky.

“The detail about rigor is perplexing and troublesome,” I tell Marino over the thunder of his driving like a rocket. “He’s been around dead bodies before.”

“Not many.”

“But some. And he should recognize certain obvious postmortem changes,” I add, “and hopefully not confuse or misrepresent them. But it would seem like a strange mistake to make if he’s stated for the record that she’s already going into rigor when in fact she’s not. And he shouldn’t be stating anything to you that you in turn pass on to me. All of it constitutes a paper trail, a record that we might wish we didn’t have.”

I emphasize for the record because Marino’s relaying to me what Investigator Barclay reported could become problematic if it’s documented or circulated. The dead woman and any associated biological evidence are my legal jurisdiction, meaning I’m present in an official capacity.

I’m not here as Marino’s mother, wife, friend, partner, mentor or pal, and very little is private anymore. Unfortunately, any information we exchange doesn’t constitute some sort of legally protected small talk. We can get asked anything when we’re under oath.

“Clay’s new. He’s never worked a homicide, and he thinks he’s a genius. Beyond that what can I tell you?” Marino replies. “I guess we’ll see for ourselves, but he said she was stiff. He touched her and she felt as stiff as a mannequin. That’s what he told me.”

“If he wasn’t sure or didn’t know, I wish he hadn’t said it.” This is disappointing and may come back to bite us. “It’s worse because it’s a detective saying it.”