“I know,” Marino says. “That’s why I’m always telling him and everyone else to think before you open your damn pie hole and be careful what you write, e-mail and post on freakin’ Facebook.”

At Harvard Square, the SUV’s strobing red and blue lights bounce off street signs and are reflected in the windows of buildings and cars we pass. I remind him of Interpol, steering him there.

“Why were you called?” I want to know.

“The million-dollar question.”

“And when was this?”

“Let me roll back the tape so you can appreciate the timing,” Marino says. “First I get the call from Clay. I tell Lucy I gotta go and am heading downstairs—”

“You were actually with her in her lab when Investigator Barclay called you?” I ask, and Marino nods, explaining he’d just gotten there and they were getting started going over the 911 recording.

“Then my phone rings and it’s Barclay. He says he’s at a homicide scene in JFK Park on the riverbank.”

“Did he actually use the word homicide?” I ask. “Because I wish he hadn’t said that either.”

“He said it looked like an attempted sexual assault, and that she was beaten to death.”

“I don’t know why you bothered to pick me up.” Cops like Barclay can create dangerous problems. “It appears he’s happy to do my job.” I’m going to have to have a word with him before the night is over. “Why did I bother interrupting my dinner?”

“Yeah he pisses me off too,” Marino says. “You got no idea. Talk about someone who doesn’t look before he leaps. It never occurs to him that maybe he’s not a damn expert at whatever it is.”

“I hope he’s not freely offering these same opinions to everyone he talks to,” I add, “because this is how misinformation ends up all over the place. Let’s get back to Interpol. Tell me about the phone call.”

“Like I was saying, Clay asked me to meet him at the scene. Then he wanted to know if he should contact your office, and I said I would take care of it. By the time I’d walked out of Lucy’s lab, taken the elevator down to the lower level and was getting in my car in the parking lot, my phone was ringing again,” Marino tells the story loudly, over the noise of the engine.

“This time the call’s from an unknown number. You know, when a call comes up with a row of zeros? Like when caller ID is blocked and it’s not somebody in your contacts list?” he says. “So I answered, and it was Washington, D.C.”

CHAPTER 11

IT WAS INTERPOL,” MARINO states as if there can be no doubt about it.