Marino could have been talking to Tailend Charlie, for all we know. Or if Elisa Vandersteel is the dead woman and she’s a homicide, then Marino might have been talking to her killer. There’s no telling who Marino was on the phone with but I’m convinced it wasn’t Interpol. I’m no-nonsense as I tell him he really must let it go. With what we have ahead of us there’s no room to spare for personal outrage or embarrassment.

“Let’s just do this.” I raise my voice above the noise of our roaring through Cambridge in a juggernaut of brilliant strobes and urgent tones. “It’s been a hell of a day but we’ve been through much worse. How many years has it been? And here we are. We’re still here, and we’ll figure it out. We always do.”

“That’s the damn truth,” he says, and I feel him glumly settle down a little, getting steadier. “I just can’t believe it happened.”

“I know. But it could happen to anyone.”

“Even you?” He glances at me, and I nod. “Bullshit,” he says.

“Anyone at all,” I reassure him, but it’s not entirely honest.

I seriously doubt I would have fallen for the same ruse the same way Marino did or at all. I would have asked more questions. I would have been suspicious instantly if I’d gotten such a call on my personal cell phone from a so-called NCB investigator. I would have recognized the corruption of a process I know better than Marino does.

“Well I feel stupid as shit,” he confesses, and suddenly I feel stupid too but for a very different reason.

I suddenly remember Dorothy again. I’m startled and dismayed as I envision the disapproval, the I told you so look in her eyes and the gleam of satisfaction. She loves it when I screw up, and by the time I’d gotten into Marino’s SUV at the Faculty Club my attention had been diverted from my sister and her last-minute plan of an unscheduled visit.

She’s on her way here even as Marino and I are headed to a death scene, and I think of his flirting with the dispatcher Rosie. His annoying womanizing enters my mind. I resist looking at him as I’m unhappily reminded of what Benton accused, and it’s more disturbing when I think of Marino’s repeated offers to pick up Dorothy at Logan tonight.

Last I heard she’s supposed to arrive from Fort Lauderdale around nine thirty but she’s going to be late, according to Lucy. It’s already almost eight thirty, and I have no doubt my sister is expecting Benton and me to be waiting for her with bells on no matter when she lands.