“He never does and I don’t encourage it. Maybe that’s what someone saw and misinterpreted it as him being angry. Bryce opened his window so we could talk and that was it.”

Marino lets me know that next I became abusive and physically violent, slapping Bryce through the open window I just described while repeatedly jabbing him in the chest with my index finger. He was yelling as if I was causing him injury and terror, and to put it succinctly, what a crock of shit. But I don’t say anything because of the uneasiness in my gut, a hollow tight feeling that’s my equivalent of a red warning flag.

Marino’s a cop. I may have known him forever but Cambridge is his turf. Technically he could give me a hard time if he wants, and that’s a new and insane thought. He’s never arrested me, not that there’s ever been a good reason. But he’s never so much as given me a parking ticket or warned me not to jaywalk. Professional courtesy is a two-way street. But it can quickly become a dead end if you’re not careful.

“I admit I might have been a little out of sorts but it’s not true that I slapped anyone—” I start to say.

“Let’s start with the first part of your statement,” Marino the detective interrupts me. “How little’s a little?”

“Are you interviewing me now? Should you read me my rights? Do I need a lawyer?”

“You’re a lawyer.”

“I’m not being funny, Marino.”

“I’m not either. A little out of sorts? I’m asking because he said you started yelling.”

“Before or after I slapped him?”

“Getting pissy doesn’t help anything, Doc.”

“I’m not pissy, and let’s be clear about who you’re even referencing. Let’s start with that. Because you know how Bryce exaggerates.”

“What I know is supposedly the two of you were fighting and disturbing the peace.”

“He actually said that?”

“The witness did.”

“What witness?”

“The one who called in the complaint.”

“Did you talk to this witness yourself?”

“I couldn’t find anybody who saw anything.”

“Then you must have looked,” I point out.

“After we got the call, I cruised the Square and asked around. Same thing I usually get. Nobody saw a damn thing.”

“Exactly. This is ridiculous.”

“I’m concerned someone might be out to get you,” he says, and we’ve been through this so many times over the years.

Marino lives and breathes his phobic conviction that something horrible is going to happen to me. But what he’s really worried about is his own self. It’s the same way he was with his former wife Doris before she finally ran off with a car salesman. Marino doesn’t understand the difference between neediness and love. They feel the same to him.