“If you want to waste taxpayer dollars you can check the CCTV cameras around the Square, especially in front of The Coop,” I suggest. “You’ll see I didn’t slap Bryce or anyone else.”

“I’m wondering if this has to do with your talk at the Kennedy School tomorrow night,” Marino says. “It’s been all over the news because it’s controversial. When you and General Briggs decided to make a presentation about the space shuttle blowing up maybe you should have expected a bunch of fruit loops to come out of the woodwork. Some of them think a UFO shot down the Columbia. And that’s why the space shuttle program was canceled.”

“I’m still waiting for a name of this alleged witness who lied to one of your nine-one-one operators.” I’m not interested in hearing him obsess about conspiracists and the pandemonium they might create at the Kennedy School event.

“He wouldn’t identify himself to the operator who took the call,” Marino says. “He was probably using one of those track phones you can buy right there at the CVS. It’s one of those numbers you can’t trace to anyone. Not that we’re done trying, but that’s how it’s looking, and it’s pretty much what we’re up against these days.”

I pass through the shade of a huge old oak with low-spreading branches that are too lush and green for September. The early evening heat presses down like a flaming hand, flattening and scorching the life out of everything, and I switch my shopping bag to my other arm. My messenger-style briefcase also has gotten very heavy, packed with a laptop, paperwork and other personal effects, the wide strap biting into my shoulder.

“Where are you exactly?” Marino’s voice is cutting in and out.

“Taking a shortcut.” I’m not interested in giving him my precise whereabouts. “And you? You’re muffled every other minute or talking in a barrel. Are you in your car?”

“What’d you do, take the Johnston Gate so you can cut through the Yard to Quincy Street?”

“How else would I go?” I’m evasive now in addition to being slightly breathless as I trudge along.

“So you’re near the church,” he says.

“Why are you asking? Are you coming to arrest me?”

“As soon as I find my handcuffs. Maybe you’ve seen them?”

“Maybe ask whoever you’re dating these days?”

“You’re gonna exit the Yard through the gate across from the museums. You know, at the light that will be on your left on the other side of the wall.” It seems like a directive rather than an assumption or a question.

“Where are you?” as my suspicions grow.

“What I just suggested would be most direct,” he says. “Past the church, past the Quad.”

CHAPTER 2