There’s no risk of contamination if we’re careful not to step on or disturb anything. With rare exceptions we won’t collect evidence until the inner scene is protected and the lights are on. We start in the clearing, using our flashlights to sweep the gritty swath in front of us, and the trees and grass on either side.

With each step Marino stops as if he sees something. He leans closer, grunts softly, indicating it’s nothing, and he takes photographs. I hear the constant whir of the shutter. The blinding bursts of the flashgun are disorienting as we continue our well-practiced synchronized approach. It’s a deeply ingrained procedure, like the proper way to hit a tennis stroke, and we rarely need to coach each other anymore.

“Stop,” I say to him as the silhouette of an unlit lamppost materializes in the dark up ahead, close to the overturned bicycle at the outer rim of the clearing, just before the woods begin again.

The lantern on top of the black iron pole is out, and we shine our lights at it, discovering a glass pane is wide open, the bulbs inside shattered. Bits of broken glass flash and flare as we probe the grass, and splinters sparkle all around the bike.

“From this perspective, it almost seems it might have crashed into the lamppost,” I comment. “Maybe what Barclay suggested is right.”

“He’s never right,” Marino snipes.

Perhaps the person riding couldn’t see and had an accident. But that wouldn’t explain the destroyed lightbulbs inside a lantern some ten feet off the ground. It wouldn’t explain why the body isn’t nearby.

“Got no idea.” Marino stares up at the dark metal frame of the lantern at the top of the lamppost. “Maybe somebody opened the access pane and smashed the bulbs.”

“It’s weird that the glass is blown all over the place. How would that happen if you opened the pane and smashed the bulbs? And unless you’re a giant I don’t think you could reach the lantern to unlatch it.”

“I’m thinking the same thing. How come the glass is blown everywhere? The bulbs couldn’t have been shot out or the outer glass panes would be broken, and I don’t see how a rock could do it unless you were up on a ladder and used it to smash the bulbs.” He shines his light around, looking for one anyway. “But to be honest, we don’t know for sure when the damage happened.”

“I wouldn’t expect the park to leave a broken light out here for very long,” I reply.