N. E. Flanders is the brand of plain that Dorothy wouldn’t have a single kind word to say about. I estimate the officer’s age is mid- to late forties, her chunky short-waisted figure not helped by her creaking black leather duty belt and low-riding trousers. Her dark hair is tucked behind her ears in a pageboy, and a white T-shirt peeks out of the open neck of her uniform shirt.

“I’ll show you.” She motions me to follow her. “It’s a rag, a cloth, a towel, I don’t know. But someone threw up on it as best I can tell. I mean I didn’t get more than a few feet from it, and I didn’t touch it of course.”

We light our way as we walk, looping around the bicycle, and stopping at the edge of the woods between the path and the river. I recognize the clump of rhododendron bushes Barclay pointed out earlier, and as Officer Flanders probes the dark dense shadows with her light, I smell the evidence before I see it.

“There.” She points the beam of light at what looks like a wadded-up cloth caught in branches near the ground as if shoved there.

I set down the scene case, and as I bend closer and shine my light I decide what the officer has discovered isn’t a rag or a towel. It’s a shirt, off-white, possibly beige, and I can make out a portion of a date, a partial image of a silkscreened face. I remember the woman on the bicycle was wearing a beige Sara Bareilles concert tank top.

“I assume this hasn’t been photographed.” I unfasten the clasps of my scene case.

“No. All I did is notice it with my light. And then I saw you coming.”

“We need to get Marino here.” I balance on one leg at a time, pulling the shoe covers with traction soles over pumps that are still damp and sticky against the bare skin of my feet.

I work my hands into a pair of gloves, small ones that fit this time. I open a transparent plastic evidence bag, and next retrieve a pair of sterile disposable forceps. I explain that typically I wouldn’t store anything in plastic unless the item is completely dry. Blood and other body fluids including vomit will degrade and rot as bacteria and fungus proliferate, and any evidence such as DNA will be lost.

I’m explaining this to Officer Flanders when I hear Marino before I see him. His big bootie-covered feet are getting closer on the path.

“What’s up?” his voice booms in the dark, and I show him what we’ve found. “What makes you think it’s hers?” He directs this at me, and I’m relieved he makes no allusion to what I told him a little while ago.