“You want to know the truth, it’s going to start looking like a conflict of interests for you to have anything to do with these cases. It’s going to make you come off looking worse.”

I said, “Susan is dead. Eddie Heath is dead. Jennifer Deighton is dead. There is corruption in my office, and we aren’t certain who went to the electric chair the other week. You’re suggesting I just walk away until everything somehow magically self-corrects?”

Marino reached for the salt but I got it first.

“Nope. But you can have all the pepper you want,” I said, sliding me pepper shaker closer.

“This health crap is going to kill me,” he warned.

“Because one of these days I’m going to get so pissed I’m going to do everything at once. Five cigarettes going, a bourbon in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, baked potato loaded with butter, sour cream, salt and then I’m going to blow every circuit in the box.”

“No, you’re not going to do any of those things,” I said. “You’re going to be kind to yourself and live at least as long as I do.”

We were silent for a while, picking at our food.

“Doc, no offense, but just what do you think you’re going to find out about damn feather parts?”

“Hopefully, their origin.”

“I can save you the trouble. They came from birds, “he said.

I left Marino at close to seven P.M. and returned downtown The temperature had risen above forty, the night dark and lashing out in fits of rain violent enough to stop traffic. Sodium vapor lamps were pollen-yellow fudges behind the morgue, where the bay door was shut, every parking space vacant. Inside the building, my pulse quickened as I followed the brightly lit corridor past the autopsy suite to Susan’s small office.

As I unlocked the door, I did not know what I expected to find, but I was drawn to her filing cabinet and desk drawers, to every book and old telephone message Everything looked the same as it had before she died. Marino was quite skilled at going through someone’s private space without disturbing the natural disorder of things. The telephone was still askew on the right corner of the desk, the cord twisted like a corkscrew. Scissors and two pencils with broken points were on the green paper blotter, her lab coat draped over the back of her chair.