Dino sat with them, sipping his coffee. Nobody was saying much. “You don’t think it’s a bomb, do you?” he asked.

“Probably not,” Stone replied. “I think murder by car or hunting knife is more his style.”

A heavily equipped cop appeared in the doorway. “It’s not a bomb,” he said.

“Dino,” Stone said, “I think you’d better get a forensics team over here.”

“What’s in the box?” Dino asked the man.

“An aluminum case,” the man said, “the kind you carry camera equipment in.”

“How do you know it doesn’t contain a bomb?”

“I X-rayed it, then I opened it.”

“What did the case contain?”

“I think you’d better get a forensics team over here,” the cop said, then he left the room.

Dino opened his cell phone and pressed a button. “This is Bacchetti; it’s not a bomb. I want a forensics team and the medical examiner over here pronto.” He closed the phone. “You want to go see it?”

“I’ve already seen it,” Stone said. “I liked it where it was before.”

They all got up and went downstairs. The bomb squad had moved the box and the aluminum case into Stone’s office hallway. The cop stood in the door. “I don’t think we’re needed here anymore. Good luck.” He closed the door, and a moment later, the squad’s truck pulled away from its position in front of a fire plug.

The three of them stood and gazed at the aluminum case.

“There’s got to be fingerprints on that, right?” Joan asked.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Stone said. “I wouldn’t expect fibers or DNA, either.”

Dino shook his head. “Right. At least, no DNA that would be of any use to us.”

“I need a drink,” Joan said.

“It’s eleven thirty in the morning,” Stone pointed out.

“If I don’t have a drink, I’ll faint,” she said.

“You know where the bar is.”

Joan disappeared upstairs.

“Funny thing is, I feel pretty much the same way,” Stone said.

“Me, too,” Dino echoed.

“I’m not going to have one, though.”

“Me, neither.”

“And I’m not going to faint.”

“Me, neither.”

“I may throw up, though,” Stone added.

“It’s your rug.”

Stone sat down in one of the waiting-room chairs and put his head between his legs.

A moment later, the doorbell rang, and Dino went to answer it. He came back with four people wearing latex gloves.

“This it?” a man in a green lab coat asked.

“Yeah. You other guys start with the box outside.”

“You stay,” the M.E. said to the one who had cameras.

“Don’t touch the case any more than you have to,” Dino said.

“No kidding?” the M.E. said sarcastically.

“Sorry.”