“Someone has to.”

“Yo,” he said into the receiver. “Marino here. What’s up?”

He listened for a long, tense time, his brow furrowed and his face turning a deeper red. I started on the dishes, and there were plenty of them.

“So how closely do they check?” Marino asked. “No, I mean, do they make sure someone’s in their seat? Oh, they do? And we know they did it this time? Yeah, right. No one remembers. The whole friggin’ world’s full of people who don’t remember shit. That and they didn’t see a thing, right?”

I carefully rinsed glasses and set them on a towel to drain.

“I agree the luggage thing raises a question,” he went on.

I used the last of Marino’s dishwashing liquid and had to resort to a dried-out bar of soap I found under the sink.

“While you’re at it,” he was saying, “how ’bout seeing what you can find out about a white helicopter that was flying around Sparkes’s farm.” He paused, then said, “Maybe before, and definitely after because I saw it with my own two eyes when we were at the scene.”

Marino listened some more as I started on the silverware, and to my amazement he said, “Before I hang up, you want to say hi to your aunt?”

My hands went still as I stared at him.

“Here.”

He handed me the phone.

“Aunt Kay?”

Lucy sounded as surprised as I was.

“What are you doing in Marino’s house?” she asked.

“Cleaning.”

“What?”

“Is everything all right?” I asked her.

“Marino will fill you in. I’ll check out the white bird. It had to get fuel from somewhere. Maybe filed a flight plan with FSS in Leesburg, but somehow I doubt it. Gotta go.”

I hung up and suddenly felt preempted and angry, and I wasn’t completely sure why.

“I think Sparkes is in a lot of trouble, Doc,” Marino said.

“What’s happened?” I wanted to know.

“Turns out that the day before the fire, Friday, he showed up at Dulles for a nine-thirty P.M. flight. He checked baggage but never picked it up at the other end, in London. Meaning it’s possible he could have checked his bags and given the flight attendant the ticket at the gate, then turned right around and left the airport.”

“They do head counts on international flights,” I argued. “His absence on the plane would have been noticed.”

“Maybe. But he didn’t get where he is without being clever.”

“Marino . . .”