“Sparkes was not raised on the street,” I said. “And by the way, he was a Rhodes scholar.”

“Road scholar and street sound like the same damn thing to me,” Marino went on. “I remember when all the son of a bitch did was criticize the police through his newspaper chain. Everybody knew he was doing cocaine and women. But we couldn’t prove it because nobody would come forward to help us out.”

“That’s right, no one could prove it,” I said. “And you can’t assume someone is an arsonist because of his name or his editorial policy.”

“Well, it just so happens you’re talking to the expert in weird-ass names and how they fit the squirrels who have them.” Marino poured more coffee as he smoked. “Gore the coroner. Slaughter the serial killer. Childs the pedophile. Mr. Bury buried his victims in cemeteries. Then we got Judges Gallow and Frye. Plus Freddie Gamble. He was running numbers out of his restaurant when he got whacked. Dr. Faggart murdered five homosexual males. Stabbed their eyes out. You remember Crisp?” He looked at me. “Struck by lightning. Blew his clothes all over the church parking lot and magnetized his belt buckle.”

I could not listen to all this so early in the morning and reached behind me to grab a headset so I could drown Marino out and monitor what was being said in the cockpit.

“I wouldn’t want to get struck by lightning at no church and have everybody read something into it,” Marino went on.

He got more coffee, as if he did not have prostate and urinary troubles.

“I’ve been keeping a list all these years. Never told no one. Not even you, Doc. You don’t write down shit like this, you forget.” He sipped. “I think there’s a market for it. Maybe one of those little books you see up by the cash register.”

I put the headset on and watched rural farms and dormant fields slowly turn into houses with big barns and long drives that were paved. Cows and calves were black-spotted clusters in fenced-in grass, and a combine churned up dust as it slowly drove past fields scattered with hay.

I looked down as the landscape slowly transformed into the wealth of Warrenton, where crime was low and mansions on hundreds of acres of land had guest houses, tennis courts and pools, and very fine stables. We flew lower over private airstrips and lakes with ducks and geese. Marino was gawking.

Our pilots were silent for a while as they waited to be in range of the NRT on the ground. Then I caught Lucy’s voice as she changed frequencies and began transmitting.

“Echo One, helicopter niner-one-niner Delta Alpha. Teun, you read me?”

“That’s affirmative, niner Delta Alpha,” T. N. McGovern, the team leader, came back.

“We’re ten miles south, inbound-landing with passengers,” Lucy said. “ETA about eight hundred hours.”