We walked inside the decomposition room and I handed him a surgical mask. I checked the processing to see how it was going and turned the heat down fifty degrees to make sure the water did not boil over and knock bones against each other and the sides of the pot. Marino bent the mask to fit over his nose and mouth and tied sloppy bows in the back. He spotted a box of disposable gloves, snatched a pair and worked them on. It was ironical that he was obsessive in his concerns about outside agents invading his health, when in fact the gravest danger was simply the way he lived. He was sweating in khakis and a white shirt and tie and at some point during the day had been assaulted by ketchup.

“Got a couple interesting things for you, Doc,” he said, leaning against a brightly polished sink. “We ran the tags on the burned-up Mercedes behind Kenneth Sparkes’s house, and it comes back to an ’81 Benz 240D, blue. The odometer’s probably rolled over at least twice. Registration’s a little scary, comes back to a Dr. Newton Joyce in Wilmington, North Carolina. He’s in the book but I couldn’t get him, just his answering machine.”

“Wilmington is where Claire Rawley went to school, and close to where Sparkes had his beach house,” I reminded him.

“Right. So far the signs are still pointing that way.”

He stared blankly at the steaming pot on the burner.

“She drives someone else’s car to Warrenton and somehow gets inside Sparkes’s house when he’s not home, and gets murdered and burns up in a fire,” he said, rubbing his temples. “I tell you, this one stinks about as bad as what you’re cooking there, Doc. We’re missing a really big piece, because nothing’s making sense.”

“Are there any Rawleys in the Wilmington area?” I asked. “Any possibility she has relatives there?”

“They got two listings, and neither of them have ever heard of a Rawley named Claire,” he said.

“What about the university?”

“Haven’t gotten to that yet,” he answered as I went over to check the pot again. “Thought you were going to do that.”

“In the morning.”

“So. You gonna hang out here all night cooking this shit?”

“As a matter of fact,” I said, turning off the burner, “I’m going to let it sit so I can go home. What time is it anyway? Oh God, almost nine o’clock. And I’ve got court in the morning.”

“Let’s blow this joint,” he said.