“Why would a forensic psychology graduate student pick a username like that?” Berger said. “Seems extremely insensitive to make an allusion to lunatics or lunacy or any other disparagement from the Dark Ages. In fact, it’s worse than insensitive, it’s cold-blooded.”

“Maybe she was an insensitive, cold-blooded person. I’m not one to deify the dead. A lot of murder victims weren’t necessarily nice people when they were alive.”

“Let’s start with mid-December and work our way up to the most recent ones,” Berger directed.

There were one hundred and three e-mails since December 15. Seven were to Terri’s parents in Scottsdale, and all the rest were between Terri and Oscar Bane. Lucy sorted them by time and date, without opening them, to see if there was a pattern of who wrote most often and when.

“Far more from him,” she said. “More than three times as many. And it looks like he wrote her at all hours. But I’m not seeing any e-mails from her that were sent later than eight p.m. And in fact, most days of the week, nothing from her after four in the afternoon. That’s really strange. You’d think she had a night job.”

“It could be they talked on the phone. Hopefully, Morales has already started on phone records,” Berger said. “Or he should have. Or maybe he went on vacation and didn’t tell me. Or maybe he’d better start looking for a new career. I like the last option best.”

“What’s his problem, anyway? And why do you put up with it? He treats you with complete disrespect.”

“He treats everyone with complete disrespect and calls it prioritizing.”

“What do you call it?” Lucy continued opening e-mails.

“I call it cocky and irritating as hell,” Berger said. “He thinks he’s smarter than everyone, including me, but what makes it complicated is he is smarter than most people. And he’s good at what he does if he chooses to be. And in most cases, his priorities end up making sense and he gets things done in a fraction of the time it takes someone else. Either that or somehow he manages to get people to do the work for him, then finagles accolades for it while managing to get that person into trouble. Which is probably what he’s doing now.”

“To Marino,” Lucy said.

It was as if she had decided it was easiest to think of Marino as just another detective she really didn’t know. Or maybe she didn’t hate him as much as Berger had assumed.

“Yes, he’s putting Marino out on a limb,” Berger said. “Marino seems to be the only one doing anything that matters.”

“He married?” As Lucy opened e-mails. “Obviously, I’m not talking about Marino.”

“He’s not exactly the commitment type. Screws anything that stands still. Maybe even if it doesn’t stand still.”