“I guess it never dawned on him I’d start rolling back the tape and checking what’s been recorded by the cameras and the vehicle GPS locators,” she says, and I recall watching Toby on the security monitors yesterday, when he was inside the bay.

He seemed to be arguing with someone on the phone. Something had struck me about it, bothered me. It didn’t seem normal.

“He’s been entering all sorts of areas where he has no business,” Lucy continues. “Your office. Luke’s office.”

“He can’t unlock my office.” It’s not accessible by key card, and I don’t wear such an ID on a lanyard around my neck.

I can unlock any door in the building by scanning my thumb, and Lucy, Bryce, and I are the only staff who have what I call the skeleton key, a biometric one.

“And your door is usually wide open if you’re in the building, or Bryce’s door is wide open,” Lucy points out. “He’s always leaving his door open and also the door connecting your office to his. So Toby finds reasons to deliver things, check on this or that, or asks a question or passes on information or volunteers to take orders for take-out food. Or he simply wanders in and out if he thinks no one’s looking.”

I get up from my chair and reach for the phone as Lucy lets me know the jury is out. For an instant I think she’s talking about Toby, that she’s saying it’s up in the air what to do with him. Then I realize she means something else.

“It’s all over the Internet,” she says, as I dial the extension for the autopsy room. “The jury’s left the courtroom, and the pundits are predicting they’ll find him not guilty.”

I get hold of Luke and ask him to place Howard Roth’s clothing in ID and to e-mail all photographs to me, that I’m coming down now.

“Perhaps Toby? He’s right here. Maybe he can . . . ?” Luke is busy.

“No. I want you to do it personally and lock the door. I don’t want anybody near the clothing and whatever else came in with him.”

“Shorts, socks, a T-shirt, his meds. The police have any other personal effects, his wallet, his house keys, not sure what all.” Luke’s in the middle of an autopsy and doesn’t want to be interrupted, but that’s too bad.

“Thanks. I’ll take a look.”

“I mean, they didn’t even have to think about it. Not guilty,” Lucy says, when we’re in the corridor, and she shuts her door, making sure it’s locked.

“Is what you suspect about Toby why you were looking around my office yesterday morning? Is he why you were acting as if someone might be spying on me?” I ask.