On the other side of the busy street bending around our building, the river flows deep blue and sparkles in the sun, and leaves of hardwood trees along the embankment are beginning to turn yellow and red where the cold water chills the air. Fall is late this year, not a single frost yet, and most of the trees are green on the verge of brown. I fear we will transition straight to winter, which this far north can happen almost instantly.

“I know about the e-mail,” Marino finally says, and I figured he would get around to it eventually.

I can’t imagine Lucy didn’t tell him, and I say as much.

“How come you didn’t call me right away?” he asks.

Across the river are the high-rises of downtown Boston, and on the other side of them the inner and outer harbors and the Massachusetts Bay, where a fireboat waits for us. I hope the leatherback made it. I will feel sick to my soul if it drowned.

“I didn’t know if you were off the plane or why I should bother you with it,” I reply. “Some disturbed person who wanted to get a rise out of me and unfortunately succeeded. I hope it’s nothing more than an ugly prank.”

“You should have bothered me with it, because it could be interpreted as a threat. A threat to a government official. I’m surprised Benton wouldn’t see it that way.” Marino’s remark is more of a probe, as if he’s wondering as usual if Benton is vigilant about my safety or even a decent husband.

“Did Lucy also tell you where it was sent from? The IP?”

“Yeah, I’m aware. Maybe to make it look like it was one of us. Bryce, me, any of us who flew into Logan yesterday right about the time you got the e-mail. You need to ask who might want you to think that, who it might benefit if you don’t feel you can trust those you’re closest to.”

He switches into the right lane to turn onto the Longfellow Bridge, with its central towers that are shaped like salt and pepper shakers, and I think of Lucy searching my office a little while ago. We merge into a long line of cars crossing the river into Beacon Hill, rush hour barely moving, traffic stretching across the water and onto Cambridge Street for as far as I can see. I recall what she said about someone in our own backyard, someone we know, and I imagine Marino and her talking about it, speculating and accusing. It doesn’t take much to get her worked up and on the warpath.

“Look, it’s no secret I don’t have a good opinion of him. I mean, what the hell do we really know about him except he’s Anna’s nephew?” Marino then says, and I’m really not surprised this is what he’s been waiting to confront me with. “Me and Lucy are worried about motives that might not occur to you. We were trying to figure out a connection, and there is one, with his father.”