“Good God, Marino.”

He is quiet for a moment.

“Look. I realize I’ve not always made the best choices in staff.” I’ll give him that, because it’s beyond dispute, and I resist pointing out there are those who would say that my hiring him is a prime example. “I don’t always have the best judgment about people closest to me.” Including Pete Marino, but I will never say it to him.

When we first met more than two decades ago he was a homicide detective in Richmond, a recent transplant from NYPD to the former Capital of the Confederacy, where I had been installed as Virginia’s new chief medical examiner, the first woman ever appointed to that position. Marino went out of his way to be a bigoted ass at the onset of our working lives together, and there have been betrayals since. But I keep him and would choose no one over him because I’m loyal and I care and he’s just as good as he is bad. We’re an unlikely pair and probably always will be.

“I couldn’t be more aware that whoever I choose impacts everyone,” I add in the same calm voice, as I do my best to be patient with his insecurities and fears and to remind myself I’m far from perfect. “But please don’t assume that if I know someone personally it somehow obviates any possibility of him being a good employee or even a civilized human being.”

“That was something when the Bruins won the Stanley Cup.” It’s Marino’s way of ending a conversation that no longer furthers his agenda. “Wonder if it will happen again in my lifetime.”

The TD Garden, or the Garden, as the locals refer to the arena, looms ahead of us on the left, and on Commercial Street, the Coast Guard base is only minutes away.

“I’ve seen a couple of them around here out with their wives, walking their dogs. Really nice guys, not snooty or nothing,” Marino says, and up ahead at the intersection a Boston cop is directing traffic.

“I think there’s a funeral.” I notice black hearses and orange traffic cones across from the ice-skating rink.

“Okay. We’ll hang a right here and cut through on Hanover.” He begins to do it as he says it. “I tweeted a couple of them, but they’re not going to answer when you’re anonymous and can’t even use your own photo for your avatar.”

“They might not do it, anyway, I’m sorry to tell you.”

“Yeah, I guess when you got fifty thousand people following you. I only got one hundred and twenty-two,” he says.

“That’s quite a lot of friends to have.”

“Hell, I don’t got a clue who they are,” he says. “They think I’m Jeff Bridges or whatever. You know, the movie. Tons of bowlers love that movie. Sort of a cult thing.”

“So you’re following strangers and they’re following you.”

“Yeah, I know how it sounds, and you’re right. No question I’d have a lot more followers and more people would tweet me back if I could be myself instead of in disguise,” he says.