“No way. No telling what scumbag friends he’s got hanging around.” Marino means what scumbag friends Channing Lott might have.

“I’m perfectly safe.”

Marino scouts the parking lot, where there’s scarcely room for a bicycle, let alone a large SUV; then he stalks a Prius and curses when the driver gets out instead of pulling away.

“Piece-of-shit green-machine crap,” he says, creeping off. “They should have reserved parking for expert witnesses.”

“Please stop. Right here is perfect.”

He targets the Barking Crab, with its yellow-and-red awning across the old iron swing bridge that spans Fort Point Channel.

“I can probably find something over there, since it’s past lunchtime and too early for dinner.” He heads in that direction.

“Stop.” I mean it. “I’m getting out.” I open my door. “Park anywhere you want. I’m so late I don’t care.”

“How about staying put if I’m not there before you’re done? Don’t wander off, assuming it’s quick.”

I hurry along the brick Harbor Walk, past The Daily Catch, to the waterfront, where there’s a park with wooden benches and thick hedges of flowering Justicia, an evergreen shrub that can’t have been selected by accident for a courthouse. Taking off my suit jacket, I push through a glass door that leads into a screening station where I’m greeted by court security officers, CSOs I know by name, retired cops now with the U.S. Marshals Service.

“There she is.”

“We’ve been wondering when you’re gonna turn up like a bad penny.”

“On every TV channel. CNN, Fox, MSNBC, YouTube.”

“I got a cousin in England who saw it on BBC, said the turtle you were working on was the size of a whale.”

“Gentlemen? How are you?” I hand over my driver’s license even though they are used to me.

“Couldn’t be better if we lied.”

“Last time I was this good I forgot about it.”

Typical men of the dark blue cloth, they fire off quips that make less sense the more one thinks about them, and I smile despite it all. I surrender my iPhone, because no electronic devices are allowed inside, doesn’t matter who you are, and my suit jacket is x-rayed as I walk through the scanner, everything by the book, doesn’t matter how many times I’ve been here.

“I saw the fireboat go by earlier, Doc. Then the Coast Guard and choppers,” says the CSO named Nate, solid gristle, with the flattened nose of a prizefighter. “That lady you pulled out of the water this morning. Somebody’s mother.”

“Or somebody’s wife. You think it’s her, Doc?”

“It’s too early to say who it is,” I reply.

“A terrible thing.”

“Yes, it is.” I put my jacket back on.

“Promise your phone will be right here when you leave. They just went into a recess,” says the ruddy-faced CSO named Brian.