“Or how about remove the damn radio and headphones from the damn scene?” Marino says. “If he was being stalked, hunted down, and whoever’s doing it whacked him? Well, if it was me, I’d grab the headset and radio and keep walking. So I’m betting he was the one doing the recording. I don’t believe for a minute someone else was. And I’m betting this guy was involved in something, and whatever the reason for the spy equipment, he was the only one who knew about it. What sucks is there’s no recording of the perp, of whoever whacked him, which is significant. If he was confronted by someone while he was walking his dog, why didn’t the headphones record it?”
“The headphones didn’t record it because he didn’t see the person,” Lucy replies. “He wasn’t looking at whoever it was.”
“Assuming there was a person who somehow caused his death,” I remind both of them.
“Right,” she says. “The headphones pretty much pick up whatever the wearer is looking at, the camera on the crown of his head, pointing straight out like a third eye.”
“Then whoever whacked him came up from behind,” Marino states conclusively. “And it happened so fast the victim never even turned around. Either that or it was some kind of sniper attack. Maybe he was shot with something from a distance. Like a dart with poison. Aren’t there some poisons that cause hemorrhaging? May sound far-fetched, but shit like this happens. Remember the KGB spy poked with an umbrella that had ricin in the tip? He was waiting at a bus stop, and no one saw a thing.”
“It was a Bulgarian dissident who worked for the BBC, and it’s not a certainty it was an umbrella, and you’re getting deeper into the woods without a map,” I tell him.
“Ricin wouldn’t drop you in your tracks, anyway,” Lucy says. “Most poisons won’t. Not even cyanide gas. I don’t think he was poisoned.”
“This isn’t helpful,” I answer.
“My map is my experience as a cop,” Marino says to me. “I’m using my deductive skills. They don’t call me Sherlock for nothing.” He taps his baseball cap with a thick index finger.
“They don’t call you Sherlock at all.” Lucy’s voice from the back.
“It’s not helpful,” I repeat, looking at his big shape as he drives, at his huge hands on the wheel, which rubs against his gut even when he’s in what he considers his fighting shape.
“Aren’t you the one always telling me to think outside the box?” Defensiveness hardens his tone.
“Guessing isn’t helpful. Connecting dots that might be the wrong dots is reckless, and you know it,” I say to him.
Marino has always been inclined to jump to conclusions, but it’s gotten worse since he took the job in Cambridge, since he went to work for me again. I blame it on a military presence in our lives that is as constant as the massive airlifters flying low over Dover. More directly, I blame it on Briggs. Marino is ridiculously enamored of this powerful male forensic pathologist who is also a general in the army. My connection to the military has never mattered to him or even been acknowledged, not when it was part of my past, not when I was recalled to a special status after 9/11. Marino has always ignored my government affiliations as if they don’t exist.
He stares straight ahead, and headlights of an approaching car illuminate his face, touched by disgruntledness and a certain lack of comprehension that is part of who he is. I might feel sorry for him because of the affection I can’t deny, but not now. Not under the circumstances. I won’t let on that I’m upset.
“What else did you share with Briggs—in addition to your opinions?” I ask Marino.
When he doesn’t answer, Lucy does. “Briggs saw the same thing you’re about to see,” she says. “It wasn’t my idea, and I didn’t e-mail them, just so we’re clear.”
“Didn’t e-mail what exactly?” But I know what exactly, and my incredulity grows. Marino sent evidence to Briggs. It’s my case, and Briggs has been given information first.
“He wanted to know,” Marino says, as if that’s a good enough reason. “What was I supposed to tell him?”
“You shouldn’t have told him anything. You went over my head. It’s not his case,” I reply.
“Yeah, well, it is,” Marino says. “He was appointed by the surgeon general, meaning he basically was hired by the president, so I’d say that means he outranks everyone in this van.”
“General Briggs isn’t the chief medical examiner of Massachusetts, and you don’t work for him. You work for me.” I’m careful how I say it. I try to sound reasonable and calm, the way I do when a hostile attorney is trying to dismantle me on the witness stand, the way I do when Marino is about to erupt into an unseemly display of loud profanities and slammed doors. “The CFC has a mixed jurisdiction and can take federal cases in certain situations, and I realize it’s confusing. Ours is a joint initiative between the state and federal governments and MIT, Harvard. And I realize that’s an unprecedented concept and tricky, which is why you should have let me handle it instead of bypassing me.” I try to sound easygoing and matter-of-fact. “The problem about involving General Briggs prematurely, about involving him precipitously, is things can take on a life of their own. But what’s done is done.”
“What do you mean? ‘What’s
“What’s the not-so-good news?” I turn around and ask Lucy.
“Take a look,” she says. “It’s the last three recordings made, including a minute here and there when the headset was jostled by the EMTs, the cops, and this morning by me when I started looking at it in my lab.”
The iPad’s display glows brightly, colorfully, in the dark, and I tap on the icon for the first video file she has selected, and it begins to play. I see what the dead man was seeing yesterday at three-oh-four p.m., a black-and- white greyhound curled up on a blue couch in a living room that has a heart-of-pine floor and a blue-and-red rug.
The camera moves as the man moves because he has the headphones on and they are recording: a coffee table covered with books and papers neatly stacked, and what looks like architectural or engineering drafting vellum with a pencil on top; a window with wooden blinds that are closed; a desk with two large flat-screen monitors and two silver MacBooks, and a phone plugged into a charger, possibly an iPhone, and an amber glass smoking pipe in an ashtray; a floor lamp with a green shade; a fleece dog bed and scattered toys. I get a glimpse of a door that has a deadbolt and a sliding lock, and on a wall are framed photographs and posters that go by too abruptly for me to see the details. I will wait to study them later.
So far I observe nothing that tells me who the man is or where he lives, but I get the impression of the small apartment or maybe the house of someone who likes animals, is financially comfortable, and is mindful of security and privacy. The man, assuming this is his place and his dog, is highly evolved intellectually and technically, is creative and organized, possibly smokes marijuana, and has chosen a pet that is a needy companion, not a trophy but a creature that has suffered cruelty in a former life and can’t possibly fend for itself. I feel upset for the dog and worry about what has happened to it.
Certainly the EMTs, the police, didn’t leave a helpless greyhound in Norton’s Woods yesterday, lost and alone in the New England weather. Benton told me it was eleven degrees this morning in Cambridge, and before the night is out, it will snow. Maybe the dog is at the fire department’s headquarters, well fed and attended to around the clock. Maybe Investigator Law took it home or some other police person did. It’s also possible no one realized the dog belonged to the man who died. Dear God, that would be awful.
“What happened to the greyhound?” I have to ask.
“Got no idea,” Marino says, to my dismay. “Nobody knew until this morning when Lucy and me saw what you’re looking at. The EMTs don’t remember seeing a greyhound running loose, not that they were looking, but the gate leading into Norton’s Woods was open when they got there. As you probably know, the gate’s never locked and is wide open a lot of the time.”
“He can’t survive in freezing conditions. How could people not notice the poor thing unleashed and running loose? Because I can’t imagine he wasn’t running around in the park for at least a few minutes before he ran out of the open gate. Common sense would tell you that when his master collapsed, the dog didn’t suddenly flee from the woods and onto the street.”
“A lot of people take their dogs off the leashes and let them run loose in the parks like Norton’s Woods,” Lucy says. “I know I do with Jet Ranger.”
Jet Ranger is her ancient bulldog, and he doesn’t exactly run.
“So maybe nobody noticed because it didn’t look out of the ordinary,” she adds.
