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 done‘?” Marino sounds less sure of himself. I detect an anxious note, and I’m not going to help him out. He needs to think about what has been done, because he’s the one who did it.
“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.
“Plus, I think everybody was a little preoccupied with some guy dropping dead,” Marino states the obvious.
I look out at military housing on a poorly lit road, at aircraft that are bright and big like planets in the overcast dark. I can’t make sense of what I’m being told. I’m surprised the greyhound didn’t stay close to his master. Maybe the dog panicked or there’s some other reason no one noticed him.
“The dog’s bound to show up,” Marino goes on. “No way people in an area like that are going to ignore a greyhound wandering around by itself. My guess is one of the neighbors or a student has it. Unless it’s possible the guy was whacked and the killer took the dog.”
“Why?” I puzzle.
“Like you’ve been saying, we need to keep an open mind,” he answers. “How do we know that whoever did it wasn’t watching nearby? And then at an opportune moment, took off with the dog, acting like it belonged to him?”
“But why?”
“It could be evidence that would lead to the killer for some reason,” he suggests. “Maybe lead to an identification. A game. A thrill. A souvenir. Who the hell knows? But you’ll notice from the video clips at one point the leash was taken off him, and guess what? It hasn’t showed up. It didn’t come in with the headphones or the body.”
The dog’s name is Sock. On the iPad’s display, the man is walking and clucking his tongue, telling Sock it’s time to go. “Let’s go, Sock,” he coaxes in a pleasant baritone voice. “Come on, you lazy doggie, it’s time for a walk and a shit.” I detect a slight accent, possibly British or Australian. It could be South African, which would be weird, a weird coincidence, and I need to get South Africa off my mind. Focus on what’s before you, I tell myself as Sock jumps off the couch, and I notice he has no collar. Sock— a male, I assume, based on the name—is thin, and his ribs show slightly, which is typical for greyhounds, and he is mature, possibly old, and one of his ears is ragged as if once torn. A rescue retired from the racetrack, I feel sure, and I wonder if he has a microchip. If so and if we can find him, we can trace where he’s from and possibly who adopted him.