“Easy, Doc.”
“I might just file suit this time. This has gone too far.”
“I don’t think you want to be filing anything right now.“ He got out his cigarettes as he followed me toll kits; where the evening paper was spread out on the table. “Ben Steven is behind this.”
“Doc, I think what you watt to do is listen to what I’ve got to say.”
“He’s got to be the source of the leak about bullets –“
“Doc. Goddam it, shut up.”
I sat down. “My ass is in the fire, too,” he said. “I’m working cases with you: and now suddenly you’ve become an element. Yes, we did find an envelope in Susan’s house. It was in a dresser drawer under some clothes. There were three one-hundred-dollar bills inside it. Vander processed the envelope and several latents popped up. Two of them are yours. Your prints, like mine and those of a lot of other investigators, are in AFIS for exclusionary purposes, in case we ever do a dumbshit thing leave our prints at a scene.”
“I did not leave prints at any scene. There’s a logic explanation for this. There has to be. Maybe the envelope was one I touched at some point at the office or the morgue, and Susan took it home.”
“It’s definitely not an office envelope,” Marino said. “It’s about twice as wide as a legal-size envelope of stiff, shiny black paper. There’s no writing on it.”
I looked at him in disbelief as it dawned on me. “The scarf I gave her.”
“What scarf?”
“Susan’s Christmas present from me was a red silk scarf I bought in San Francisco. What you’re describing is the envelope it was in, a glossy black envelope made of cardboard or stiff paper. The flap closed with a-small gold seal. I wrapped the, present myself. Of course my prints would be on it.”
“So what about the three hundred dollars?” he said, avoiding my eyes.
I don’t know anything about any money.”
“I’m saying, why was it in the envelope you gave her?”
“Maybe because saw wanted to hide her cash in something. The envelope was handy. Maybe she didn’t want to throw it away. I don’t know. I had no control over what she dad with something I gave her.”
“Did anybody see you give her the scarf?” he asked.
“No. Her husband wasn’t home when she opened my Yeah, well, the only gift from you anyone seemed to know about was a pink poinsettia. Don’t sound like Susan said a word about you giving her a scarf.”
“For God’s sake, she was wearing the scarf when she was shot, Marino.”
“That don’t tell us where it came from.”
“You’re about to move into the accusatory stage,” I snapped.
“I’m not accusing you of nothing. Don’t you get it? This is the way it goes, goddam it. You want me to baby you and pat your hand so some other cop can bust inhere and broadside you with questions like this?”
He got up and began pacing the kitchen, staring at tire floor, his hands in his pockets.
“Tell me about Donahue,” I said quietly.
“He was shot in his ride, probably early this morning. According to his wife, he left the house around sixteen. Around one-thirty this afternoon, his Thunderbird` was found parked at Deep Water Terminal with him in it.”
“I read that much in the paper.”
“Look. The less we talk about it, the better.”
“Why? Are reporters going to imply that I killed him, too.
“Where was you at six-fifteen this morning, Doc?”
“I was getting ready to leave my house and drive to Washington.”
“You got any witnesses that will verify you couldn’t have been cruising around Deep Water Terminal? It’s not very far from the Medical Examiner’s Office, you know. Maybe two minutes.”
“That’s absurd.”
‘Get used to it. This is just the beginning. Wait, until Patterson sinks his teeth into you.”
Before Roy Patterson had run for Commonwealth Attorney, he had been one of the city’s more combative, egotistical criminal lawyers. Back then he had never appreciated what I had to say; since in the majority of cases, medical examiner testimony does not cause jurors to think more kindly of the defendant.