“So far nothing in our computer searches that’s helpful.”

“Why are you just telling me now? I’ve been around all weekend.”

“Been busy.”

“You get information about a case like this, you shouldn’t wait two days to tell me,” she says as calmly as she can.

“Maybe you’re not one to talk about withholding information.”

“What information?” she asks, baffled.

“You should be more careful. That’s all I got to say.”

“It’s not helpful when you’re cryptic, Marino.”

“I almost forgot.Hollywood’s curious about whatBenton’s professional opinion might be,” he adds as if it is an afterthought, as if he doesn’t care.

He typically does a poor job hiding how he feels about Benton Wesley.

“Certainly they can ask him to evaluate the case,” she replies. “I can’t speak for him.”

“They want him to figure out if the call I got from this wacko Hog was a crank, and I said that would be kind of hard when it’s not recorded, when all he’d get is my own version of shorthand scribbled on a paper bag.”

He gets up from his chair, and his big presence seems even bigger, and he makes her feel even smaller than he used to make her feel. He picks up his useless helmet and puts on his sunglasses. He hasn’t looked at her throughout their entire conversation, and now she can’t see his eyes at all. She can’t see what’s in them.

“I’ll give it my complete attention. Immediately,” she says as he walks to the door. “If you’d like to go over it later, we can.”

“Huh.”

“Why don’t you come to the house?”

“Huh,” he says again. “What time?”

“Seven,” she says.

2

Inside the MRI suite, Benton Wesley watches his patient through a partition of Plexiglas. The lights are low, multiple video screens illuminated along the wraparound counter, his wristwatch on top of his briefcase. He is cold. After several hours inside the cognitive neuro imaging laboratory, even his bones are cold, or at least that’s how it feels.