The Bone Bed

if a body were dumped off the coast of Gloucester that time of year, how long would it take to completely decompose and what would happen to the bones.
    I replied that for a while the coldness of the water would actually preserve the body, although fish and other marine life would do some damage. I said it could take as long as a year for saponification, for the body to form adipocere, which is caused by the anaerobic bacterial hydrolysis of fat in tissue. In other words, I made the mistake of saying in my e-mail that a body underwater for a long period of time
rather much turns into soap
, and it is this comment that Channing Lott’s lawyer wants to confront me with in court today.
    “If I end up having to appear at two, it probably is a good idea if you’re with me. I agree,” I say to Marino, because I already know what’s going to happen—that I won’t get out of it. “Maybe Bryce should be with us. I worry there will be a lot of media.”
    “What an idiot,” Marino says. “With all his money and he stiffs the hit man?”
    “That’s not why I’ve been subpoenaed or my point,” I reply, somewhat impatiently.
    “Some dirtbag he hires off the Internet, Craigslist, whatever, and he wonders why he got caught,” Marino says.
    “The point I’m making is the abuse of the judicial system,” I reply. “A perverting of fairness.”
    We are past the seaport and the massive stone fortification Fort Independence, which protected Boston from the British in the War of 1812, swerving away from Deer Island, where waste-treatment plant sludge digesters look like eggs. The gray sandy shoreline of Hull curves around a harbor packed with small boats, and a graceful white windmill rises from the hills. I let Marino know he should be careful that the same fate doesn’t befall him that has befallen me.
    “It’s a sobering reminder of what can happen,” I say to him.
    The defense wants me in court because Channing Lott wants me there, for no reason other than to force me into something, which Lott legally has the right to do. Any report generated by any forensic expert no longer speaks for itself unless both sides agree that the forensic scientist, the medical examiner, the scene investigator doesn’t need to appear in person. While I understand the logic of the Supreme Court’s decision that a document can’t be cross-examined, only a human being can, what has occurred in the wake of the ruling is that overworked, underpaid experts are being abused and run ragged.
    Any time we generate a document that might end up in court, one side or the other can demand we take the witness stand, even if the written words are nothing more than a voice-recognition text message or a handwritten note on a Post-it. As a result, some key members of my staff have begun ducking cases. If they dodge a crime scene or an autopsy or don’t offer their expert opinion or even a glib remark, there’s no chance they’ll be subpoenaed, which is yet another reason why I don’t like the idea that Marino is allowing the death investigator on call to go home so he can sleep over at the CFC.
    “If one isn’t careful,” I’m saying to him, “one might find he never has time to do his work anymore. I’m being dragged to court today because of an e-mail I sent to Steward when he asked my opinion and nothing more. My opinion and an admittedly careless comment in an e-mail and it’s all discoverable, every keystroke. And you wonder why I don’t involve myself personally in Twitter and things like that. Anything can and will be used against you.”
    That’s all I intend to say to him while we’re on a Coast Guard boat with a crew who can hear every word. When the timing is right, Marino and I will have a conversation about
ornamenting
and whatever else is going on in his life that has resulted in his turning the CFC’s investigative division into a Motel 6 because he can’t or won’t go home.
    “Coming up!” our pilot, Labella, lets us know as he monitors the depth sounder, and other vessels hail over the radio.
    The water opens into a fan-shaped expanse that is bordered by the north and south channels and their many islands, and we pass green channel markers on our right, the boat rising and falling, its thrust pushing me back in my chair.
    “It’s going to be a cluster fuck,” Marino says, when the fireboat comes into view, its emergency lights flashing red, a news helicopter hovering overhead. “Who the hell alerted the