The Bone Bed

and is Emma Shubert’s. There are so many ifs.”
    Marino eyes the rearview mirror, making sure the van transporting the body is behind us. “Well, maybe this one’s been reported missing and we’ll get lucky.”
    I don’t think anything about this is going to be lucky for us. I can’t shake the feeling that nothing has been done since this woman vanished and died because no one close to her knows, not her neighbors, not her family or friends, and that’s odd. I also find it odd and contradictory that while it’s far from obvious who she is, the person responsible for disposing of her body didn’t bother removing her personal effects. A victim’s belongings can be quite useful to the police.
    Why not get rid of her clothing and jewelry?
    Why have her body found at all?
    Of course, we might not have recovered her remains, I remind myself. I think of my shock when I first saw the way she was rigged underwater, one nylon rope around her neck, the other around her ankles. Had her tethers pulled her body apart, and I can’t help but suspect that was the intention, we might not have found a trace of her.
    Right this minute we might be on our way back to the CFC with nothing to show for our efforts except a yellow boat fender, rope, rusty fishing gear, and a fragment of barnacle and broken bamboo with a trace of something greenish on them. Questions and possibilities race through my mind and offer nothing useful, only more confusion and a growing sense of dread.
    Some evil manipulation, I think. Someone toying with us. Some malignant game being played out with deliberateness, and I suspect there will be no DNA on file, no police report, nothing on record, because those who count don’t know this lady has vanished from wherever she’s supposed to be. Chilled to the marrow, I turn up the heat and aim vents at my face and neck.
    “Really weird the way she was tied up.” Marino hasn’t stopped talking. “Maybe a different type of hog-tying. Then dump her and she gets tangled up with a dinosaur turtle. Geez, you’re going to kill me from heat stroke.”
    He closes his vent and cracks open his window.
    “Let’s refrain from using the word
dinosaur
, please.” I repeat what I’ve said several times.
    “How come you’re in such a shitty mood?”
    “I’m sorry if I seem to be in a shitty mood.”
    “You seem it because you sure as hell are.”
    “I’m concerned and frustrated because I’m racing against the clock,” I reply. “I need to start on her right now. What I don’t need is to have this important window of time wasted by a court case where my appearance is simply frivolous. And good God, could the traffic be any slower?”
    “It’s always bad around here. Morning rush hour, lunchtime rush hour, late-afternoon rush hour. Between two and four a.m. is optimal,” he says. “And just remember, the more pissed you get, the more you give them what they want.”
    How ironic that he of all people would be coaching me about the futility of allowing detractors to get me out of sorts.
    “She’s never going to be in better condition than she is right now,” I remind him.
    “There’s some stuff we can do. Don’t worry, Doc,” he says.
    My office is just ahead, silo-shaped, with the glass dome on top, like a missile, a dumdum bullet, or, as some bloggers call it, a
forensic erection
. Seven stories of ultramodern construction sided in titanium and reinforced with steel. The descriptions and quips, most of them irreverent and vulgar, are endless, and tomorrow’s news likely will bristle with them.
    Dr. Scarpetta returned to her forensic erection in Cambridge after testifying that Lott’s wife turned into soap.
    I glance at my watch and feel another wave of anger. It’s exactly eight minutes past one, and I’m supposed to be in the witness stand in less than an hour. I can’t possibly begin the autopsy now, and I’m certainly not going to let anyone else do it. The entire situation is outrageous.
    “It’s a leatherback, and that’s what we need to call it.” I pick up on my earlier point and try to sound less aggravated. “It’s not helpful to the turtle or any of us if we continue referring to it as a dinosaur.”
    “Pam says leatherbacks are the last living dinosaur on earth.” Marino takes the left turn that leads to our back parking lot.
    “The problem is if you say things like that, some moron is going to set out in search of it as if it’s Nessie or Bigfoot.”
    “I’d