The Bone Bed

make less sense the more one thinks about them, and I smile despite it all. I surrender my iPhone, because no electronic devices are allowed inside, doesn’t matter who you are, and my suit jacket is x-rayed as I walk through the scanner, everything by the book, doesn’t matter how many times I’ve been here.
    “I saw the fireboat go by earlier, Doc. Then the Coast Guard and choppers,” says the CSO named Nate, solid gristle, with the flattened nose of a prizefighter. “That lady you pulled out of the water this morning. Somebody’s mother.”
    “Or somebody’s wife. You think it’s her, Doc?”
    “It’s too early to say who it is,” I reply.
    “A terrible thing.”
    “Yes, it is.” I put my jacket back on.
    “Promise your phone will be right here when you leave. They just went into a recess,” says the ruddy-faced CSO named Brian.
    He nods toward the glass, drawing my attention to a well-dressed man and woman drinking coffee on the brick walkway.
    “Those two out there?” he says. “Connected to him, to Mr. Lott. Maybe friends, relatives, bigwigs from his shipping company. Christ knows. He owns half the world. How come Marino’s not with you?”
    “He’s investigating the crime of no parking.”
    “Good luck solving that one. Well, don’t be wandering around here too much by your lonesome, you hear?”
    The man and woman on the other side of the glass are huddled close, looking out at the water. They turn their backs to us as if they know we’re interested, and I hurry up a stone stairway and take a marble-paneled elevator to the third floor. My heels click over polished granite as I rush past floor-to-ceiling windows that open onto the harbor and the outer reaches of the bay, the courtrooms on my right behind heavy double wooden doors numbered in brass. I weave through people waiting to testify and conferring and loitering, some of them attorneys I recognize, and Dan Steward walks out of courtroom 17 just as I reach it.
    “I’m really sorry,” I start to say, as he motions for me to follow him to an isolated area where the corridor ends beneath huge colorful panels of art.
    “I managed to drag and stretch it out.” He exaggerates a drawl, immensely proud of himself. “You’re the last witness, and I probably won’t need anything from you on cross, obviously.”
    “Both sides are resting their case for sure?” I can’t stop thinking about the timing.
    I really am the last witness the jury’s going to hear, he says, and the timing is remarkable. It doesn’t feel like a coincidence, no matter how much I reassure myself it must be one.
    “After we start closing arguments,” Steward says. “Hopefully we’ll wind it up today and the jury will begin deliberations before we break for the night. The good news is you haven’t delayed anything.” He stares at my breasts. “I told the judge what’s up, and I’m sure he’ll give you a chance to explain. That doesn’t mean he won’t chew you out. But if it wasn’t for me? Well, don’t think Jill bothered to stick up for you, even though you’re her witness.”
    He takes off his wire-rimmed glasses, wipes them with a handkerchief, his eyes riveted to my chest, where he has a habit of looking rather constantly. I’ve never thought he means anything by it. Dan Steward isn’t the least bit lewd or crass, is a proper but awkward man of small stature in his thirties with a big head of dirty-blond hair and big teeth. He has terrible taste in suits, this one an ill-fitting tan corduroy with a cheap green paisley tie that’s too long and unfashionably wide. He always seems frazzled and nervous, his demeanor grating to juries, I’ve been told, and I believe it.
    “But she knows,” I reply. “She understands why I’m late.”
    “Hell, yes. Your office was courteous enough to call her. . . .”
    “My office?” I can’t think whom he might mean.
    “When we recessed a few minutes ago, she indicated she knew you were on your way.”
    Bryce let Dan Steward know I was running late, but I can’t imagine which member of my staff might have left a message with Jill Donoghue, whose subpoena is the reason I’m here. I haven’t spoken to her directly. I wouldn’t in a situation like this, where there is nothing substantive I can offer to the case, only my physical presence so she can harass, manipulate, create high drama.
    “And I told her not to make a big thing of it,” Steward says, and Donoghue probably has earned the