The Bone Bed Read Online Free PDF

tactical boots with polished leather toes and nylon uppers. He complains that he can’t find socks.
    “Try my locker downstairs,” I tell him, as I bend over to slip off my pumps, and I say to Pamela Quick, “What we don’t want is to lose the body or cause any damage to it. So normally I wouldn’t permit—”
    “We can save this animal,” she cuts me off, and it’s patently clear she’s not interested in my permission. “But we have to do it now.” The way she says it, I have no doubt she’s not going to wait for me or anyone, and I really can’t blame her.
    “Do what you need to do, of course. But if someone can document it with video or photographs, that would be helpful,” I tell her, as I get out of my chair, feeling the carpet under my stocking feet and reminded I never know what to expect in life, not from one minute to the next. “Disturb any lines and gear as little as possible, and make sure they’re secured so we don’t lose anything,” I add.

five
    DRESSED IN COTTON FIELD CLOTHES NOW, DARK BLUE, with the CFC crest embroidered on my shirt and on the bright orange jacket draped over my arm, I board the elevator beyond the break room, and for a moment we are alone. Marino sets down two black plastic Pelican cases and stabs the button for the lower level.
    “I understand you were here all night,” I comment, as he impatiently taps the button again, a habit of his that serves no useful purpose.
    “Caught up on some paperwork and stuff. Was just easier to stay over.”
    He shoves his big hands into the side pockets of his cargo pants, the slope of his belly swelling noticeably over his canvas belt. He’s gained weight, but his shoulders are formidable and I can tell by the thickness of his neck, biceps, and legs that he’s still pumping iron in that gym he belongs to in Central Square, a fight sports club or whatever he calls it, that is frequented by cops, most of them SWAT.
    “Easier than what?” I detect the stale odor of sweat beneath a patina of Brut aftershave, and maybe he drank the night away, went through a carton of Crystal Head vodka mini skull ornaments or whatever. I don’t know. “Yesterday was Sunday,” I continue in a mild voice. “Since you weren’t scheduled to work this weekend and were just getting back from a trip, what exactly was easier? And while we’re on the subject, I’ve not been getting updated on-call schedules for quite some time, so I wasn’t aware you were taking calls yourself and apparently have been—”
    “The electronic calendar is bullshit,” he interrupts. “All this automated instant bullshit. I just wish Lucy would give it a rest. You know what you need to know, that someone’s doing what they’re supposed to. That someone being me.”
    “I’m not aware that the head of investigations is on call. That’s never been our policy, unless there’s an emergency. And it’s also not our policy to be a firehouse, to sleep over on an inflatable bed while waiting for an alarm to clang, so to speak.”
    “I see someone’s been narking. It’s her fault, anyway.” He puts his sunglasses on, wire-frame Ray-Bans he’s worn for as long as I’ve known him—what Bryce calls Marino’s
Smokey and the Bandit
shades.
    “The investigator on call is supposed to be awake at his or her work station, ready to answer the phone.” I say this evenly and with no invitation for the argument he is giving me. “And what is whose fault?”
    “Fucking Lucy got me on Twitter, and that’s what started it.”
    When he says “fucking Lucy” I know he doesn’t mean it. The two of them are close.
    “I don’t think it’s fair to blame her for Twitter if you’re the one tweeting, and I understand you have been,” I reply in the same bland tone. “And she didn’t exactly nark on you, or some things I would have known before now. Anything she’s said, it’s because she cares about you, Marino.”
    “She’s out of the picture and has been for weeks, and