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head, then bounded away and back, wanting to play despite her obvious diarrhea. I waited till she calmed down some, then scratched between her eyes with my left hand while my right was slipping one set of the court papers under her collar. Once I had them secured, I stopped petting, and she gave up on me and returned to the front doors. They opened again, and the rottweiler went inside. I waited for a count of three, then moved along the front of the house, my back to the horizontal siding, until I was just beside the entrance.
    The inner door came open all the way, the storm one flying outward as Harry of the photograph burst through. About fifty, he was maybe an inch shorter than my six-two-plus but built a little huskier than he seemed in two dimensions, with solid forearms under the Ralph Lauren Polo shirt and twill slacks. Henry was clutching, you might even say crushing the papers from the dog’s collar in his right fist, looking wildly up and down the lane.
    From ten feet behind him, I said, “You’re it, Harry.“
    He whirled around, shaking the fist that held the documents toward my face. “You think this is fucking service? You think this’ll stand up? You fuckhead, you got another think coming!“
    “Harry, two things on that. One, I’ve got a second set of papers right here. Two, I’m between you and the door.“
    He took a look at the door. “That’s kidnapping!“
    “I’m not taking you anywhere, Harry.“
    Another idea crossed his face. “False imprisonment!“
    “I don’t see anything stopping you from leaving.“
    His eyes flitted left-right-left, but without enthusiasm. “You fucker, i’ll get you for this.“
    “Harry, you can extend your hand, and I can lay these papers in it, or I can stuff them under your collar, too. Your choice.“
    He fussed and fumed, but after another few seconds, he extended his hand, and I served him.
    Harry said, “Goddamned fucking bitch.“
    “It’s not the dog’s fault. It’s—“
    “I’m not talking about the dog. Fucking Irene. She has to give her fucking hound a taste of the take-out. I tell her, ‘Irene, the fucking spices are gonna be too much for it,’ but no, she has to give her little ‘lovebug’ some of the curry shit even I could barely eat.“
    “Tragic, Harry. The Greeks should have done a play on it.“
    “Wasn’t Greek.“
    “Sorry?“
    “Wasn’t Greek food. It was fucking Indian.“
    I left Harry contemplating the unfairness of life.

    Driving away from the house, I was feeling pretty good. I tried a pub in one of the northern suburbs for lunch, finding a pay phone to call George-Ann and leave the news with her answering service. Then I bought a Boston Globe from the honor-system box by the phone and brought the paper back to the bar to read while I waited for a turkey club sandwich. The place had Bass ale on tap, so I ordered a pint. Halfway trough both the pint and the first section of the Globe, I stopped cold.
    The story hadn’t made the front page, or even the third one, since no firearms or allegations of gang involvement or racial overtones jumped out at you. There was a grainy photo, though, showing a light-colored van that I knew was actually and its dark-colored lettering that was actually blue, van belonged to the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office, it was parked alongside the Fort Point Channel, which flows into the harbor by South Boston . The miniheadline ofthe story read UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN FOUND IN CHAEL. There weren’t many details: A couple of casual night fishermen casting from a bridge noticed the body floating near some rocks, the face disfigured pretty badly. The kind of story that gets three inches one day and maybe a mention the next, usually to the effect that “police officials have no further leads on the identity of the victim or the cause of death.“ The kind of story you barely even read anymore, Except for one thing.
    In the right foreground of the grainy picture, a bit fuzzy because the