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afterthought,” said Gus. “The blood flow pattern from the victim’s head suggest it was placed under her head after death.”
    “Like a pillow,” said Joe.
    “Exactly,” said Svenson.
    “Sweet dreams,” said McKay.

4
    Twenty minutes later, just as Joe Mannix was heading back toward the Nagoshi residence to speak to the dead girl’s father, David Cavanaugh was eight miles east, jogging across the Boston College rugby field, getting ready to pack down in a scrum just inside the opposition’s half.
    It was the first game of the season, and judging by the fitness levels of the Boston College old boys and their Northeastern counterparts, most of these ex-law school peers had done very little training over the summer—if any.
    “Jesus,” said David’s friend Jay Negley, a big, blond chunk of a man who now worked for the Public Defender’s Office. “What the hell are they thinking scheduling the first game for 8 a.m.?” This was the umpteenth time Negley had complained about their early morning call, and David and his teammate Tony Bishop were getting tired of it.
    “They told us, Jay,” said David, looking back at his lumbering friend. “It’s a one-off. The freshmen have the field for the rest of the afternoon for some sort of orientation thing.”
    “Since when do a pack of wet-eared freshies take precedent over alumni?” asked Negley.
    “Seems to me you asked the same question in reverse about seventeen years ago,” said David.
    “Yeah, well, at least I’m consistent.” Jay grinned.
    “Anyway, Negley,” piped in Tony Bishop, who was definitely looking fitter than most of his maroon-and-yellow-jerseyed teammates, “no one asked you to pub crawl with your public defender buddies until three a.m.”
    “It was the boss’s birthday. What are ya gonna do?”
    “Work isn’t everything,” said Bishop as they reached the halfway line—a comment that sent David and Jay into fits of laughter considering Bishop, the blue-chip corporate attorney with a big harbor-view office and a paycheck to match, had built an entire lifestyle out of working as many $500-plus billable hours as possible.
    “What?” said Bishop blank-faced before releasing one of his killer smiles. “All right, you got me there, boys.”
    The scrum packed down hard with the usual grunt of testosterone, David and Tony taking their positions in the back row, with Jay—a front row prop—locking shoulders with the equally brawny boys from Northeastern.
    The Northeastern halfback fed the ball into the scrum and watched and waited for his teammates to boot it back for the inside center to receive out the other end and put the ball into play. But Jay managed to hook the ball with his right foot and send it in the other direction, back toward Tony and the rest of the Boston College pack. It was a good move. In a game like rugby, possession was everything. Now if only they could . . .
    Just then a beeping noise cut through the grunts with a sharp high-pitched squeal—and Tony, who obviously felt the vibration of his pager in his right pocket, lost concentration, collapsing the scrum in one almighty heap.
    “Shit!” he said as the ref gave a penalty to the other team. “Shit!” he said again as he read the look of frustration in his fellow teammates’ eyes. “Sorry, boys,” he said as he got to his feet just as the hooter sounded for halftime.
    “So work isn’t everything, hey Bishop?” teased Negley, catching up to his two friends as they left the field for the much needed ten-minute break. “At least I do my sucking up on my own time. Not in the middle of the first game of the season, against one of the better teams in this goddamned . . .”
    “What is it?” asked David, interrupting his speak-before-he-thinks friend. They stopped on the sideline, David grabbing three water bottles from an assortment of iced drinks in a cooler at the edge of the field.
    “What the . . . ,” said Tony, finally getting a chance to read the