“Write down whatever you encounter, whether you understand it or not.”

Mercifully, Heretic looked away. “A gray cap and a man. Dead in such a manner. We need to know everything.”

“Yessir,” Finch said. He couldn’t keep the grimace off his face.

Heretic seemed to take it for a smile. As he walked past on his way to the door, he patted Finch’s elbow. Finch shivered. A touch like wet, dead leaves sewn together and stuffed with meat.

“Report in the morning,” Heretic said. “Report and report and report, Finch.” The laughter again.

Then Heretic was gone. The hallway shadows ate him up, the apartment door opening and closing.

Finch could hear his own breathing. Shallow. The sudden panicked drumming of his heart. The butterfly blinks of the Partial, still snapping photographs.

Took a breath. A second. Closed his eyes.

A sunny day by the river. A picnic lunch. A tree with shade. Long, cool grass. With Sintra.

2

No obvious bullet or stab wounds. No tattoos or other marks. Grunting with the effort, Finch turned the man over for a second. He seemed heavier than he should be. Skin warm, the flesh solid. From the position of the arms, Finch thought they might be broken. A discoloration at the edge of the man’s mouth. Dried blood? When Finch was done, the man settled back into position as if he’d been there a hundred years.

No point checking the gray cap. Their skin didn’t retain marks or burns or stab wounds. Anything like that sealed over. Besides, the cause of the gray cap’s death was obvious. Wasn’t it? Still, he didn’t want to assume murder. Yet.

Out of the four “murders” in his sector over the past year, two had been suicides and one had been natural causes. The fourth solved in a day. Disappearances were another subject altogether.

He stood. Looked down at the tableau formed by the dead. Something about it. Almost posed. Almost staged. But also: the man’s neck, half hidden by the shirt collar. Was it … twisted? Who could tell with the gray cap. Impossibly long, smooth, gray neck. (Did that mean Heretic was old, this one young?) But also torqued.

Finch glanced up at the tired, sagging ceiling. About ten feet.

“They look like,” Finch said. “They look like they both fell.”

Could that be the sound the neighbors heard?

“The spore camera’s first shot is of them on the floor,” the Partial said.

Finch had forgotten him.

Turned, stared at the Partial. The Partial stared back. Taking Finch’s photo with each blink.

“I could…”

“What?” the Partial said. “You could what?”

I could tear out your eye with my bare hands. Not a thought he’d seen coming.

“You know what I think?” the Partial said.