It had been in the Sanitary Canal for some days and the last week had been warm. The face was swollen and purple. I wouldn’t have sworn to my own father in that shape, let alone a man I’d only met three or four times. The hair looked like Kruger’s and the general shape of the head, beneath its bruised distension, seemed the same.

I felt a little queasy. I’m not as used to looking at dead bodies as I got to be in my days on the county defender’s homicide task force. Mr. Contreras, by the greenish cast to his face, had likewise lost the immunity he’d acquired on the battlefields of Italy fifty years ago.

He cleared his throat and spoke in a husky voice. “It kinda looks like Mitch. I just can’t be sure. The face—the face …” He waved a hand and his legs buckled.

The attendant caught him before he fell. I found a chair against one wall and pushed it over. The attendant sat him down and pushed his head into his lap. In the bustle of looking after him, finding a glass of water, and getting him to drink it, my own nausea passed.

After a few minutes Mr. Contreras sat up. “I’m sorry. Can’t think what came over me. I don’t know if that’s Mitch or not. It’s kind of hard to tell. Could you look at his left hand, cookie? He sliced off the top of his middle finger maybe thirty years ago, working drunk like he did too many afternoons. I was there and I shoulda seen what was coming, got him off the mill, but I just didn’t think it was dangerous.” Tears that had nothing to do with the old injury were flowing down his cheeks.

I forced myself back to the distended body. The attendant pulled the plastic down so that the left hand was visible. The fingers, too, were swollen and discolored, but it was clear that the middle one was missing most of its first joint.

Finchley nodded at me across the gurney. “That’s good enough for me to go on. I need to ask the two of you some questions. Think your friend can keep going for another few minutes?”

Mr. Contreras joined in my assurances about his toughness. Finchley led the way to a barren lounge around the corner from the cooler. Mr. Contreras didn’t move with his usual bounce, but he’d recovered some of his color by the time we sat down.

“Not my lucky day,” Finchley said, “finding you on top of a stiff I’m sent to look at.”