"Did you spend any time with him in the past few weeks?"

"Nothing to speak of. Mostly, I saw him in the context of his job. Not surprisingly, the county sheriff's department and the coroner's office are just like that," he said, crossing his fingers. "I'd run into him around town. Played pool with him once. Sucked back a few beers. Bunch of us did a weekend fishing trip last fall, but it's not like we laid around at night baring our souls. Fellow you ought to talk to is his partner, Rafe."

"Selma mentioned him. What's his last name?"

"LaMott."

I sat in the rental car in the Kirchner Sons parking lot, leafing through Tom Newquist's autopsy report, his death certificate spelling out the particulars of his passing. Age, date of birth, Social Security number, and his usual address; the place and cause of his death and the disposition of his remains. He'd arrived at Nota County Hospital ER as a DOA, autopsied a day later, buried the day after that. On paper, his progression to the grave seemed all too swift, but in truth, once death occurs, the human body is just a big piece of meat quickly going sour. There was something flat and abrupt in the details ... Tom Newquist deceased ... his life neatly packaged; beginning, middle, and end. Under the death certificate was a copy of a hand-scrawled note that I gathered had been written by the CHP officer who found him in his truck.

At appx 21 50 2/3 Ambulance call to roadside 7.2 mi. out Hiway 395. Subj in pick-up, removed to side of road. CRP started @ 22 00. EMT from Nota Lake taking over @ appx. 22 15. Subj DOA on arrival at Nota Lake ER. Coroner notified.

The notation was signed "J. Tennyson." The autopsy report followed; three typewritten pages detailing the facts as Trey Kirchner had indicated.

I'd been hoping the explanation was obvious, that Tom Newquist was caught in the grip of some terminal disease, his preoccupation as simple as an intimation of his mortality. This was not the case. If Selma's perceptions were correct and he was brooding about something, the subject wasn't an immediate threat to his health or well-being. It was always possible he'd been experiencing heart problems-angina pain, arrhythmia, shortness of breath on exertion. If so, he might have been weighing the severity of his symptoms against the consequences of consulting his physician. Tom Newquist might have seen enough death to view the process philosophically. He might have been more fearful of medical intervention than the possibility of dying.