Archie turned to Heil. The two soldiers needed to be interviewed before they got to talking and merged details. Even the most well-meaning witnesses, given the chance to exchange versions, would adapt aspects of the others’ memories as their own. It was subconscious. Two people see a bank robber. They talk about it. One saw a man in an orange shirt with a mustache. The other saw a man in an orange shirt, but didn’t see his face. Pretty soon they’ll both swear on their mother’s lives that the guy had a mustache, and they’ll tell you all about it—shape, color, whether it was neatly trimmed. The guy never had a mustache. But the first person gets it wrong, and it goes viral.

Heil seemed to know exactly what Archie was thinking. “I’m on it,” he said, and he pulled out his notebook and led Carter away.

Archie turned to Anne. Having worked the Beauty Killer case, he’d seen more bodies than most detectives saw in their entire careers. He’d never gotten used to it, but he’d learned to mind it less. “Let’s take a look,” he said.

“Thought you’d never ask,” Anne said.

“What about me?” Susan said.

Archie hesitated. He had no reason to let Susan see the body. She wasn’t even a reporter anymore. He’d already exposed her to enough death.

“I found Henry,” Susan said. “I might be able to help. To recognize a clue or something.”

“Fine,” Archie said. He wasn’t in the mood to argue. “Try not to step on any evidence.”

They walked to the body, and Archie pulled the blanket back. The smell of decomposing flesh blew forward, a faint whiff of old meat.

He had smelled much, much worse. This was dank and sour, but not very far along. The body was relatively fresh. The young man still looked human. Archie didn’t see any misshapen flesh where gases had built up. No bluish stains where blood had settled. Rigor hadn’t set in. Cold water could slow that process some. He’d been beaten up a little. There was an open wound on his forehead, deep enough that Archie could see a flash of white skull. But there was little blood, and Archie guessed the wound was postmortem, a result of getting knocked around in the logjam.

“What do you think?” Archie asked Anne. “A few hours?”

“Seems right to me,” she said.

“Me, too,” said Susan. Archie slid her a look. “What?” she said. “I know a little about forensics.”

The blanket was still in Archie’s hand and he pulled it all the way off and dropped it to the side of the body.