He longed to touch the body, to throw himself on it. But he knew the repugnance he would feel at its stillness, its death.

“It is my son,” he said.

Sergeant Rider moved forward efficiently, turning him from the death table, motioning for the mortician to cover the body, which he did.

“I’m very sorry—he was a fine-looking boy,” Rider said. And then it was right down to business again. “I forgot to ask you before—I’ll need some identification.”

Hook took out his wallet and tried to hand it to the sergeant, but he would not take it.

“Just some I.D.,” he said. “Driver’s license will do.”

Hook fumbled through his wallet till he found it. His hands were like baseball gloves. The sergeant checked the card, and gave it back.

“Fine. Now I’ll just need your signature here, for the boy’s effects.” He gave Hook a ball pen and held a form up against the wall while Hook signed it. Then he gave Hook the sealed manila envelope.

“The body was posted this afternoon,” he said. “I don’t have the full report yet, but on the phone the doc told me the cause of death was a broken neck and general trauma. The boy fell about a hundred feet onto the beach. Alcohol in the blood was point-o-four. Which would figure out at about one-o at the time of death. If he wasn’t drunk, he was damn close to it. Anyway, we’re done with the body. As of now it’s yours. Why don’t you settle shipping arrangements with Bowman right now? I’ll wait in the reception room.”

Hook looked at the sergeant. “I have to make a phone call too,” he said.

“Sure. No problem. Take your time.”

After selecting a casket and paying Mr. Bowman to hold the body through another day, when he planned to fly back to Illinois with it, Hook called home from the mortician’s private office. Aunt Marian answered, accepting the collect call in the smallest voice he had ever heard from her. He told her the body was Chris’s, and there was a long interval then, over a minute, when no one was able to speak on the other end and he could hear them only in the background, especially Jennifer, crying the word no! over and over, and Aunt Marian trying to comfort her but at times breaking down herself. Hook strained to hear Bobby’s voice among them, but he could not and he wanted to shout into the phone for Aunt Marian and Arnie to look after the boy above all else. Then Arnie came on, and Hook spoke with him for a few moments and then told him that he wanted to talk to Bobby and Jennifer. In turn, Hook told them that they all still had each other and that they needed each other now more than ever and that he needed them too. Finally he told Aunt Marian that he planned to fly home with the body the next day and that he would call again before leaving and tell them when he would arrive, and he asked that Arnie make arrangements with the Rohmer Funeral Home in Banner Hill.