“This is my partner—he’s mentioned in the authorization. We’re here to get an update on one of your pending cases, a body that was brought in.”

“I’m reading all that here,” the clerk said peevishly, prodding the paper, head down. “Take a seat.”

“The medical examiner,” Olive said. “We need to see him.”

“Chief medical examiner,” the clerk said, still pondering the paper, and without looking up added, “We real backed up today. If this letter approved I check if anyone free to assist you in your requess. You need see Stickney.” Only then did she raise her eyes. “Sit, please.”

Sharkey had already found a chair and was staring vacantly at the floor. Olive drew up a stool next to him. A framed announcement on the wall was headed FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQS) ABOUT AUTOPSIES, the first question being, Where is our loved one being taken? Olive looked away.

“It’s going to be all right,” she said in a voice so raw it was like a surrendering statement of utter hopelessness.

She raised her hand to touch his cheek, and he reacted as though he were about to be slapped and, wincing, looked pained. That made her all the more tender toward him. Her instinct was to hold him, caress his head and whisper reassurance. When he bowed as though in despair, clutching his hands, his tattoos looked frivolous and mocking, like graffiti.

So they sat, side by side, slightly apart, small mother, big boy, twitching at times, saying nothing, as though grieving, while people came and went, murmuring at the counter, taking no notice of them, rattling papers, and it seemed they were perhaps in mourning too.

Olive glanced up. Can we come and see him/her? was the second question in the framed announcement.

After twenty minutes or more—Olive couldn’t tell; she had begun to meditate, relishing the silence of the wait—the door to the inner office was thrust open by a man who held it ajar with one hand, a clipboard in his other hand.

“Joe Sharkey,” he said with a summoning shout.

“And I’m Olive.”

“You Braddah Joe?” the man said, a smile forming on his lips. “How’s it? I’m Stickney.”

“Are you the chief medical examiner?” Olive asked.

But the man—potbellied, in green scrubs—was awkwardly hugging Sharkey while still clutching the clipboard.

“Hi, Stickney. Aloha.”

“I think maybe you know my cousin Wencil Makani. Big surfer. He seen you on the Pipe so many fricken times. He say was awesome—he so stoked.”

As the man backed away to behold Sharkey, Olive reached and flicked the clipboard, saying, “We’re here to see the death certificate of this person.”

“You make us proud, brah,” Stickney said, jerking the clipboard Olive had touched and holding it against his loose shirt. “At your age, still riding monsters.”

“Riding monsters,” Sharkey said in a small ironic voice.