“Or more worse, sometimes hands no got. Sometimes feets no got.”

“In that case, dental records?”

“If got teeth. Buggah came here last week, no hands, no teeth. What can we do?”

“Crime victim?”

“Coulda been, was decompose, one month, maybe more, in Ke‘ehi Lagoon, was dredge up by one fisherman.”

“If you can’t ID a body, what do you do?”

“Keep ’em here in the locker. Wait for ohana. Maybe they mention a tattoo or a mark or scar.” Stickney consulted his papers. “Just one small tattoo on this body, like a name.”

“Show us, please.”

“Left arm—forearm.”

Stickney used his ballpoint to indicate the inch-square mottled patch, bluish on the shriveled skin.

“Looks like a Chinese character,” Olive said, and photographed it with her phone.

“I never think of that,” Stickney said. “In the file, the tattoo.”

“What happened to the head?” Olive asked, and heard Sharkey softly groan.

“Was autopsied. I open it myself. Vibrator saw. Brain was took out for lab work.”

“Did they find anything?”

“They look for abnormality. Tumor. Toxic substances, all that. Same with chest cavity. The guy got hit by one car, but why? Maybe he drunk? Maybe drugged out? We start with external metrics—weight, length, identifying marks.” He chopped with his clipboard. “Then we cut.”

“All those stitches. I mean, I work in a hospital, but that much suturing is pretty rare for us.”

“Remove front of rib cage, expose trachea and lungs and remove. Then abdominal. Liver, kidneys, intestines, what-not. Inspect da kine, send everything to lab.” He nodded, widening his eyes. “We more thorough. Reason you never see in your hospital. Autopsy is a big money loser.”

“I’ve seen enough,” Sharkey said, and crept to the door, retching.

“We put everything back. Then we sew up.”

“What did you find here?”

“Says here no alcohol. Not much food. Traces of drugs—suspected meth. Complete toxicology report no come through yet. But homeless.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I can always tell by da kine dirt.”

“Just that?”

“Skinny guy, needs shave, condition of hands and feets. Signs of negleck. Poor people, you can always know. Plus, no one claim him up to this point in time.”

“What about personal effects?”

“Nothing that we found. Nothing in pockets.”

“So what happens now?”

“Wait and see. I thought maybe the reason you come here with this consent authorization letter was to give us some help. Maybe you know him. Maybe you saw him.”

“We don’t know him,” Sharkey said in a choked voice, leaning against the far wall.

“What we’re maybe going to do is get the sketch artist from HPD to come over and do a picture. Like how he looked when he was alive. We’ll put the sketch in the Advertiser or MidWeek and see if anyone get memory jogged.” He turned to Sharkey. “What kine board you got? Wencil gonna ask me.”

Olive said, “Didn’t the fingerprints help?”