The second fellow was African American, with a full head of springy gray hair, frosted with white. His beard and mustache were carefully trimmed, and he wore glasses with metal rims. He was probably in his seventies, decked out in a pale blue dress shirt under a herringbone sport coat with frayed cuffs. The third fellow sat cross-legged in the grass with his back to me, as round-shouldered and squat as a statue of Buddha. He wore an imitation leather jacket with a rip under one arm and a black knit watch cap pulled down to his brows.

I said, “Hi, guys. I don’t mean to intrude, but did any of you know the dead man who was found out there this morning in his sleeping bag?”

As I gestured toward the beach, it occurred to me that the detail about the sleeping bag was superfluous. How many dead men in any guise had been discovered at the beach in the past twenty-four hours?

The fellow with his back to me rotated to get a good look at me and I realized my mistake. It was a woman, who said, “What business is it of yours?”

“Sorry. I should have introduced myself. Kinsey Millhone. What’s your name?”

She turned away, murmuring a four-letter word, which was audible, owing to my keen appreciation of bad language. I’m occasionally rebuked for my salty tongue, but who gives a shit?

The white kid spoke up in an effort to present a friendlier point of view. Without quite meeting my gaze, he said, “That’s Pearl. This here’s Dandy and I’m Felix.”

“Nice meeting you,” I said.

In a gesture that I hoped would convey both goodwill and trust, I held out my hand. There was an awkward moment and then Felix got the message. He shook hands with me, smiling sheepishly, his gaze fixed on the grass. I could see grungy metal braces on his teeth. Was the welfare system in the business of correcting malocclusions these days? That was hard to believe. Maybe he’d been fitted as a teen and had run away from home before his dentist finished his work. His teeth did look straight, but I questioned the wisdom of sporting orthodontia for life.

Dandy, the older gentleman, spoke up, his tone mild. “Don’t mind Pearl. It’s almost supper time and she’s hypoglycemic. Brings out a side of her we’d just as soon not see. What’s your interest in our friend?”

“He had my name and phone number in his pocket. The coroner’s office asked me to ID the guy, but I’d never seen him before. Were you aware that he’d passed away?”