I have been that close to a pretty, nude, dead girl's face. So close I could smell the brackish water on her body. And I remained that close to her face or some minutes, taking notes for the medical examiner.

It was a Friday late afternoon and I would look up from the dead face to the brake lights of the cars of the gay commuters heading across the causeway to happy hour or home and then back down to the dead face, my ear as close to the mouth of the soft-spoken medical examiner as I could get so that I could hear and take her dictation. And then back up again to the brake lights. And then back down.