"Well, the only someones here today are you and me."

I smiled at him. "But thank you for the thought, and I certainly don't want you to slip. How's the knee?"

"I don't think it's ever going to get better. It's already been almost three months and I still can barely go down stairs.

"Patience, keep up your physical exercise, and yes, it will get better," I repeated what I had said before. "Have you rayed him yet?"

Danny had worked diving deaths before. He knew it was highly improbable that we were looking for projectiles or broken bones, but what an X-ray might reveal was pneumothorax or a mediastinal shift caused by air leaking from lungs due to barotrauma.

"Yes, ma'am. The film's in the developer." He paused, his expression turning unpleasant. "And Detective Roche with Chesapeake's on his way. He wants to be present for the post."

Although I encouraged detectives to watch their cases autopsied, Roche was not someone I particularly wanted in my morgue.

"Do you know him?" I asked.

"He's been down here before. I'll let you judge him for yourself."

He straightened up and gathered his dark hair into a ponytail again, because strands had escaped and were getting in his eyes. Lithe and graceful, he looked like a young Cherokee with a brilliant grin. I often wondered why he wanted to work here. I helped him roll the body into the autopsy suite, and while he weighed and measured it, I disappeared inside the locker room and took a shower. As I was dressing in scrubs, Marino called my pager.

"What's up?" I asked when I got him on the phone.

"It's who we thought, right?" he asked.

"Tentatively, yes."

"You posting him now?"

"I'm about to start," I said.

"Give me fifteen minutes. I'm almost there."

"You're coming here?" I said, perplexed.

"I'm on my car phone. We'll talk later. I'll be there soon.