I did not want to remember him alive as I made annotations and measurements on diagrams fastened to my clipboard. But a part of my mind tackled my will, and I returned to the last occasion I had seen him. It was the week before Christmas and I was in my Richmond office with my back to the door, sorting through slides in a carousel. I did not hear him behind me until he spoke, and when I turned around, I found him in my doorway, holding a potted Christmas pepper thick with bright red fruit.

"You mind if I come in?" he asked. "Or do you want me to walk all the way back to my car with this." I said good afternoon to him while I thought with frustration of the front office staff. They knew not to let reporters beyond the locked bulletproof partition in the lobby unless I was asked, but the female clerks, in particular, liked Eddings a little too much. He walked in and set the plant on the carpet by my desk, and when he smiled, his entire face did.

"I just thought there ought to be something alive and happy in this place." His blue eyes fixed on mine.

"I hope that isn't a comment about me." I could not help but laugh.

"Are you ready to turn him?"

The body diagram on my clipboard came into focus, and I realized Danny was speaking to me.

"I'm sorry," I muttered.

He was eyeing me with concern while Roche wandered around as if he had never been inside a morgue, peering through glass cabinets and glancing back in my direction.

"Everything all right?" Danny asked me in his sensitive way.

"We can turn him now," I said.

My spirit shook inside like a small hot flame. Eddings had worn khaki range pants and a black commando sweater that day, and I tried to remember the look in his eyes. I wondered if there had been anything behind them that might have presaged this.

Refrigerated by the river, his body was cold to my touch, and I began discovering other aspects of him that distorted the familiar, making me feel even more disturbed.