The rookie, Giometti, was coming back from the fence that fronted the canal.

“You all right?” Griffin asked.

The kid tried to look brave, even smile, but it didn’t work. What he looked, even in the phony bright lights that had been set up for the techs and photographers, was ashen. His lower lip hung loosely off his mouth, as though he’d been hit and it had swollen. His eyes still had that watery look some people get after they throw up.

“Sorry,” he said.

Griffin turned back to look at the body. “Happens to everybody. You get used to it.”

No, he thought, that wasn’t true. You don’t ever get used to it. What you do is get so you don’t react the same way. Your stomach still wants to come up at you, you still get that dizzy, lightheaded yawing feel that you’re going to go out, but if you want to stay working as a homicide cop, what you do is move that feeling into another plane.

You observe small things better, maybe, which keeps you from seeing the big picture that will make you sick. Or you deny altogether and make light of the gore-something the TV cops do so well. Or you just look at it, say yeah, and concentrate on your job, then go drink it off later. Griffin knew all that. Still, he put his hand on his new partner’s shoulder and repeated, “You get used to it.”

The body lay on its side, covered now with the tarp. Giometti kneeled down next to it.

“You don’t want to look again, though,” Griffin said.

“I better, I think.”

“He ain’t changed. Come on, get up. Check the Polaroids you want to get used to it.”

Giometti took a breath, thinking about it, then straightened up without lifting the tarp. “Why’d he want to do that?”

“What?” Griffin asked.

“Kill himself like that, out here. Nowhere.”

They were in a good-sized parking lot between two office buildings in China Basin. In the middle of the lot a car registered to Edward Cochran, the presumed deceased, sat waiting for the tow truck to take it down to the city lot. Griffin and Giometti had looked it over, finding nothing unusual in or about it except for its distance from the body.