On the third of January, a leaden, blustery day, two tourists from Covington, Tennessee, removed their sensible shoes to go strolling on the beach at Key Biscayne.

When they got to the old Cape Florida lighthouse, the young man and his fiancee sat down on the damp sand to watch the ocean crash hard across the brown boulders at the point of the island. There was a salt haze in the air, and it stung the young man’s eyes so that when he spotted the thing floating, it took several moments to focus on what it was.

“It’s a big dead fish,” his fiancee said. “Maybe a porpoise.”

“I don’t believe so,” said the young man. He stood up, dusted off the seat of his trousers, and walked to the edge of the surf. As the thing floated closer, the young man began to wonder about his legal responsibilities, providing it turned out to be what he thought it was. Oh yes, he had heard about Miami; this sort of stuff happened every day.

“Let’s go back now,” he said abruptly to his fiancee.

“No, I want to see what it is. It doesn’t look like a fish anymore.”

The young man scanned the beach and saw they were all alone, thanks to the lousy weather. He also knew from a brochure back at the hotel that the lighthouse was long ago abandoned, so there would be no one watching from above.

“It’s a dead body,” he said grimly to his fiancee.

“Come offit.”

At that instant a big, lisping breaker took the thing on its crest and carried it all the way to the beach, where it stuck-the nose of the dead man grounding as a keel in the sand.

The young man’s fiancee stared down at the corpse and said, “Geez, you’re right.”

The young man sucked in his breath and took a step back.

“Should we turn it over?” his fiancee asked. “Maybe he’s still alive.”