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try to determine how he died and get a positive identification. Then we notify the next of kin."
    "You have to do that?"
    I nodded.
    "How old do you think he was?"
    I shrugged. "I don't know. Thirtyish. Somewhere around there."
    "And how do you go about finding next of kin?"
    "What's with all the questions, Derrick? Have you decided you want to be a cop when you grow up?"
    Derrick shook his head. "Nothing like that. I don't know what it is. I can't seem to get him out of my mind. It must be awful, having to talk to families like that, having to find them and tell them."
    "It's no picnic," I said. "You're certainly right about that."
    The conversation had set me to thinking about the dead man too. I remembered the sunlight glinting off his brass belt buckle. "He was an ironworker," I remarked offhandedly.
    Derrick looked thunderstruck. "One of those guys who builds tall buildings? The ones who walk out on those high beams? How in the hell did you figure that out—his build maybe?"
    I laughed. "His belt buckle," I said. "He was wearing one that said ‘Ironworker' on it."
    "Oh." Derrick sounded disappointed, as though he had wanted my answer to be more exotic or complex, something brilliant out of Sherlock Holmes. It occurred to me then that Parker was getting his eyes opened about the reality of being a cop the same way I was learning about the reality of movies and movie stars. The lesson was clear: nobody has life completely sewed up. Not even Derrick Parker.
    There was another lull in the conversation. I was thinking about Paul Kramer and about what an arrogant bastard he was, when Derrick interrupted my train of thought.
    "You must really like it," he said.
    "Like what?" I asked, puzzled. He had lost me.
    "What you do. I mean, I've seen your place, your car. You're not stuck being a cop because you have to be. You must get a kick out of tracking things down, out of figuring out what really happened."
    His comment made me laugh out loud. It was the other side of the coin, the same thing Kramer had said only turned around so it was a compliment instead of an insult. I had never given the matter much thought, but Derrick was right.
    "I do like it," I told him. "When I finally break the code and know who did what to who, when I figure out how all the pieces fit together, I'm on top of the world. Not even a screw-up prosecutor losing the case later in court can take that away from me."
    Derrick got up abruptly and signaled for the waitress. "I'm paying tonight," he said.
    Donna brought the check and Derrick Parker paid for both our meals. He left a sizable tip on the table when we walked out. "It's nice to go someplace and not be hounded for autographs," he said.
    The cast for Death in Drydock was staying in the Sheraton at Sixth and Pike. I dropped Derrick there and went home to Belltown Terrace. I was alone in the elevator all the way from P-4, the lowest level of the parking garage, to the twenty-fifth floor. Late at night, riding alone in the elevator is like being in a decompression chamber. I could feel the residue of the day's hassles dropping away from me. By the time I opened the door to my apartment, I was home. And glad to be there.
    The red light on my answering machine showed there had been a number of messages while I was out, but it was after one in the morning, far too late to return any calls, so I didn't even bother to play them back. Instead, I poured myself a nightcap and settled into my recliner.
    I was as bad as Derrick Parker. My mind was restless. No matter what, it kept coming back to the dead man in the water. The fact that he was none of my business didn't make any difference. It's not your case, Beaumont, I tried telling myself. He's not your problem. But the dead man wouldn't go away.
    Ironworker. What was it about ironworkers? There was something about ironworkers that had been trying to nose its way into my consciousness ever since Merrilee Jackson had read the word to me off the glinting belt