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It was like watching two teenagers try to gather the courage to ask each other to the prom. What was up with them?
    “You didn’t have to come,” Matt said. “I mean, it’s not like you had to pronounce the death here, right? You’re just getting wet.”
    “No, it’s okay. I wanted to see… the body.” Annie bent to touch one of the body’s hands just as Matt cleaned some dirt off it. Their fingers touched and they both withdrew quickly.
    “I’ll be done in a minute,” Matt blurted.
    “Right! Right.” Annie stood up and turned to the two men who accompanied her. “Let’s open the stretcher,” she said. “Matt will be done soon.”
    Mitchell circled the grave, then turned to Jacob once more.
    “Looks like she was wearing running clothes,” he said.
    “So she was probably jogging,” Jacob said.
    “Probably.”
    “She went jogging in the park, and the killer waited for her here.”
    “I’m guessing it was very early in the morning, or late in the evening,” Mitchell said. “There weren’t many people in the park.”
    “And after she was killed, he buried her in the same spot,” Jacob said.
    “Right.”
    They stayed on the scene while Annie collected the body, placing it in a black body bag. Matt bagged a car key found in the body’s back pocket and gathered some additional samples. The two detectives and two crime scene technicians canvassed the crime scene. In addition to the beer bottles and the condom, they found an old dry pen, a cigarette stub and a candy bar wrap, all within fifty feet of the grave.
    There was no ID on the body.
     
    There was no reason to rush the investigation. The crime wasn’t fresh—Annie had quickly determined it was committed at least a week before—and there was no easy way to identify the body, no family to notify. In short, there was no excuse for paid overtime. The chief was quick to inform Captain Bailey that his squad could wait and start working the case on Monday.
    Unsurprisingly, no one argued.
    What was left of the weekend passed uneventfully. Though they had seen the dead, buried, decaying body, the detectives and the crime scene crew refused to let the incident mar their weekend plans.
    But death can trickle in during quiet, thoughtful moments. It doesn’t ask for permission, often sneaking into people’s minds before they notice it is there.
    During Saturday dinner, Jacob’s daughter Amy asked him to pass the salad bowl. She repeated the request three times; each time her father stared through her, as if she had turned invisible. Finally, he cleared his throat and passed over the salt shaker. Amy exchanged a look with Marissa, Jacob’s wife. The rest of the dinner was a silent affair.
    Matt was driving down the highway when a huge surge of loneliness hit him. He got off at the next exit, and stopped at the side of the road, tears springing from his eyes. He took out his phone and thought about calling someone. He scrolled down the contact list, seeing only one name he really wanted to call. But he didn’t. Instead he opened Twitter, tried to think of something witty or thoughtful to say, found nothing, and eventually retweeted a tweet from the Oatmeal. For some reason, this made him feel better, and he got back on the road.
    Mitchell and Pauline were kissing, naked in bed. Pauline’s hand snaked along the back of his leg, her fingers lightly touching his thigh, and suddenly he moved away.
    “What’s wrong?” she asked.
    “Nothing,” he said, unable to explain that her body suddenly reminded him of the dead body he had seen earlier, the remnants of the sports bra failing to cover the girl’s decomposing flesh. He kissed her lightly on the lips and she smiled, her eyes concerned.
    She fell asleep with Mitchell hugging her from behind, listening intently to her deep breaths, wondering if the dead girl had someone who missed her body, her warmth, her love.
    Annie, who had seen more death than any of the others, was mostly undisturbed. But