I opened the rear door of the car. I made myself grasp his heavy ankles. Rigor had begun to set in. It took all my strength to pull the bulky body free of the cramped space between the back seat and the back of the front seat. It came free suddenly, thudding to the ground. I released the ankles and staggered back. There had been something under the body. Friction had pulled it toward me. It rested on the car floor, half in and half out of the car--a short, bright length of galvanized pipe with a dark brown smear at one end. I left the body there and went to see where I would put it. There was a great splintered hole in the back of the barn. I stepped up and through the hole. The floor felt solid. Daylight came brightly through the holes in the roof. I went back to the body again. It was not hard to drag it to the hole. But getting it inside the barn was difficult. I had to lift it about three feet. I puzzled over how to do it. Finally I turned him around and propped him up in a sitting position, his back to the hole. I climbed up over him, then reached down and got his wrists. I pulled him up over the edge and then dragged him back into the darkness. There was some hay on the floor, musty and matted. I covered the body with it. I went out and got the piece of pipe, using a dry leaf to pick it up. I dropped it into the hay that covered the body. I went back out into the sunlight. I wondered about Grassman. I wondered what compulsion had made him choose his line of work. Dirty, monotonous, and sometimes dangerous work. From the look of the man as he talked to us up at the lake, I guessed that he had no idea it would end like this. He had looked tough and confident. This body under the straw was a far cry from the fictional private eyes, the smart ones and the suave ones and the gamy ones. His story had ended. He would not sit up, brush the straw out of his eyes and reach for either blonde or bottle. Leaving him there had about it the faint flavor of burial, as though solemn words should be said. I inspected the car. The floor rug was stained and spotted in four places. I couldn't see any on the seat, or on the insides of the doors. I took the floor rug out and rolled it up. I put it beside me in the front seat. I sat and listened to the quietness, straining to hear any sound of car motor laboring on the hills. I heard only the birds and the sound of wind.