Among fictional live bodies lies a fictionally dead one, br made so not by itself but by one or more bodies who br had a mind or minds, means, and opportunity br to kill. Identification ensues. Who is dead, who br killed, who will mislead, confess, and reveal? Enter br br empiricism, wearing a thick coat and looking br around with those unmistakable Aristotelian br eyes. The empiricist is a foe of secrecy, a friend br of plodders who trod paths of data, and an assistant br to the plot. In death, on ice, a body in this fiction br is information incarnate. It is cause br br for apprehensiveness and apprehension, br justice and correction. Ah, there in a meadow br of likelihood stands a murderer, defined br by spores of imperfection and pride, caught br by humble fact, the residue of act. Under br br arrest, a fictional transgressor is held, as I, br satisfied, hold the soft paperback book in my hands.