EAST GREENWICH — Michael M. Castosa was a punctual man. He never missed a day of work.

So when he didn’t show up for his waiter’s job at 20 Water Street restaurant on Oct. 8, his fellow employees worried and told the police.

A week ago, a fellow employee found Castosa, 48, dead at the bottom of a rarely used staircase inside the restaurant.

Police Lt. Thomas Marcello said Wednesday that it appears that Castosa died from head injuries consistent with a fall.

“This was very strange and very tragic. Based on what we saw, there was nothing to suggest it was nothing other than an accidental fall,” Marcello said. The state medical examiner said that the cause of death is “subdural hemorrhage with brain injury due to blunt impact.”

Castosa, a native of Cuba, had worked at the restaurant for 27 years. Although he was a waiter, he did all kinds of work at the restaurant, his coworkers said. Castosa was a known fixture downtown. He was single and had no children, according to Marcello.

Meaghan Lane, a waitress who worked with Castosa for several years, said when the close-knit group who worked with him found out Castosa was missing, they went out to look for him. When they learned he was dead, they gathered at one of his favorite restaurants “to remember an old friend and celebrate him.”

“He taught me what it means to be a dedicated worker. In all my years of waitressing, it is almost unheard of for someone to stay at one restaurant for several years let alone a couple of decades. Many of us will return to work there and the place won’t feel the same, but we will always remember him and the laughs he gave us,” she said.

Marcello said that the last time someone had seen Castosa was Oct. 5 at a local club. He said the police officers who knew Castosa from around town went to his old haunts and checked with acquaintances, but could not find him. “The trail went cold. There was no indication he was around,” Marcello said.

Then on Oct. 14, an employee checking to make sure the doors to the restaurant were locked found Castosa’s body at the base of an unused stairwell on the first floor.

“We figured he had fallen the night he disappeared or shortly thereafter,” Marcello said.

Marcello said it was unclear where Castosa was living. Some said he was staying with a friend. The police checked apartments at 162 Main St. and 239 Main St., where he had lived, but were told he no longer lived there.

A large portion of the restaurant’s second floor was being used for storage, he said. The stairwell where Castosa was found led to that area, Marcello said.

tpina@projo.com