The warm glow from the zippo that lit my stoogie caressed my chin as I pulled it up to my face. A body had been found in an alley on 66th street, and my partner in ‘crime’ and I had been called up to investigate. Me, half asleep with the radio as white noise. My co-host of what never is an easy turn of events most likely with another dame he’d met. He’d been been transferred from traffic to homicide. He was good. Our talkies in our cars muttered inaudible sentences and the rain hit the dumpster, resignating gunshots, A sound i’m all too familiar with now. A lamppost flickered in the pale moonlight, matching each step we took closer. Somethin’ was off. You could smell it in the air, behind the scent of wet concrete and oxidised blood. “Jesus.” muttered Donnie, in his cautious approach.

Bullet wound penetrated the gut. Painful. Slow. No murder weapon. I wondered at the time, if it would’ve been a good idea to ask the club further down if she’d left with anyone, considering the distinctive insignia on her wrist of ‘Jelleto’s Jazz Club’, a stamped mark for returning visitors Don would know. A Friday night like this, maybe it would’ve been better if she did; maybe that’s what she did. But I wasn’t prepared to let my sanctimonious buddy here take the collar on this one, he’d already taken the Richardson Racketeering bust, and any more weight on his shoulders would’ve opened another murder case, titled ‘Detective kills partner’. Id be sure to follow it up after leaving the scene. I never did like asking the coroner about semen traces, but it had to be done with a city full of sin like this one was. Her purse: few dollars left from the night. Matches, no ciggies- this just wasn’t your night gall was it. Licence What had happened to you, ‘Cecilia Roberts’.

The chalk outline representing where the body lay. Police tape sealed of the area. We had missed something; at least that’s what the precinct means when they tell you to review a case. Should I look through the trash?! Hard to explain that one as official police business. End up having some old lady be the reason I lose my shield. Without the rain everything really runs up your nose, regardless a’ how much hair was on your lip. Tempting to use the barell of my 44. to rummage through it. My poison was scotch, not rat piss. I was used to the smell of old tenderised meat, because sometimes it’s a few days before poor soul’s shells are found, so at least the salmonella scent from ‘Bob’s Burgers’ waste had no long lasting effects.

I assured myself and the young Don how rarely this ever happens. It’s unfortunate that the boy even had to see such scenes, but this was his passion, as was mine, or so I thought. Time to look broader, heh, ‘broad’. The fire escape… I don’t remember the ladder being released that night, but Donnie protested- he’d watched us the whole time. “Let it go, Ron.”                                                                                                              “That’s the same thing my ex-wife said. Turns out she lied a lot too.”

*click*