03/06/2022 Snippet, THE DECALOGUE KILLER.

The old story wasn’t working. This one is.

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Thursday, 3 AM.  The city quiets down, this time of night. Oh, it never wants to, like a child who keeps yawning for five minutes more; but when it just can’t stay awake any longer, it collects itself and settles in for a few hours of fitful street, before rising in dawn’s early light. Maybe the eyes are more red than bright, and the tail’s still ragged in places, but this city needs all the beauty sleep it can get. So when it sleeps, it sleeps deep.

The guy in the alley in front of me was sleeping deep, too. The kind no alarm clock can shift. I wasn’t immediately sure about the cause of death, although I figured the pool of blood underneath him was a clue. It was for sure the cops weren’t treating this as somebody accidentally falling onto a wall.

One of those cops detached herself from the crime scene and strode her way over to where I was standing and scribbling notes. “Oh, it’s you, Joe,” she said. “I don’t suppose you wanna confess now, save us all some time?”

“And a good morning to you too, Sergeant Meyer.” I peered past her, trying to scribble details about the crime scene before this turned into a for-real shoo-off. She nicely gave me a whole thirty seconds before her foot started tapping. “All right, all right. You know how it is. I gotta get it down in my head, make sure it’s fresh. Right.” I looked at her. “So, you’re who I’m interviewing?”