H Is for Homicide

very shrewd. In the company of civilians, his manner is usually remote, but in a squad room with his fellow officers, I've caught glimpses of the warmth and generosity that elicit much loyalty in his subordinates, qualities he never felt much need to trot out for me. This morning he seemed reasonably friendly, which is always worrisome.
    "Who's the guy?" I said finally.
    "Don't know. We haven't ID'd him yet. You want to take a look?" He jerked his head, indicating that I was to follow as he crossed to the body. I could feel my heart start to pump in my throat, the blood rushing to my face. In one of those tingling intimations of truth, I suddenly knew who the victim was. Maybe it was the familiar tire-tread soles of the running shoes, the elasticized rim of bright pink sweat pants, a glimpse of bare ankle showing dark skin. I focused on the sight with a curious sense of deja vu. "What happened to him?"
    "He was shot at close range, probably sometime after midnight. A jogger spotted the body at six-fifteen and called us. So far we don't have the weapon or any witnesses. His wallet's been lifted, his watch, and his keys."
    He leaned down and picked up the edge of the tarp, pulling it back to reveal a young black man, wearing sweats. As I glanced at the face in side view, I pulled a mental plug, disconnecting my emotions from the rest of my interior processes. "His name is Parnell Perkins. He's a California Fidelity claims adjuster, hired about three months ago. Before that, he worked as a rep for an insurance company in Los Angeles." The turnover among adjusters is constant and no one thinks anything about it.
    "He have family here in town?"
    "Not that I ever heard. Vera Lipton, the CF claims manager, was his immediate supervisor. She'd have his personnel file."
    "What about you?"
    I shrugged. "Well, I haven't known him long, but I consider him a good friend." I corrected myself into past tense with a small jolt of pain. "He was really a nice guy… pleasant and capable. Generous to a fault. He wasn't very open about his personal life, but then, neither am I. We'd have drinks together after work a couple of times a week. Sometimes the 'happy hour' stretched into dinner if both of us happened to be free. I don't think he'd really had time to form many close friendships. He was a funny guy. I mean, literally. The man made me laugh."
    Lieutenant Dolan was making penciled notes. He asked me some apparently unrelated questions about Parnel's workload, employment history, hobbies, girlfriends. Aside from a few superficial observations, I didn't have much to contribute, which seemed strange to me somehow, given the sense of distress I was feeling. I couldn't take my eyes off of Parnell. The back of his head was round, the hair cut almost to the scalp. The skin of the back of his neck looked soft. His eyes were open, staring blankly at the asphalt. What is life that it can vanish so absolutely in such a short period of time? Looking at Parnell, I was struck by the loss of animation, warmth, energy, all of it gone in an instant, never to return. His job was done. Now the rest of us were caught up in the clerical work that accompanies any death, the impersonal busywork generated by our transfer from aboveground to below.
    I checked the slot where Parnell usually parked his car. "I wonder where his car went. He has to drive in from Colgate, so it should be here someplace. It's American made, a Chevrolet, I think, eighty or eighty-one, dark blue."
    "Might have been stolen. We'll see if we can locate the vehicle. I don't suppose you know the license number offhand."
    "Actually, I do. It's a vanity plate – PARNELL – a present to himself on his birthday last month. The big three-oh."
    "You have his home address?"
    I gave Dolan the directions. I didn't know the house number, but I'd driven him home on a couple of occasions, once when his car was being serviced and once when he got way too tipsy to get behind the wheel. I also gave Dolan Vera's home number, which he jotted beside her name. "I've got a key to the office if you want to see his desk."
    "Let's do that."
    For the next week, the killing was all anybody talked about. There's something profoundly unsettling when murder comes that close to home. Parnell's death was chilling because it seemed so inexplicable. There was nothing about him to suggest that he was marked for homicide. He seemed a perfectly ordinary human being just like the rest of us. As far as anyone could tell