“Damn near a total blackout! Can someone get some light over here?” the detective yells. His flashlight is too dim to illuminate the area effectively. Heavy rain captures the light and distorts it, making it difficult to see in the nearly complete darkness of the blacked-out alley. Several more flashlights are turned on, casting blurry beams in the alley. “More light!” the detective demands. An astute patrolman quickly turns on the headlamps of his cruiser. Another cruiser soon follows, the beams cutting through the rain and illuminating the crime scene. Chaos is ignited.


“Jesus Christ on a motorbike!” the detective says. He looks over a grizzly scene. He is looking down at a bloody torso. Only the upper left arm remains attached to the body. Most of the rest of the parts are scattered around in the alley, lying in puddles of contaminated rain and fetid grease and garbage scraps from the nearby dumpster. Another detective, who has an umbrella, joins him. The umbrella does not appear to be helping much.


“Holy shit,” says the detective with the umbrella. “This is a mess.”


“Twenty-two years, I have never seen anything like this. What do you make of it?”


“Extreme anger. Total disregard for life.”


“Doesn't take a psychologist to figure that out. Hey, I think Ramirez has had it,” says the first detective, nodding his head in the direction across the alley. A patrolman who had been putting up crime tape runs to the corner of the alley. Standing under a wall of water streaming over broken spouting, he vomits. The cascade of rain washes away the spit and bile, sending it away in little rivulets.


The two detectives chuckle at the scene of the soaked patrolman bending over in retching spasms. Why are they laughing? I guess when you deal with the worst in the world, you must find ways to keep it light. The scene represents everything that is wrong in the world. It is rot and detritus. It is stench and filth twisted by a baptism of rain. It is body and discontinuity. It is meaning discarded into the abyss. Still, it seems a little cruel to make poor Ramirez the butt of the joke. Some people are destined to live. Some are destined to die. Some are destined to vomit under a waterfall and be teased about it, I guess.


With the headlamps from the cruisers lighting up the boneyard, the detectives begin directing officers here and there. Like a bustle of ants, they begin to work, collecting body parts, combing the alley for clues. One of them--not Ramirez--even climbs into the dumpster and roots around the in the soupy filth.


“The rain is going to wash away all of the forensic evidence,” says the detective with the unhelpful umbrella.


“Great time to kill someone--the worst rain of the year in a city with rolling blackouts,” says the first detective. He pulls the collar of his trench coat up around his neck and shivers.


“Do you think he planned it this way?”


“For the blackouts, yes. For the rain, probably not. How would he know? That's just a bonus.”


“Lucky for him,” says the detective with the umbrella. They walk slowly around the crime scene, being careful not to get in the way of the forensic teams that are now on scene. Yellow plastic markers are carefully placed at each point where something important is found. A finger, number 17. A lower leg, number 23. The body parts are scattered like roadkill. A photographer takes multiple shots of each bit of evidence. The flash of the camera bulbs are like miniature bursts of lightning cutting through the rain in the alley. The photos will be marred by the heavy rain. Each body part, each clue is a universe, full of clues and full of its own chaos. Each flash of camera light is its own momentary storm. Each photograph is frozen in time. Posterity. Meaningless posterity.



A woman in a blue coat approaches the detectives. “This is going to take all night,” she says. “The scene is scattered all over the alley.”


“What kind of person would do this?” asks the detective.


“Someone with a message to send,” says the detective huddling under his umbrella. “Is there anyone else you can call?” he asks the women in the blue jacket.


“I've got everyone out here now. I think Ramirez threw up. I sent him back to the station to clean up,” she said. The two men snicker and smile.


“What message?” asks the detective, pulling h is collar around his neck again as the rain drips down his back.


“Too early to tell, but we'll figure it out,” says the woman.


“Are we going to get anything?” asks the detective, pulling his collar around his neck again.


“The rain has washed away most of the blood,” says the woman in the blue coat.


“And the forensic evidence,” says the wet detective.


The three turn back toward the chaos. Bulbs flash, waterfalls of rain gush over broken flashing. Vomiting police; body parts scattered like roadkill throughout the alley. Pieces of fingers and tufts of hair. Discarded carryout rotting in a puddle next to a foot underneath the dumpster. I stand deep in the shadows, beyond the range of light. They have everything wrong. They are looking for meaning where none exists. They are looking for reason where reason certainly fails. That is why they will never catch me.