much in the area to seek. I studied my Thomas Brothers map. I wanted to talk to the people who worked at the flower mart, then search the area for businesses that might have been open.
I turned across traffic into the alley, and parked. When I got out of my car, a thin man in a form-fit pink shirt came out a service door. His arms were filled with cardboard boxes that had been flattened, and his face pinched into a pruned knot when he saw me.
"You can't park there. They'll tow it."
"Police business. A murder occurred here at two forty-five this morning. The police will be around to talk to you."
"Someone was already here. A tall man. He was brusque and rude, and that doesn't look like a police car."
I drive a 1966 Sting Ray convertible, which would probably look more like a police car if I washed it. It's yellow.
"It's not, and I'm not, but I'm looking into the case. Were you here at your shop around three this morning?"
He looked irritated at having been asked. I guess the rudeness had put him off.
"I've already talked to the police. Of course I wasn't here. I don't sleep here. I wasn't here when it happened, and I don't know anything about it."
I gave him what I hoped was a friendly smile, trying to ease his irritation.
"All right. Maybe you can help me out with something. I'm trying to figure out why the victim was in this area at that hour. I was going to look around for businesses that might have been open at that hour. You know of anything?"
His faced tightened and he seemed even more irritated.
"No, I don't, and you can't leave your car. Delivery trucks can't get through with your car."
Thirty feet away, a man had bled to death from a bullet to the chest, but here was this guy, pissy. I studied the space between my car and the far side of the alley. There was plenty of room.
"There's no place else to park, and I won't be long."
"See the sign on the wall, 'No Parking? If you don't move your car, I'll call the police."
I stopped trying to be friendly, and told him to call. People like him give me hives.
I took longer than I needed just to spite him. I spent two hours walking the surrounding twelve square blocks, but counted only six restaurants and two Starbucks, none of which would have been open at two forty-five in the morning. There was no reason for the John Doe to have been in the area unless he was on his way to somewhere else.
After a while I went back to the alley. My car had not been towed, but a mountain of garbage bags was piled behind it. I guess the man in the pink shirt figured if he couldn't have me towed, he would block me in. Pissy.
I went to the Dumpster. The alley had been washed clean after the police released the scene. The blood was gone, and disinfectant had been sprayed. No chalk marked the body's outline and no evidence buttons marked a telltale trail of forensics, but veins in the tarmac remained damp with the disinfectant.
I looked up and down the alley, trying to imagine it at two forty-five that morning. It would not have been an inviting place to walk, but fear is relative. The cross streets were well lit, but John Doe #05-1642 chose darkness. Maybe the darkness meant safe harbor, or maybe he had been chased. The shooter might have already been in the alley when the victim entered, resulting in a crime of opportunity, but most homicides are committed by family, friends, or acquaintances; the odds promised that the victim and the shooter knew each other. If they entered together, the alley would not have seemed so foreboding. The victim and his killer might have sought out the darkness together, but to what end? I thought over what Diaz described: She heard the shot, found him no more than three minutes later, and asked what had happened. Instead of telling her who shot him or how it happened, he told her he was trying to find me. Identifying me as his son, and saying he wanted to make up for the lost years were his dying words. I didn't like knowing that. Had he entered this particular alley to find me? Did he believe he was going to someplace where I would be? Had the shooter