Free Richmond Noir by Andrew Blossom

careful because “his midsection’s smashed up pretty bad.” The cop who’s going to question me keeps me waiting while he gives the relevant facts over the phone to some anxious superior somewhere: a presumed illegal, no identification, appears to have died elsewhere of undetermined causes. He ends with, “Yes sir, I will, sir,” repeated several times like a ritual response.
    Most everyone else has gone with the body back through the woods and over the bridge spanning the tracks and the canal, up a steep trail to the parking lot. Off in the distance you can hear someone shouting, “Watch it! Watch it! Watch it!” We’re standing on the beach beside where I found the body.
    The cop asks me what I know, and I tell him. I tell him about the wood chips. He doesn’t seem particularly interested. “Do you think it’s a homicide?” I ask.
    “We haven’t ruled it out. We plan an immediate autopsy to determine cause of death. We don’t want any idle speculation in the press.”
    “What happens if it is homicide?”
    “Since we don’t know who the man was, the investigation would be difficult. We hope someone will come forth with information, of course. It’s not likely in my experience, with cases like these, but you never know.”
    “Cases like these?”
    “Victims from the illegal immigrant community. They fear bringing any scrutiny upon themselves. Understandable. Times like these. To tell you the truth, I doubt anything will come of it. We’ve got nothing to go on.”
    Times like these. I suppose that phrase means the strident debate over “illegals,” as if that’s the single quality that matters. I would share with him what I think of these times, but what point is there telling a cop what you think of the law? He’s only entitled to one opinion. In the silence between us, I hear the river. It’s never completely silent down by the river. Dog and I used to sit on the beach and listen, or maybe for her it was the smells. Whatever it was, it always made her smile.
    I walk home across Byrd Park where dog used to retrieve Fris-bee, ball, stick, anything, until she got too old. I imagine, if she were here, I’d talk it over with her. She’d agree, I imagine, that I can’t just let this thing go. She had a highly developed sense of fair play and a good heart. Concern for the law, not so much: no dogs are allowed in Byrd Park. The signs are everywhere, right next to the ones fantasizing about the speed limits. A few blocks away is a drug-free zone, in case you’re in the market.
    By the time I get home, I’m pissed off. Nothing to go on? Why isn’t a dead man enough to go on? Anger seems to take the edge off the grief.
    I sit in front of my computer and try to write for a couple of hours with a negative word count of 325. I quit while I’m behind. I call a former crime reporter I’m friendly with. He was recently downsized in the local newspaper’s successful attempt to make itself even more fluffy and irrelevant than before, while retaining its essential reactionary character, a task I would’ve thought impossible. I ask him if he can find out what the autopsy turns up. He calls the dead man “Juan Doe.” Ha-ha. He’s kind of a macho jerk, but a good reporter.
    He calls back Friday evening. Usually dog and I would be out walking. I’m just sitting around thinking about that. My wife’s upstairs in bed, crying or sleeping.
    He tells me about the dead man: “Crushed by something big, probably a tree, causing massive trauma. He was dead before he went in the water. Accidental death. The tree did it. Case closed.”
    “You’re shitting me.”
    “The wheels of justice, my friend.”
    “How did he get in the water, when he was pinned under a tree with massive trauma?”
    “Undetermined. The river did it. But he died on dry land, and he died slow. Somewhere between forty-five minutes and ninety minutes between trauma and death. He bled out. Within twenty-four hours of when you found him,