The City When It Rains by Thomas H. Cook

from the ladder. It showed almost the entire body. The head was in the foreground, with the trunk and legs stretching backward, like the stern of a boat shot from some position above the forward deck.
    â€œThose yours?”
    It was Grossbart, and Corman didn’t have to look up from the photograph to know it. Grossbart had a distinctive voice. It seemed to come from the ground.
    â€œShepherd’s,” Corman said. He slid the pictures over to Grossbart.
    Grossbart looked at the photographs one by one, concentrating on each in turn. “Why’d he take this one?” he asked after a moment. “What’s he trying to do, impress his girlfriend?”
    Corman glanced at the photograph. It was the one Shepherd had shot as he’d straddled the body. “He got carried away,” he said.
    â€œI don’t like bullshit,” Grossbart said. He slid the photograph under the others. “Not much of a mystery,” he growled.
    Corman pressed the tip of his cigarette into the small tin ashtray on the table. “She had a college diploma,” he said. “Barnes heard it was from Columbia.”
    Grossbart was unimpressed. “So? Even smart people get depressed.”
    â€œAnd the Similac,” Corman added. “She had cans of it. She was feeding it to the doll.”
    Grossbart leaned forward very slightly. It was hardly perceptible, just a small inching toward the edge of the table.
    â€œAt the same time,” Corman told him pointedly, “she was starving.”
    â€œHow do you know?”
    â€œThe way she looked.”
    â€œHypes don’t put on much weight,” Grossbart said. “You know that.” Again there was the slight inching forward, a subtle, stalking movement, silent, cat-like. “What’s your point, Corman?”
    Corman shrugged. “It’s interesting, that’s all.”
    Grossbart did not seem amused. “You trying to make a mystery out of this thing?” he asked. Before Corman could answer, he waved his hand dismissively. “Forget it. This one’s not a mystery.”
    Mystery was common police slang for a murder that would probably never be solved, but Corman knew Grossbart meant more than that. He meant something about the woman, the doll, the dark fifth-floor landing, all that must have finally gathered together in order to get them there. That was the greater mystery, the one that was always less dense and immediate than who did what to whom. It had a mood of aftermath which clung to it like a faint, dissolving odor. While the body lay fresh and soft, the mystery was solid, tense, compelling. But after it had been scooped up, after the blood had been washed away, the walls repainted, sheets changed and carpeting replaced, the intensity of it drained away, and the other mystery settled over the interior space of the room, the street, the mind. It was ghostly, intangible. No one could go at it anymore, drag it down, cuff it, toss it into the paddy wagon. It had become faceless, impossible to contemplate without disappearing into it yourself. Everybody knew that. In Corman’s estimation, it was perhaps the only thing on earth that absolutely everybody knew.
    Grossbart’s right index finger shot out toward the pack of cigarettes on the table. “Mind if I have one?”
    â€œNo.”
    Grossbart snapped up the pack, shook one out and lit it. “Had a hell of a mess on Essex Street this morning,” he said. “Guy strung a couple cats onto the clothesline of his building. Just let them dangle in the goddamn airshaft.” He looked at Corman. “Why would a guy do that?”
    Corman shook his head.
    â€œSomething eating him, I guess,” Grossbart said. His eyes drifted down toward the pictures. “Some people go out a window, some string up a cat.” He shrugged. “The way it is,” he added, groaning slightly as he drifted back into his chair.
    Corman leaned forward