[Sunday, February 14, 00:00]

Flack pulled up behind the two police cruisers stopped in front of the alley. Their sirens off, their lights on, painting the brick walls with flashes of red, white, and blue. The clock on his dash ticked over to midnight and he sighed, killing the engine. He had hoped to be home by midnight after finishing up the paperwork on his last case. Instead, he had gotten the call about another body in the Bronx. Flack turned up his coat collar against the cold late winter rain that drummed on his windows and stepped reluctantly out of the car. "What do we got?" he called.

"Stabbing," one of the four officers replied, water dripping off the dark brim of his cap. "Kid saw a dead lady in an alley and called 911." He nodded towards the gloom further down the alley. The headlights from the cruisers fell upon a pair of bright orange rain boots. "We stopped by his place already. He's too small to have done it," he finished.

Flack nodded. "Finish putting the tape up, then one on each end of the alley," he instructed, pointing to Patzo and Liu. They'd crossed paths many times over the years. "You two," he wasn't as familiar with this pair, "start canvassing the area, see if anyone saw or heard anything. It's the middle of the night but this city never sleeps."

"You got it, Flack." They split up to see to their tasks.

Flack took out his flashlight and shone it ahead of him as he stepped into the alley. Halfway down, the beam of light caught red spray paint on the wall. Graffiti was common in the neighbourhood, but this wasn't artistic in the slightest. It was a message, slapped hurriedly on the brick.

FILTHY IMMIGRANT

He pursed his lips. All his grandparents were immigrants and he loved the bits of their culture they had instilled into him and his sister. He had fond memories of learning Irish at the dinner table and labouring to make tomato sauce, from scratch, in the blazing heat of summer with no air conditioning. Heck, Stella was an immigrant. She would be livid when she saw this. Flack cast his beam on the other wall, the side of the restaurant, but there was nothing there. Next, the man turned his attention to the victim.

She lay face down in the asphalt, palms scraped raw from when she had tried to slow her fall. Three stab wounds in her back stained her grey coat and with dark, dark red. Her blood covered the ground, washing away ever so slowly in the rain. She was tall, very tall, and her prone form ended in bright orange rain boots, too cheery for the grim scene.

Flack's flashlight jumped back to her face and he frowned. He could have sworn she had moved. But no, it must have been the rain, dancing on her corpse. He wiped a hand down his face, brushing the water out of his eyes, and squatted down for a closer look. Her hand trembled in the pool of light.

She was shivering.

"Call an ambulance, she's alive!" Flack shouted. The flashlight clattered to the ground. He pulled off his coat and laid it on top of her, his hands putting pressure on her wounds.

"What?!" came the answering shout.

"An ambulance! NOW!" he yelled back. Flack turned his attention back to the woman, whose rapid, shallow breaths he could barely feel beneath his hands. "Ma'am, you're gonna be alright, okay? Everything's gonna be alright," he said into her ear, the thundering panic of his heart seeping into his voice. From this distance he could see the blue tinge of her lips. However long she had been here, it didn't seem she had much longer. The seconds on her watch marched on, unforgiving. "Hang in there, alright? Stay with me." The memory flashed across his mind, the last time he'd said the same words in the same panic. Jess lying in the back of the cruiser. Her warm brown eyes open but unfocused, her warm blood seeping through his fingers. Flack shook the memory away. Focus. Splashing footsteps announced the arrival of the officers he had assigned to the ends of the scene.

"Bus is on its way," Patzo, said breathlessly.

"Who was first on scene?" Flack demanded, hunching his shoulders. From above, the frigid raindrops were soaking his shirt. From below, he could feel the knees of his jeans wicking up bloody water from the rough pavement. The department really needed to start a clothing allowance for detectives.

"We were," the Liu replied.

"And you didn't check for a pulse?" The man glared at each officer in turn. Unbelievable.

They eyed each other guiltily. "C'mon Flack, with that much blood?"

"I don't believe this," he muttered under his breath. First on scene protocol existed for a reason. Patzo and Liu had ignored it and this woman had been dying in front of them since the moment they'd pulled up. "Where's the ambulance?"