“Yeah. They couldn’t tell by looking at him, but his wallet was lying there.”

Raymond said, quietly but earnestly, “If they knew it’s Guy then why didn’t they pick him up and dump him in Hazel Park? It’s two blocks away.”

“Lieutenants aren’t supposed to talk like that,” Bryl said. “It’s a nice idea though. Their body, their case. The squad-car guys didn’t know for sure he’s dead, so they call EMS. EMS comes, they take one look, call the meat wagon.”

Hunter said, “They don’t know he’s dead? He took about three in the mouth, two more in the chest, through and through, big fucking exit wounds-they don’t know he’s dead.”

Uniformed evidence technicians were taking Polaroid shots of the body and the Mark VI, measuring distances, drawing a plan of the scene, picking up betting ticket stubs, credit cards, cigarette butts; they would haul the judge’s car to the police garage on Jefferson and go over it for prints, poke around in all its crevices. One of the morgue attendants, in khaki shirt and pants, stood watching with a plastic body bag over his shoulder. Bryl began making notes for his Case Assigned Report.

It was 2:50 A.M. Alvin Guy had been dead little more than an hour and Raymond Cruz, the acting lieutenant in the navy-blue suit he had put on because he was meeting the girl from the News, felt time running out. He said, “Well, let’s knock on some doors. We’re not gonna do this one without a witness. We start dipping in the well something like this we’ll have people copping to everything but the killing of Jesus. I don’t want suspects out of the file. I want a direction we can move on. I want to bust in the door while the guy’s still in bed, opens his eyes he can’t fucking believe it. Otherwise-we’re all retired down in Florida working for the Coconuts Police Department, the case still open. I don’t want that to happen.”

Norbert Bryl, the executive sergeant of Squad Seven, Detroit Police Homicide Section, had his graying hair razor-cut and styled at “J” Roberts on East Seven Mile once a month. He liked dark shirts and light-colored ties, beige on maroon, wore wire-frame tinted glasses and carried a flashlight that was nearly two feet long. Bryl plotted a course before he moved.