The taste of the city this late night left a few cops wishing they’d avoided that last sandwich on their final break. They stood around waiting for the detectives. It was so dark in the opening between two deserted buildings that they had turned their dashboard spotlights on to illuminate the area behind the yellow tape.

In the stark bright light with deep black shadows they had found two bodies, a small girl and boy, seeming to hug each other as they lay curled in the narrow dirty alley. 

The four blues were uncomfortable in the drizzle that fell from the low sky. They had plastic covers over their hats and yellow slickers over their warm dark blue jackets, but the cold rain seemed to penetrate down to their bones. Perhaps it was the sad story told by the two small figures in that last desperate moment of life as they clutched to each other. 

All eyes turned toward the long unlit street as two dim headlights announced the arrival of the detectives. The arrival of these night officials, who might relieve the street cops, at least meant they could get warm in their vehicles.

The car was a standard unmarked blue Ford sedan out of the police assignment pool, but with a difference. It purred as though it had a larger engine, and it had wider wheels in back. The car was not the standard front-wheel drive from the pool. In addition, all the windows were tinted dark.

Three men stepped out, each with a definite position and job, each so different than what the uniformed cops had expected. But they had heard of this night team.

The cops watched this unit, given code name Specialist Nine Unit. They only worked at night and in the most dangerous of locations. It took something like this scene for the uniform cops to call for them.

What the first cops had found weren’t simply two beautiful children dead in a dark, dirty place—it was a place where two well-dressed children with no wounds or bruises showing lay cold and dead but weren't runaways or from the low life families.

The street cops stepped back and studied the three detectives, needing to remember each detail to share with everyone back at the precinct changing room.

The detective from the front passenger seat—Detective Hermon Smith—got out and hurried around the car to duck under the yellow tape, then stopped and looked around. This man was tall but thin, his clothes hanging on him with loose and wrinkled disdain. No one would realize that he had put these garments on fresh before he reported for work each evening. He didn't have a body that wore suits well, and most would wonder why he bothered to wear them at all. Perhaps it had something to do with the oversized glasses that slipped down on his freckled nose. 

His hands were constantly busy, pushing the glasses up and shoving back a bunch of his pale red hair. He was not ugly or homely, just not noteworthy, with soft blue eyes enlarged behind the thick glasses.

Now he brought out his small cell phone and slowly walked up to the bodies. He took a couple of pictures, then put the phone away. He put on blue latex gloves that were too big for his long thin fingers. He retrieved a pencil from his pocket along with a pocket light that glowed brighter than the lights the cops were holding. He knelt on one heel, almost daintily, careful not to touch the ground. He pushed with the pencil and discovered two items the first cops had not wanted to contaminate.

The cops' eyes were now watching the second detective, who got out of the rear door. He was an unusually handsome light-skinned man of African American descent. He looked like he’d just stepped out of the cover of GQ. His shoes had been polished to reflect the light, the suit pants creased so neatly they looked like he hadn’t even sat down in them. The matching jacket was open over a dark wine-colored vest. A sharp white shirt with a tie to match the vest completed his outfit.

* * * *

The large umbrella he held in one hand opened with a snap, and in the other he held a large cell phone, the screen lit up with its flashlight, focused on the ground. Detective Alesso Bower did his job by the book. Ignoring any damage to his eight-hundred-dollar shoes, he approached the group of uniforms and began the questions.

Using an agile thumb, he entered all answers into his phone as he asked and listened to all the words. If there was one thing Alesso did well, it was listening. 

Being the third son of an overachieving family with high expectations from everyone, he had discovered at an early age to keep his mouth shut and listen. It only took getting the shit beat out of him by his older brothers to teach him not to say the wrong thing at the wrong time.

To have the wrath of his father come down on all of them had been enough to make all of the boys fear the family patriarch more than any earthquake. All of that in combination with a strong need to seek approval meant he’d earned every high grade in school, in sports, and in body training.

Alesso had learned to be sly in order to succeed. His body was never going to be ideal for football, so even though he was only five ten, he was also swift. Basketball was a good place for a clever player.