Eight Black Horses

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The lady was extraordinarily naked.

That is to say, she looked extraordinarily naked because she was so very white. There are, after all, no degrees of nakedness. You are either clothed or you are unclothed. The lady was very definitely unclothed, but all the detectives gathered around her agreed that she looked more naked than any naked person they had ever seen in their collective lives.

‘It’s because she’s so white,’ Monoghan said.

‘Looks like an albino,’ Monroe said.

Monoghan and Monroe were Homicide detectives. They had been called in the moment it was ascertained that the lady lying on the withering leaves off the park path was indeed dead. It did not require much detection to determine that she was dead. The foot patrolman had known she was dead the moment he saw the bullet hole at the base of her skull. When he’d got on the walkie-talkie to the desk sergeant at the Eight-Seven, he had, in fact, said, ‘Sarge, I got a female stiff here in the park.’ Carella and Brown knew the lady was dead, too. That was why they’d called back to the station house to ask Sergeant Murchison to inform Homicide.

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