"Cray, David - Little Girl Blue" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cray David)

"You think she was takin' a walk?" Flannery's chortle quickly became a
phlegmy cough. He lowered the window to his right and spat onto the
sidewalk.

"We can't be sure," Julia insisted, "that we're looking at a
homicide."

"And what," Clark asked, "leads you to that conclusion, lieutenant?
Exactly what?"

"The fetal position. It looks to me as if she lay there for some time,
trying to conserve body heat, and the soles of her feet are abraded. I
think she might have walked into the park."

"It's January, for Christ's sake." Flannery glanced out the window as
if the date was somehow in question. "It's gotta be what out there?"

"Ten degrees," Clark dutifully responded. "Fifteen at the outside."

"I mean, if she was only cold, why didn't she just walk out of the park
and ask somebody for help?" When Julia replied with a shrug, he
continued. "We want you to brief the reporters."

Clark laughed, "But we don't want you to tell them anything."
"Anything," Flannery corrected, "you don't have to tell them.

Understand, lieutenant? We may have a formal press conference late
this afternoon."

llELEASED, JULIA walked south on Fifth Avenue, from Seventy-sixth
Street directly across from the crime scene to the Seventy-second
Street transverse road running from Fifth Avenue to Central Park West.
Then she retraced her steps and continued on to Seventy-ninth Street
and another transverse. The townhouses and apartments on this section
of Fifth Avenue, directly east of the park, were among the most
expensive in the city. Not only did every apartment building have a
doorman, most of them also had surveillance cameras mounted on the
outer walls. The doormen would have to be questioned, the tapes
viewed. If Griffith wasn't already on top of it, she'd bring him up to
speed when he got back to the station house.

There was nothing more to do at the scene, but Julia lingered on Fifth
Avenue as the words Little Girl Blue again forced their way into her
thoughts. This time, however, she resolutely pushed the words away,
telling herself to be a professional. Telling herself, You can't bring
them back to life.

When Julia had first come on the job, nearly twelve years before, she'd
believed that her sex would protect her from the most soul-deadening