Lost Angel

Tin Badges

Lorenzo Carcaterra

She was fourteen years old and weighed just shy of eighty pounds. She had on what looked to be a short white gown, miniature giraffes dotting the sides, a small tear under the left armpit. Her rail-thin body had been marred by burn scars and her thick black and soiled hair was matted to the sides of her thin, angular cheeks, the skin barely visible above the bones. Her skeletal legs were curled and braced against an exposed rib cage, held in place by the smallest hands I'd ever seen on a child.

She had been dead for twenty-four months minimum, thirty-six at the max, according to the tall man in the rimless shades walking the perimeter of what was now a crime scene. The call had come from a burner with a 718 area code, a heavily accented Hispanic male voice alerting the 911 dispatcher to the downtown end of the Henry Hudson Parkway, just a few miles shy of the Cloisters. It was there, deep in the shrubs and trees, buried under years of debris and old leaves and chipped branches, that they found the rusty white cooler resting on its side.

Two young uniforms were the first to respond, making their way down the narrow, sloping hillside, looking for the cooler, a hot and heavy early morning sun heating the backs of their blue shirts, their thick black shoes creating dust pools as they half-walked and half-slid to their destination. The one with the Marine buzz cut and chiseled arms and barrel chest got to the cooler first. He unlatched the locks and stepped back with a jolt when he was hit with the heavy odor of decomposition and death.

I got the call even before the homicide detectives swerved off the parkway exit ramp. I picked it up on the second ring, the ID on my phone highlighting the name Shane Winston, my former partner. He skipped the small talk. "Got one for you, Tank. Get your shit together and meet me just past Grant's Tomb. There'll be a full crime unit there. You can't miss it."