Cold Day in Hell by Richard Hawke

fellow officers were standing next to a large boulder, the trail twisting out of sight behind it. Atop the boulder, a pair of crows were pecking angrily at the snow. I waited next to a small tree until Gallo looked up and saw me. He said something to the uniformed cop then stepped over to me.
    “Let me guess. You were just cutting through the park on your way to the ice rink.”
    “Those aren’t the kind of guesses you can build a career on.”
    “You seem to be my brand-new shadow, Malone. What gives?”
    “Charlie Burke plucked the thirty-c out of the air. He says it smells like Robin’s killer.”
    “Yeah, I was just giving Officer Loudmouth over there a talk about that. I told him next time why don’t you just call the media directly.” He shot his cuffs to tap a finger against his watch. “I give them five minutes tops.”
    “You could seal off the park.”
    “Haven’t you ever heard of the precious First Amendment? What do you take me for, a stinking Commie?”
    “Sorry, Joe. Must’ve confused you with someone else.”
    Gallo grunted a laugh. “Believe me, after today I’m going to wish I
was
someone else. Goddamn back-to-backs not more than eighteen hours apart. This is most definitely not the way we’re supposed to start the New Year.”
    “And we’re talking the same killer?” I asked. “You’ve already determined that?”
    “We haven’t determined a thing. I only beat you by five minutes. I haven’t even introduced myself to the corpse.”
    The lieutenant brushed at the snowflakes settling on his shoulder. “If you want to make yourself invisible, feel free. You’ve got to keep out of the perimeter. I like a clean crime scene.”
    I pointed at the boulder. “How about that rock?”
    “If you feel like mountaineering.”
    Another cop was using a tree next to the boulder as one of his corners for the crime-scene tape. I ducked under the tape and scrambled up to the top of the boulder. With the leaves gone, I had a nice view of Central Park Lake below me, the row of overturned rowboats running along the south shore, the cast-iron Bow Bridge arching over the lake. The intensity of the snow was already increasing, and in just a matter of minutes, the overturned rowboats had already started fading to white. The lake itself was partially covered with a thin film of ice in a shape reminding me of a piece from a jigsaw puzzle. Directly below was the large flat rock where people like to go sunning in warm weather. It was abandoned now, of course, except for a trio of uninterested mallards.
    The body was lying about twenty feet from the base of the boulder. I couldn’t see much at first, as a pair of forensics experts and someone in a long black coat were squatting on either side of it. I could see pants legs and a pair of men’s brown dress shoes. Through the legs of the forensics cops, I could make out a large area of bloodstained snow and leaves. As Gallo approached the scene, he looked up to where I was standing. “How’s the view?”
    “It’s a man,” I said.
    Gallo tapped the side of his head. “We could use a natural like you on the force. What else can you see from up there?”
    “Nothing. Your men have the better seats.”
    The figure in the long black coat turned and looked up at me. “Some detective.” She rose and gave her lower back a solid stretch. Like the two forensics cops, she was wearing a wool NYPD cap, her short hair tucked in so that none of it would become part of Gallo’s crime scene. Her smirk arrived as if on wings.
    “Hello, Detective Lamb,” I said.
    She squinted up at me. “Fritz Malone. Long time no see.” Maybe not the strongest Long Island accent I’ve ever heard, but strong enough to defend itself.
    “I guess we’ve just been haunting different corners of the city.”
    “Yeah, well. No shortage of corners.”
    Megan Lamb was a junior detective in Joe Gallo’s homicide squad out of the Twentieth. I’d known her for several years. We first met