Alley Pond Park, Queens: Cerise & Clem & Cris
[The heat was hellish. Too hot for sleeves really, but Cerise looked comfortable in three-quarters of dull olive. Plainclothes, and she felt for the patrol officer in his multitude of layers. He was filling out his initial report, but stopped when she approached him. A few words were exchanged before he pointed Cerise in the direction of the EMT in waiting. She started that way across the grass, and she could see the blanket with the small mass beneath it. Not enough mass for a fully fleshed out body, and she knew why. She knew what it looked like without having to see. She'd seen enough of fires and their aftermath to last a lifetime, but everything that came once, came again. She stared at the blanket, the freckled bridge of her nose was scrunched, unpleasant and clearly so. She wore a gun on her hip and a Saint Jude medal around the neck, and neither of those things seemed out of place on her.]
Were you the first on the scene? [Her mouth was a naturally set frown when she turned to the EMT. That same unpleasant knit to her eyebrows was there, like she could still see the lump under the blanket, even when she wasn't looking at it.]