“Now there’s absolutely no need for you to go down to the medical examiner’s office. In fact, even if you wanted to go down there, they wouldn’t let you in…”

“Where’s that?” says the mother.

“At the medical examiner’s,” says McAllister slowly. “But you don’t need to worry about that. All you have to do is contact the funeral home of your choice and tell them that the body is at the medical examiner’s office at Penn and Lombard streets. They’ll know exactly what to do. Okay?”

The mother nods.

“Now, we’re going to try to find out who did this, but we’re going to need the family’s help… That’s what we’ve come here to ask for…”

The sales pitch. McAllister gives it his best shot, his you-can’t-bring-him-back-but-you-can-avenge-him soliloquy that leaves the mother nodding in agreement. Garvey looks around the room for some sign from the multitude, some small discomfort exhibited by a family member carrying a little bit of knowledge. The younger men and women seem distant, detached, but a few take the business cards, assuring the detectives that they know nothing but will call if there is so much as a rumor in the neighborhood.

“Again,” says McAllister at the door, “let us express our condolences for your loss…”

Garvey looks at a room full of blank faces. Mother, brothers, sisters, cousins, friends-all of them seem to be ignorant of any reason for the murder. The phone in the homicide office won’t exactly be lighting up on this one, he concedes.

“Again, don’t hesitate to call us if you have any questions or any information at all,” says McAllister, winding up.

Garvey moves toward the front door, leading the way out of the rowhouse. As the two detectives step outside, Garvey turns to his partner and prepares to explain why McAllister ought to become the primary investigator in this lost campaign. But he says nothing; instead, he looks over Mac’s shoulder at a young man, a cousin of the victim, who has furtively pursued them out the door.

“Excuse me, officer…”

McAllister turns as well, increasing the cousin’s apparent discomfort. The young man has something to say and he will not be denied.

“Excuse me,” he says, his voice a whisper.

“Yes?” says Garvey.

“Can I… um…”

Here it comes, thinks Garvey. Here comes the moment when a grieving relative steps away from the rest of the family and bravely imparts a little truth. The cousin extends his hand and McAllister takes it first. Garvey follows suit, warming to the knowledge that he is truly golden, that he has somehow transcended reality and become the Midas of ghetto homicides.

“Can I…”

Yes, thinks Garvey, you can. You most certainly can tell us everything, every last little thing you know about your cousin Anthony. Tell us about the drugs he was firing, or the drugs he was dealing, or the beef he had with a customer last night. Tell us about some money problem that left a supplier handing out wolf tickets, swearing to get even. Tell us about the girls he was fooling with or the other boyfriends who threatened to light him up. Tell us what you heard on the street after the murder, or maybe even the name of the guy you heard bragging about the murder in some bar. You can tell us everything.

“Can I… um… ask a question?”

A question? Of course you can. I’ll bet you want to remain anonymous. Hell, unless you’re an eyewitness or something, you can even stay monogamous if you really want. We’re your friends. We like you. We’ll take you downtown for free coffee and doughnuts. We’re cops. Trust us. Tell us everything.

“What is it?” asks McAllister.

“Is what you tryin’ to tell me…”

“Yes?”

“Is what you tryin’ to tell me that my cousin Anthony is dead?”

Garvey looks at McAllister, and McAllister looks at his shoes to keep from laughing aloud.

“Um, yes,” says McAllister. “I’m afraid he’s been fatally wounded. That’s what we were talking about inside…”

“Damn,” says the cousin, truly amazed.

“Anything else you wanted to tell us?”

“No,” says the cousin. “Not really.”

“Well, sorry again.”

“Okay.”

“We’ll be in touch.”

“Okay.”

It’s over. It’s history. It was a helluva run-ten cases in a row beginning with Lena Lucas and old man Booker back in February. But now, with every fiber of his being, Garvey understands that the rocket scientist on the porch is nothing if not a messenger-a walking, talking presignification of all that is true to a murder police.

The words from the wayward cousin’s mouth were all thickness and incoherence, but to Garvey they confirm every rule in the book. He didn’t have a suspect, so of course his victim didn’t survive. And with no suspect, there isn’t likely to be any lab evidence or any chance of the victim surviving his wounds. And if Garvey ever does locate a witness to this crime, the witness will lie because everyone lies. And if he ever does get his hands on a suspect, that man will undoubtedly sleep in the interrogation room. And if this weak case ever manages to get within arm’s length of a jury panel, every doubt will seem reasonable. And most especially: It’s good to be good, but it’s better to be lucky.

The brain-dead on the porch is an unmistakable divination, a reminder that the rules still apply-even for the likes of Rich Garvey. Never mind that ten days from now he’ll be working a fresh drug murder on the east side, charging through a rowhouse door to grab the shooter beneath the colored lights of a decorated Christmas tree. Never mind that next year will be a crusade as successful as any other. Now, at this moment, Garvey can watch Anthony Morris’s cousin slip back indoors and know, with the faith and certainty of a religion, that there is nothing coming back on this one-no telephone calls to the homicide office, no snitching from the city jail, no talk on the streets of the Western. The case will never go black; it will be open long after Garvey is soaking in his pension.

“Mac, did I imagine that conversation?” he asks, laughing, on the return trip to the office. “Or did it really happen?”

“No, no,” says McAllister. “You must’ve imagined it. Put it out of your mind.”

“Dee-tective,” says Garvey, in bad imitation. “Is what you tryin’ to say is that my cousin is dead?”

McAllister laughs.

“Next case,” says Garvey.

In any man’s work, perfection is an elusive, ethereal goal, an idea that does constant battle with the daily grind. But to a homicide detective, perfection is not even a possibility. On the streets of a city, the Perfect Year is a mere wisp of a thing, a dying fragment of hope, pale and starved and weak.

The Perfect Murder will kick its ass every time.

“Look,” says Terry McLarney, watching the Bloom Street corners with mock innocence. “There’s a criminal.”

Half a block ahead of them, the kid on the corner seems to hear him say it. He turns abruptly from the Cavalier’s headlights, moving down the street, one hand reaching back to pull a rolled newspaper from his pants pocket. McLarney and Dave Brown can both see the newspaper fall softly into the gutter.

“Patrol was so easy,” says McLarney wistfully. “You know?”

Dave Brown knows. If the unmarked Chevy were a radio car, if they were wearing uniforms, if Bloom and Division was in their sector, they’d have a lockup just that easy. Throw the weasel against a wall, cuff him up good, then walk his ass back to that little stick of newsprint, that homemade sheath wrapped around a knife or a syringe or both.

“There used to be these two guys in my squad when I was in the Western,” says McLarney, nostalgic. “They had this running bet over who could go out and get a lockup in the shortest time possible.”

“In the Western,” says Brown, “five minutes.”