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The Blood on the Sidewalk


As Elsa L was relaxing on the porch this weekend, she watched a police officer amble down the sidewalk while chatting on a phone. This was a real police officer, gun and all, not a rent-a-cop. We don’t have beat cops in our neighborhood so this was an unusual sight. A few minutes later the same police office walked by again. Elsa greeted him.

He asked “You didn’t happen to see someone run past here last night who was bleeding profusely, did you?”

Elsa answered “No.”

The officer mentioned that a window had been broken and whoever had done it didn’t get away unscathed. He thanked Elsa for her time and departed.

Ever curious, Elsa got up and followed the blood trail herself.

“Quite impressive, really” She told me. “It goes two blocks up this street and a half a block down past the corner. The person lost a bit of blood.”

By the time I made it by to to take photographs, the blood was dark brown. Oxidized I suppose. The spatter pattern looked like drops of very thin paint and there were quite a generous number of them. Some places looked like the person had stopped, perhaps to catch his or her breath. I walked the trail up to the broken window — now patched with a piece of plywood — and tracked it back past Elsa’s place where frankly I lost interest.

I did get a couple dramatic pics… well, dramatic only if you know the back story.