Page 2 of Lion & Lamb

SHEPLAVY: (Grumbles) Jesus…

PARKS: You got a problem, rookie?

SHEPLAVY: Whatever’s in that car, I can handle it. I’m not a toddler.

PARKS: Look, I’m sorry for snapping. But you just put out the license plate of a potential murder victim’s car over the radio. You know who listens to the police band? TV reporters. Not to mention people bored or twisted enough to come check out a crime scene.

SHEPLAVY: I’m sorry, I didn’t—

PARKS: Everybody’s excited about the first dead body until they actually see it.

SHEPLAVY: Oh, Christ. Look, I said I’m sorry…

PARKS: It’s fine. Just remember rule number one: Do not touchanything.You got me?

SHEPLAVY: I know. I promise, Parks, I’m good.

(The officers approach the Maserati. The vic is partially obscured by the wheel and the door of the Maserati. Sheplavy crouches down for a better look.)

SHEPLAVY: You’ve gotta be kidding me.

PARKS: What is it?

SHEPLAVY: It couldn’t be…I mean, tonight of all nights?

PARKS: Sheplavy,what? Hey, you okay? Take a deep breath. We need to secure the scene. I’m thinking this is a carjacking gone wrong, that’s all.

SHEPLAVY: I can’t believe…

PARKS: Look, we’re going to see this kind of thing from time to time. Are you…Sheplavy, are youcrying?

SHEPLAVY: I can’t believe it’s actuallyhim.

PARKS: Can’t believe it’s who?

SHEPLAVY: Look at his face!

Three

AS THErookie was sobbing, a tall man in a dirty gray hoodie cut across Eakins Oval.

When he spied the two cops, he stopped in his tracks. He pulled his phone from his pocket and snapped a photo. Then he inched closer, a stunned expression on his face.

“Hey, back off!” Parks shouted. “Crime scene!”

Too late. The hoodie guy snapped another photo and ran away, thumbing something into his phone as he went.

“Hey! Stop!”

A photo of the vic was going to be online in a matter of seconds. Shit! But what was she supposed to do, chase after him and—what? Confiscate his phone? While leaving a rookie alone at his first murder scene?

It turned out that Parks had been right to worry; when the two images of the blood-covered man in the Maserati hit social media, it was over. The news traveled worldwide at breakneck speed. People enlarged the grainy photos until the victim’s face was pixelated but identifiable. The reaction everywhere: utter astonishment.

Some claimed the photos were photoshopped or deep-faked. But most who saw the images believed they were real. The powder-blue Maserati alone was confirmation of the victim’s identity.

Online there was collective grief and an instantaneous outpouring of tributes. There were also macabre jokes, as always. And even though it was well after midnight, locals began to gather at the scene, arriving from Center City and Spring Garden and Fairmount and West Philly. As the crowds got bigger, more images from the crime scene spread online. Some people took awkward selfies in an attempt to place themselves in this historic moment. Some simply stared in shock. Some wept inconsolably, held by their friends.

Fortunately Parks and Sheplavy had been joined by half a dozen other officers from the Ninth, and they’d established a wide perimeter around the car, so between that and the wall of bodies, the victim’s face was largely blocked from view.

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