DC By the Book

Excerpt: That hot May afternoon, Calixto was at a small park located at the intersection of Mount Pleasant and Lamont Streets. He was chatting with Daniel, one of so many compatriots he had met in the neighborhood, and other friends who were enthusiastically sharing jokes and laughs, enjoying the nice weather and a break from their hard work... Two policewomen making their rounds in the neighborhood stopped in front of the group. One of them warned that drinking alcoholic beverages in public parks was prohibited... The rookie policewoman, seeing that Daniel was putting his hands into one of his pants pockets, believed he was pulling out a weapon and she immediately pulled her revolver and fired at close range.

Excerpt: Two policemen were making their rounds in the Adams Morgan district, the windows of their patrol car open to receive the cool breeze which caressed the groves of trees in Rock Creek Park...the metallic voice coming over the transmitters shook them out of their deep thoughts... When they arrived on the scene, they had to fight their way through the crowd...They ordered the people to move aside and then they saw the cause of the commotion: a smashed body stuck to the hot cement. The cranium was demolished. The facial features were disfigured by a grimace of pain. The eyes were still open, with an enigmatic gaze. The arms and legs were arranged incoherently, not at all in the normal symmetry of the human body. One leg was bent with the foot up by the neck. One shoulder was completely separated from the body, as if it had been chopped off.... Calixto was among the spectators, stunned, terrified, and livid, unable to say a word about the tragedy, incapable of testifying that as they were washing the windows outside the eighth floor, the rope tied around his companion's waist broke. Calixto feared they would blame him for the death and he would end up in jail, if not deported.... The superintendent of the building was observing the scene from the lobby. He was not willing to talk either. He feared he would lose his job for permitting windows at that height to be washed without proper equipment for such a dangerous task. It would come out that he employed undocumented workers and paid them only a third of what cleaning companies usually charged.