As I drive down the street, I hear the crack of gun fire. Months ago, maybe a year, who knows, the images begin to blur, I walked this same street, piecing together the chase. They started shooting at him here. He lost control of his car here. There was still a gouge in the pavement where he flipped. And he died here.  I pass it, on my way to another dead man. I give him a salute and drive on.

I see dead people. Long after the bodies are gone, their images remain in my head. The average commuter in this fine city never sees them, but as I criss-cross the freeways, the blocks, the neighborhoods, they wave to me.

       Those two died at that intersection - young victims of gang violence.

She hanged herself when her husband wanted a divorce. 

          He shot himself in that luxury apartment when he got the doctor's report.

                           She was raped and strangled behind those steps.

And street by street, the faces go on. I arrive at my destination and the figurative lingering becomes physical. I can smell him long before I find his body. I've smelled worse, but he's bad enough to get my attention. We get him packaged up and on his way to the morgue, but the odor lingers.  It's in my clothes. It's in my nose. I have questions that won't be answered until autopsy, but that's not what's on my mind as I drive back to the office. He's in my hair. My hair smelled like Japanese cherry blossoms this morning. Now it smells like decomposition and maggots.

The skyline of the city dances in my rearview mirror on the drive home - and he's still here, clutching my shirt, clinging to my hair, lingering on my mind.