Holiday Grind by Cleo Coyle

uniformed officer lifted the yellow tape to let me pass, I glanced one last time at the still figure lying beside the Dumpster. Alf’s corpse was surrounded by members of the crime-scene unit, examining him, taking notes, flashing photos.
    Swiping new tears away, I ducked under the tape and groaned—the bending had aggravated my bruised torso. Just then, Officer Langley appeared at my shoulder. “The paramedics are here, Ms. Cosi.” He pointed to an ambulance behind the half-dozen police vehicles. “They can check you out. If you’ll just come with me—”
    “Thanks, Officer Langley, but I don’t need a para—”
    “You got hurt?!” Matt interrupted, rushing to my side. “You said on the phone you were okay!”
    I shrugged. “I got the wind knocked out of me after I talked to you, that’s all.” I explained about following Alf’s boot prints and getting nailed in the process by a police chase across the courtyard. “My side’s pretty sore at the moment, but I’m fine—”
    “You don’t know that!” Matt insisted. “You could have a cracked rib!”
    Before I could prevent him, my ex pulled off his gloves, unzipped my parka, and began running his hands along my bruised body.
    “What are you doing?!” I cried so loudly several cops glanced in our direction.
    Matt ignored them. “Remember a few years ago, when I was in Rwanda and Timo flipped that Land Rover?” he asked, his fingers still busy probing my chest. “He cracked his rib and I had to wrap his torso with canvas to prevent his lungs from being punctured. We were stranded for a whole day and a night. Poor Timo could have died.”
    “So?”
    “So I know what to look for,” Matt said. He felt me up for another few seconds. “You’re okay, Clare. Nothing’s broken.”
    “Good.” I said. The examination was clearly over, but Matt’s hands remained planted on my hips.
    “We’re done, right?” I said.
    His eyes held mine. “Are we?”
    “Yes!” I assured him, nudging his hands away.
    As I zipped my parka back up, Sergeant Franco approached me again, this time with another man in tow. The man looked younger than Franco by a few years and appeared to be of Chinese heritage. He was also more conventionally dressed, his athletic frame draped in a suit, tie, and camel hair coat.
    “Give Chan here a statement, Coffee Lady,” said Franco. “Tell my partner everything you remember. Then you and your partner here can both go home and get on with your fondling in private .”
    “Matt was not fondling me,” I clarified. “It was purely medical. He was just making sure—”
    But Franco was already striding away. His partner shook his head as he watched him go. Then he turned to me and flipped a page on his detective’s notebook.
    “Your name is Coffee ?” he asked.
    “Cosi,” I corrected. “And you’re Detective Chan ?”
    “My name is Charlie. Charlie Hong ,” he said.
    “Not Chan?”
    Hong smirked. “You’ll have to excuse Sergeant Franco’s sense of humor.”
    While I gave Detective Hong a statement, Matt hovered close by. The process took no more than ten minutes, and through it all my discomfort level grew. The flurries had stopped completely now, but the snow down my parka had turned to water, my side still throbbed, my nose was running, and my voice was raspy from the cold.
    Finally, the detective thanked me and closed his notebook. He gave me his card and told me to call if I remembered anything else.
    “And what about the footprints I told you about, Detective Hong? What do you think?”
    Hong shrugged. “I’m inclined to agree with my partner. What the victim may or may not have been doing in the courtyard is irrelevant. He was confronted, robbed at gunpoint, and murdered in the building’s alley, most likely by the man the police were chasing down Perry Street.”
    He offered me his hand, and I shook it. “Thanks for your help, Ms. Cosi.”
    As soon as Hong departed, Matt swooped in again. “You should really