I Have His Letters Still

Market Street Mission ≈ Mike died overnight at the Market Street Mission.

To be more precise, they stuck a shiv somewhere into the seven true ribs, costae verae, probably between rib 3 and 4.

Quietly his warm red blood spilled across the cold floor – through the thin mattress which he had returned to each night for the last week.

A gray wool blanket matted frozen to his chest when Sam tried to awake him that morning.

No one looked too hard for a murderer – 70 men had come and gone that evening and morning and each was capable of this act when the spirits moved them.

The police were casual for the same reason.

Perfunctory.

70 suspects and 70 witnesses each with the same address: This place – the Market Street Mission – yet no place.

None of them were in, literally and figuratively.

Even the innocent ones weren’t so innocent.

Few would be able to identify their first-name-only fellow travelers 71|Page