From "Laura's War"

I took a last look around the front yard. Had Laura seen it coming? Had she known that the woman she lived with would turn out to be her killer? Had she felt any physical pain while Inez attacked her? Had she tried to fight back, or had she just surrendered, knowing she had no chance? Had this fight been the last of many similar ones before? Had Inez broken her spirit long before she finally killed her? Had Laura’s last thought been I love you, or I hate you? I tried to shake off these obsessive thoughts and took a close look at the soil underneath the Magnolia. The tree was throwing off its petals. Huge rosy and white leaves were covering the ground. They were turning brown at the edges, slowly decaying. Of course there were no traces of what had happened under this tree or on the stone tiles that led up to the front steps of the building. Only later would I learn that it was on those steps that the police had found Inez. She had called 911 herself from inside the house. Then she had come back out, still clutching the knife, and had sat there, watching over Laura’s body until the cops had led her away.

From "The Next World"

It was a subdued sound. A terrible low thud, instantly swallowed by the aggressive squeaking of tires, when a car sped away. I had never before heard this particular cadence of noise, but I instantly knew what it meant. I started to run toward the noise. I dashed down the dock, toward the street, through an opening between the warehouses, onto the wide sidewalk. The massive silhouettes of the financial district’s high rises shot up before me like super-sized medieval towers, their tips sucked up by the city's fog. My schedule as a security guard for Pier 3 hacked the night into neat little time-slices, dictating where I had to be at exactly which minute of my shift. It was Friday morning between 2:15 and 2:30 a.m. The Embarcadero, the four-lane street which runs along San Francisco’s bay front, was empty. Something was lying on the brightly lit streetcar tracks that divide the north- and south-bound lanes. A human body. Thrown there by the car that I had only heard, not seen. But I had recognized the low sound of impact, when a fast, heavy vehicle had hit a human being with a cruelly understated tone of tissue tearing, organs exploding and bones shattering. There was no indication that somebody had tried to brake the car, I recalled now while running across Embarcadero. Only acceleration, an engine revving, then the thud, and a fraction of a second later, the screaming tires. I kneeled beside the limp body. It was a man,dressed in a gray business suit. His bright blue tie was wrapped around his neck. He lay on his side. His long, slender arms and legs in odd positions, like a rag doll tossed aside by an angry child. I touched his face—the short, brown hair, thin lines of blood running from the corners of his mouth, nose, even his ears. His skin was still warm, but I knew he was dead. I am no medical doctor, but I have studied biology. I learned about the physical principles of life and death only from a theoretical, molecular viewpoint, not from experience and practice. But I knew this man. I had felt his spirit, his vivacity, his absolute love for life. I did not need to check any vital signs to feel that all this had passed away. My friend, Jeff, was gone.