Excerpt from Proving Ground by Peter Blauner, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"The 9-1-1 operator patched the call through a few minutes past eleven," Bowman says. "Residents across the street reported hearing shots."

Lourdes looks over at the limestones and brownstones on the other side of Prospect Park West, lined up like nineteenth-century novels you needed perfect ACT scores to read. Each worth four million easy these days—more, if you could get a dentist or a shrink paying office rent on the garden floor.

It must be twenty years since the last murder in the park that white people cared about. A drama teacher got shot for his mountain bike near Swan Lake, back when she was in fifth grade and Brooklyn was still fierce.

Nowadays, the whole damn park is an ad for healthy urban living. At least when the sun is up. Private foundations and citizen volunteers had poured dollars and hours into protecting the trees, saving the ducks, bringing in the Metropolitan Opera, and chasing junkies from the band shell. Any Saturday or Sunday, the six hundred acres are fields of well-tended flesh: world-class runners, Tour de France wannabes, Audubon Society bird freaks, Olympian volleyball players, and Ivy Leaguers dragging their $500 congas to the African drum circle in the grove.

At night, though, the ghosts still come out. The Picnic House gets shrouded in mist like a castle from some old Shakespeare play. Homeless people still hide out in encampments in the woods, where they can lie down quietly with their sorrows in the moonlight. The occasional wolf pack still roams over from Parkside Avenue or Empire Boulevard. Every few years, a ninja with a sword shows up in the Vale of Cashmere, a vengeful spirit from the eighties slashing at gay men in the bushes. And every season or two, a lonely life still ends dangling from a low branch on Suicide Hill.

"See all the fluff that came out of the coat?" Bowman points out the wisps blowing away. "Must have been a big gun."

"Or defects in the nylon." Lourdes aims her chin at a flagrant rip in the stitching. "Eyewits?"

"The good news is, we found some screwball with a sleeping bag and a view of the crime scene just on the other side of the wall."

"The bad news?"

"He's not talking." The captain jerks a thumb over his shoulder.

Detective Robert "Beautiful Bobby" Borrelli from her squad is a few yards away, gesturing haplessly at a man wearing a hat with furry ears and a plastic shower curtain over his shoulders.

"It's not clear he speaks English," the captain says. "Or any other earth language."

"Like that matters." Lourdes unbuttons her coat as she strolls over. "What up, B.B.?"

Beautiful Bobby, Romeo-eyed with a Guido Elvis pompadour and a small pink baby butt of a bald spot, shrugs at his subject.

"Mork from Ork here. Ten minutes, no ID, no hablo. He's either deaf and dumb or thinks we're from the intergalactic border patrol."

"I'll talk to her," the homeless man says matter of factly.

"See that, B.B.?" She throws her shoulders back. "It's all about the attitude."

"I know you." The homeless guy adjusts the shower curtain like an aristocrat's cape.

"You know me?"

She studies the homeless dude more closely. He has the face of an Aztec warrior debauched by years of hard city living: high, bruised cheekbones and slanting almond eyes with tiny globs of mascara sticking to the lashes.

"I met you in the park," he says, with a hint of a Mexican accent. "Long time ago."

"Yeah?" She wrinkles her nose, hoping this isn't someone she once dated.

"I was living down under the bridge, by the ravine." He doffs the furry ears in tribute. "You were in uniform but I knew you were an angel."

"Yeah, I get that a lot." She rolls her eyes at B.B., knowing she'll pay for this later at the squad.

"It was ten below zero in the park." Little yellow whales crinkle on the shower curtain cape. "You gave me a twenty-dollar bill and told me to get the fuck out."

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