Quotes from James R. Benn

If prayer flew as quickly as gossip, all the saints in heaven could not keep up with it.

They do not comprehend where they are going," Kaz said, whispering his words to the wind. I knew he didn't mean a particular place. There were no map coordinates to mark the location. He meant that point in time and space where bullet meets bone, where grown men cry rivers of tears; the point you can never return from, even if you live to be ninety.

Everything changed, and eleven months later, here I was in the middle of the night with a gungho major, playing secret agent, hoping some Frenchie didn't put a bullet in my skull before I gave the Germans and Italians their chance.

Except for a roll of Harding's eyes, everyone ignored me, which is the way I liked it when I had to hang around with senior officers. They had a way of thinking up ideas that got you killed and them promoted.

I kicked off my shoes, tossed my jacket onto the chair, loosened my tie, and closed my eyes for about half an hour. Catnaps and spy chasing are my specialties.

I looked like a million bucks. An unarmed million bucks, which isn't necessarily the best combination.

He always said the best chance for a hands-on killer to leave a clue was at the last moment of contact, when the deed had been done. Before that, the murderer was likely on high alert, conscious of every move, waiting for the moment to strike. Then, with the victim dead or dying, the killer might let down his guard if he was overconfident or relieved. Who knew what a guy who'd just knifed a kid and twisted the blade felt? Or a woman?

File cabinets were closed with determined thuds like mortar rounds going off, and the rapid chatter of typewriter keys sounded like machine guns strafing the paper into submission.

Words do nothing against them in the short term, so we bow to the storm winds and wait. We wait, and we have faith.

Kaz drifted off, lured by the thought of a book he hadn't yet met.

Just like I was hooked the first time I worked a homicide. I knew then that I was different from everyone else, set apart from the concerns of everydy life that swept everyone else forward, on a river of errands, work, dates, drinking, eating, and sleeping. I was going in a different direction, toward revelation and retribution, and here were damn few of us headed that way.

Watching Dad figure things out was like watching an artist paint a picture. He used to say an investigation was a lot like art, just a blank canvas and a whole lot of different colors in little jars. All the clues were there, just like a painting was already in those little jars of paint. But you had to mix them together and put them on the canvas right, so it all made sense.