'it was a beautiful, natural death, quite startling in its perfection.'

there's not much privacy and dignity in violent death. david simon, in homicide: a year on the killing streets gives us one, an elderly music teacher over near hopkins university dies on her daybed, the score for a mozart piece on her piano, the radio (tuned to a classical station) plays ravel's 'pavane to a dead princess'.

 'it was a beautiful, natural death, quite startling in its perfection.'

the cops feel like intruders.

but for their usual clientele the indignity does not stop with death - there's been a black widow murdering husbands (and other family members) for the insurance - an exhumation is ordered on one of her dead husbands - they go to the cheapest city cemetary and exhume the body - after the dissection they notice the hospital tag on his wrist - it's the wrong name - they go back, consult the burial plans, exhume again, again there's a hospital tag, again it's the wrong name. the supervisor tells them the bodies might have moved, the workers say that on rainy or snowy days the boss just lets them bury the bodies in a mass grave regardless of the cemetary plan. looking down the list of names the detective recognises many of the same names as the homicide bureau's clients - cases they've worked, some they've solved, now buried in a mass grave by the city as cheaply as possible.

strangely with the black widow murdering family members there were other family members who were aware of it. for the cases that make it to court the dead are of course not present to see the justice enacted in their name - even where the victim names their murderer with their dying breath it might not be admissible on the basis that they may not have been aware that they were dying.

when he visits his parents horsemouth sometimes goes with his mother to the churchyard to ensure that his grandparents' graves are being kept clean. he'll finish the david simon sometime today - then it's either henry miller the air-conditioned nightmare or a death in the family karl ove knausgaard