Killed on the Ice

T WAS A SCENE to give new meaning to the phrase “murdered in cold blood.”
The body of Dr. Paul Dinkover lay at the far side of the skating rink, at the end of a long smear of red that was already turning sticky from contact with the ice. I knew that because I bent over to touch it, exactly as if I knew how to judge from the condition of blood how long a man has been dead.
I made a face at myself, looked around for a place to wipe my fingers. I made a mental note to start carrying a handkerchief. I was in mild trouble at the moment, but every second I delayed calling the police made it harsher. In other circumstances I might be able to excuse myself by saying I went to see if I could aid the victim, but that wouldn’t work in this case. The cops would know that I would know that anybody who’d lost that much blood, anybody who’d had his abdomen as thoroughly ventilated as Dr. Dinkover had, was way beyond aid.
I didn’t care. From where the blood started to where the body lay was a good seventy-five feet, maybe more. I had to find out if I could believe my eyes. I had to find out if this old man, in his death agony, had