From inside, Chelsea Skinner stared back at us.

Her neck must have been broken when she’d been crammed in, because her body was twisted, facing the ground. It looked like her legs had been broken as well in order to fit her inside.

There was a bullet hole in the top of her head, and she had a cross made of ashes on her forehead.

Emily placed her gloved hand on the dead girl’s cheek.

“I’m going to catch the man who did this to you,” she promised the girl as she took out her phone.

THE SUBWOOFER THUMPING of the low-flying PD chopper seemed to echo through my raging blood as I left Emily and threaded the narrow alley back to the sidewalk.

I stared at the line of decrepit three- and four-story brick town houses across the street. The ground floors of many of the buildings bore the closed steel shutters of abandoned stores, but I could see curtains and blinds in many of the upstairs windows that faced the alley. Somebody must have seen something.

A crowd had gathered around the just-arrived Emergency Service Unit truck, which was parked in front of the mosque. I could see Lieutenant Montana through the windshield, working the radio, calling for backup. Around the truck were many mosquegoers, men in kufis and some women wearing hijab head scarves. But others-local non-Muslim street folk looking for some stimulation-also seemed to be arriving by the minute.

I took out a picture of Chelsea as I walked over to the throng of people. “This girl was found dead in the alley back there,” I announced, holding it up. “Did anyone see anything this morning?”

“Oh, a white girl. That’s what all the fuss is about. Figures,” said a pudgy young woman, laughing between bites of her takeout.

“Word,” said a large man in cornrows beside her. “Why you cops messing around this mosque for? These are God-fearin’ people. This is harassment. Religious and racial discrimination. We don’t know anything about any white girl!”

From the way the large man stood, half turned, unconsciously shielding his right side, I would have bet my paycheck that he was carrying under his XXL Giants jersey. I wanted to bust him right there and then. Make the wiseass the recipient of the anger that was still reeling through me. l almost didn’t care that it would probably incite the rest of the gathering crowd.

I exhaled a long breath and let it go as a couple of Twenty-fifth Precinct radio cars turned the corner a moment later.

I was heading back toward the crime scene when I heard a window slam across the street. Behind the pane of dusty glass in one of the town houses’ second-story windows, a thin, middle-aged black woman stared down at me. She made extended, knowing eye contact with me and nodded before fading back further into her apartment.

She wanted to talk, but not in front of the neighborhood. Please, let this be a lead, I prayed as I went to get Emily.

I left a couple of uniforms to cordon off the alley and took Emily with me across the street. The town house’s inner door’s lock buzzed as we entered the foyer. As we reached the top of the narrow stairwell, a door cracked open down the hallway. The woman whom I’d seen in the window put her finger to her lips and motioned us silently inside.

The apartment was immaculate. The furniture was arranged tastefully on polished hardwood floors, and there was a granite island in the stainless-steel kitchen. Through an open bathroom doorway, I spotted a nurse’s flowered uniform blouse hanging on the shower curtain rod.

The woman introduced herself as Mrs. Price, and I showed her Chelsea ’s picture as we stepped into the living room.

“This girl’s body was found dumped across the street,” I said, keeping my voice down.

The woman tsked loudly as she stared at the photo.

“Another dead child,” she said in a lilting Caribbean accent. “I’d say dis world has gone damn crazy, but I don’t remember a time when it wasn’t.”

“Is there some information you could share with us, Mrs. Price?” Emily prompted. “This probably happened right after the call-to-prayer speakers went off at five.”

“Oh, I know dose damn speakers,” she said. “Dey shouldn’t be allowed to do dat. Religion or not, dat’s noise pollution. I called three-one-one a hundred times, but do you tink anytin happen? Tink again.”

“Did you see anything?” Emily said.

“No,” she said. “But you talk to dat Big Ice. He’s de local drug dealer.”

“The loud guy with the cornrows?” I said.

She pursed her lips as she nodded.

“Big Devil, I say he is. Making dis block a livin hell for all de decent folks with jobs, tryin to raise families. Big Ice’s people are out all morning early on dat corner and stay out to all hours de next mornin. If anytin happened on dis block, dey seen it, sure. He tinks he so slick, runnin tings from dat clothes store round de corner while his runners and such do his biddin.”

“What’s the name of the store?” I said.

“Ener-G Boutique. Sells all dat hip-hop nonsense clothes. It’s right on de corner.”

“You’re a good person, ma’am,” I said, putting the picture away. “Speaking up is a courageous thing.”

“You tell dat beautiful young girl’s mother I’m sorry for her loss,” the thin woman said as we headed back to the door. “I raised three sons on dis block by de skin of my teeth. If dey were taken from me like dat, I don’t know what I’d do.”

THE ENER-G BOUTIQUE was right where our witness said it would be. I thought it was going to be a fly-by-night front sort of place, but it actually seemed legit. In the window were name-brand clothes from the Wu-Tang Clan, Phat Farm, Sean John, G-Unit, FUBU. They apparently sold footwear, too, to judge from the neon Timberland and Nike signs on the plate-glass door.

The clerk, plucking her eyebrows behind the counter, didn’t have a chance to say, “Can I help you?” by the time Emily and I, plus a couple of ESU SWAT cops, had crossed the store with our guns drawn. Big Ice was sitting on the shoe department’s try-on bench, slipping on a pair of Nike Dunks, when we approached him.

“Yeah?” he said testily, looking up at us.

There were two cell phones beside him and a plastic Ener-G bag under the bench. Inside the bag, a chrome-plated automatic was plainly visible.

“I wouldn’t move if I were you,” I said as I knelt and lifted the bag. The gun was a Browning Hi Power 9-millimeter. “You have a license for this?” I said, showing it to him.

“Oh, that ain’t my bag, Officer. Somebody else must have left it there. I just came in here to get me some new walkers.”

There was a shoebox in the bag as well. I upended it onto the floor. A plastic bag holding a dozen tightly bound bundles of twenties bounced off the beige carpet.

“Then I take it this money isn’t yours either. Or anything else I’m going to find when I tear this place apart.”

“Oh, I get it,” Big Ice said, looking from me to each of the cops surrounding him. “You gonna try and pin that girl on me. Some white girl dies, so let’s blame the big black man. How original. This is bullshit.”

Big Ice was right. What we were doing was not ordinary police procedure by any stretch. I didn’t care. I was past the point of doing this thing by the book. I didn’t have time to listen to a thousand “I didn’t see nothing”s. I was sick of looking at dead kids.

“Toss me my cellie so I can speed-dial my lawyer,” Big Ice said, yawning casually. “I got that white boy on retainer. He’s going to blow your inadmissible illegal-ass search the fuck up.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But Clarence-goddamn-Darrow isn’t going to be able to get you back this shoebox full of twenties.”

Big Ice suddenly looked at me as if I’d grown another head.

“Oh,” he said, smiling. “You wanna play Deal or No Deal. Why didn’t you just say so instead of bullin’ in here, getting my lady all up in a dander? You come to the right place. What can I do for you?”