CAROLINE WHEAT “Crime Scene.” First appeared in Sisters in Crime, edited by Marilyn Wallace, paperback original, May 1989. Reprinted in Carolyn Wheat’s story collection Tales Out of School, Crippen & Landru, November 2000.

   In its original appearance this story is only eight pages long, but what it does in those eight pages is show what a good writer can do in only a limited number of words.

   When a young police officer named Toni Ramirez is the first on the scene of a gory murder scene in an apartment building, her first instinct is to keep her composure at all costs while the lab guys are joking around while examining the body as part of their obviously usual routine. But when she sees the supervising officer wiping away his tears, she finds that she can no longer hold back her own.

   Telling her the story of his own first crime scene one in which he reacted much the same way, the older man helps clear the younger woman’s head enough that she is able to make some deductions from the evidence right there at the crime scene, and the killer is caught. Ellery Queen could not have done better!

   This is a story that you will have do some hunting in order to track it down. The reason I wanted to tell you about it, though, is to let you know that every once in a while you can find a detective story in which the heart — honestly and somehow not mawkishly — and the brain are of equal value in solving a case. It’s well told, as well.

[ADDED LATER]   Carolyn Wheat is a former criminal defense attorney who as an author is best known for her series of five books about Cass Jameson, a Brooklyn-based night court lawyer. According to her website, “[t]wo of the books were nominated for Edgar awards. She is also the author of numerous short stories which have won her an Agatha, an Anthony, a Shamus, and a Macavity award.”