Inexplicably, we latch onto death and murder stories and sites and never ever let go.  At the end of the street where I grew up there is a tree with a barkless patch about two feet high and one foot wide.  The bark was scraped off by a real estate agent: it was still soaked in blood.  Two classmates of mine flipped their Volkswagen convertible over the curb, over a driveway, hitting the tree about three feet in the air.  The front crushed and their mangled bodies covered the tree and yard with property-value-decreasing blood.  I still look for the barkless patch.  

The first dead body I saw was in Puerto Rico, but that's not important because I will never see that spot again.  

I've been documenting another death spot: outside of where I work.  It's one half of a double murder.  Two kids tried to rob a drug dealer, so he chased them down. Both were shot execution-style; one died in a church parking lot and the other on the street.  It is the second spot that is of interest.  

First, both spots were covered in white powder to soak up the blood.  You could see the red for awhile.  Candles, memorials, photographs, balloons, beer cans all created a shrine to the dead.  The street spot became an unofficial no parking zone. Not that you could park: there were often friends of the deceased on the scene, in the street.  I'd slow down on my way in to work at night so that I didn't hit someone.  The memorial faded, but the spot remained wet.  I am not sure if it was a blood stain, constant pouring of libation, or both.  Then, it was the deceased's birthday. It all came back for one last hurrah.  And it faded again.  Soon before the anniversary of the death, I walked by the spot and paused.  There was a car parked over the death spot.  It was the first time since the death that I had ever seen a car there.  I have seen it once more since then.  It gives me butterflies in my stomach.  

Today, the street cleaners came by the death spot with a huge vacuum truck and a tube that could fit a body to suck up all the street dirt and the leaves.  All clean.