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with a stack of clippings and apprehension, dreading a visit that he had made a half-dozen times since that night in Lisbon. Four years had passed, and in that time his relationship with Reynard LaCroix was clinical, if not pleasant. That terrible night had been shelved away in an unspoken covenant: to never speak of it again. He had not visited his charge in over a year.
    Why not tell Reynard I am coming?
    He paged through his notebook again until he found the clipping from the New Orleans Advocate , dated five days earlier. He made a point to have New Orleans newspapers delivered to him both in London and in Boston, to keep vigil until he ever found such a headline:

GRUESOME DEATH AT GRETNA RIVERSIDE!
 
Gretna, October 12– An unidentified woman’s mutilated body was found near Sutton’s Warehouse yesterday evening, and authorities declare she may have been attacked by one or more feral dogs roaming the south quarter.
 
“Wild animals are on the loose,” said Chief Constable Thornton of Jefferson Parish. “Until our capable officers can track these ferals down, mothers are strongly advised to keep nursery windows securely shut.”

    Savoy replaced the clipping and blindly watched the bayou, its pools and drooping trees. The tension in his stomach grew tighter.
    Please God , he thought. Not Renny .
     

3
     
     
    Reynard LaCroix stared fascinated, disgusted, unable to comprehend the two bodies lying beneath their spoiled white sheets. The corpses sprawled in that backwater alley like discarded decorations, grotesque puppets left to sag in the rain. He was equally surprised at the burly police inspector, Legrasse by name, blandly crouched beside the closest body in his longcoat and cap as if a regular witness to such horror. The inspector pulled down the sheet.
    Reynard pressed a silk cloth against his nose and mouth.
    Blazes, but his throat!
    Reynard could not look at the man’s ruined face any longer; he focused on the tenement walls of pale brick and plaster, the grimy windows crawling higher and higher until he saw, clouded by wire and strung laundry, the pale gray of morning. He wished fresh air could find its way into that filthy place, but the rotten, greasy smell saturated the cobblestone and through his clothes. He wiped his face. Sweat beaded under his eyes, unclean.
    “This your man?” Legrasse asked.
    “Yes. Bill Tourney. Ran errands, but I did not—”
    “Next of kin?”
    “Wife and daughter. Do they know?”
    Legrasse replaced the sheet. “He wasn’t a real good runner then, sir. We knew to contact you because he held correspondence addressed to your business, though he stank of gin. Lucky break, that, or we’d‘ve trouble identifying him. We’re also lucky t’ve found him so soon...after, I mean. Th’rats can make things tough if they’ve got on too long.”
    Reynard took in a deep breath and tried not to retch. This was not the smell of death or sewage or decay, not anything rotting in that isolated hole, not quite. A random memory came, of fourth-year biology and the stuttering old professor who never remembered to set out the scalpels before class. His classroom reeked of formaldehyde and animal blood and lye and turpentine, if not saturated with it. Unclean. That was how the alley felt—unclean, stained with violence, stinking of booze and blood and putrefying fish and—
    “Sir?”
    Something else.
    “Sir?”
    “This is just...” Reynard exhaled. “Horrible.”
    “The pulpits’ll ‘ave fodder for a month,” the inspector said, “more proof against public inebriation. You’ll be good to write a statement? Include his address and all that? We prefer to notify the family ourselves.”
    “Of course. How did this happen?”
    “That is the question, isn’t it?”
    “Have you a theory?”
    “Not proper to spread rumors,” Legrasse said. “Consider it your civic duty t’keep this out of the rags.” He motioned toward the alley exit. “Not had a proper breakfast myself.