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had not had the benefit of a warning before walking headlong into the most gruesome murder scene he’d ever seen or heard of. He tried to pretend he was okay, but every time he stood, his legs would shake so badly he couldn’t walk and had to sit back down again.
    “Uh … the rats are back, sir,” Officer Patrick announced.
    “Jesus Christ! You guys get those rats away from the damned evidence, would you?”
    “We’ve been trying! They won’t go!” one of the two horrified patrolmen standing around the corpse said.
    “Then shoot the damned things! Where the fuck is Animal Control? I thought they got the call first?”
    “They’re short staffed, sir. They’ve only got like ten officers. They’re breaking up a dogfighting ring on the Westside, but they’ve got someone en route.”
    “Jesus Christ!”
    The two officers immediately drew their weapons.
    Detective Malloy looked around at the growing crowd of spectators, who were now staring at the two officers in horror as they prepared to shoot vermin off the corpse of their friend and neighbor.
    “No! No! Damn it, don’t shoot! Use your batons and your pepper spray, but wait until we get all these civilians back. And do not hit the corpse!”
    Malloy ordered the remaining patrolmen to move everyone back behind the police line, but no one had thought to put up any tape yet. The officers hastily strung a line of caution.
    More squad cars began to arrive. Malloy made sure none of the new officers on the scene looked at the body. He needed at least a few officers who weren’t struck dumb with shock.
    He grabbed the first two officers who stepped out of their vehicles. “You two! Get these people back and get me some crime scene tape up across this whole street. No cars. No people. Nothing crosses this tape until we’ve processed the crime scene and this body is on its way to the morgue.”
    Cruz had come back out of the house and was standing next to John with the dog on a leash.
    “What’s that dog doing over here?” Malloy said. “I told you to tie it to a tree.”
    “There’s no tree big enough.”
    Malloy looked around at all the scrawny fifteen-gallon box trees that lined the block and shook his head. “Tie it to your damned bumper then. Where’s the ME? CSU? They’d better get here soon ‘cause I’m not processing this scene myself.”
    He glanced back at the pile of mangled meat in the street and felt the bile rise in his throat again. No way I’m picking through that shit, he thought, turning back to watch Cruz tie their prime suspect to the bumper of his car.
    From the corner of his eye, he saw the two officers smashing rats with their batons and spraying pepper spray all over the corpse. The ME was going to kill him. Not to mention what CSU would do when they showed up to find the scene littered with rat carcasses. Malloy shook his head. What else could he do? He couldn’t just let the rats cart off the corpse. He had no clue what had happened here.
    He hoped the hysterical neighbor who they’d taken to St. Ann’s was the killer, though he knew that was highly unlikely. Besides, that wouldn’t explain the bizarre behavior of the animals. He’d never seen a corpse that was only hours old so severely set upon by scavengers. Looking at the condition of the corpse, he would’ve guessed it had been lying in the woods for at least three days, yet it had been less than an hour in the middle of a city street.
    “Fuck. Why me?” he grumbled as the crime scene van pulled up along with a news van whose crew immediately got out and began filming the officers beating rats off the mounds of human hamburger.

Chapter 6
    April was sick of hearing about Delilah. She didn’t want to talk any more about her problems. She was sick of everyone trying to fix her. She was broken beyond repair. She had come to grips with that now. Why can’t everyone else? she thought.
    “I’m not going to some voodoo ritual and dancing naked in the woods. I don’t