7
THE DEAD DON’T COMPLAIN
The stench was enough to make a drug addict with a burnt out septum want to gag. A stench so clawing, so thick, it seemed as if it enveloped you like a rain slick and pressed against your clothes. That’s what you get when you find a body that’s been dead for about two weeks.
Holding handkerchiefs to our noses, we tried to view the body with a distant, professional gaze. Being homicide detectives, examining dead bodies goes with the territory. No matter how bad they stank or how decomposed they were. But when a body’s been dead for two weeks, lying in a bed in an apartment room with the windows closed and locked and no ventilation, even two old dogs like Frank and I thought about transferring to something more mundane like Parks Patrol or Administration.
From w
