THIRTEENThe stench hit them as soon as the manager unlocked the apartment door. The stifling heat didn’t help. They weren’t met by the smell of rotting flesh, but by the overwhelming aroma of garbage and neglect, feces and decay. At first, Jim Bullock and Trick Delgado didn’t see the body. The place was knee-deep in trash and smelled worse than a pig farm during an August heat wave.
“Over there,” the apartment manager said, pointing a knobby finger to the floor near the couch. “I didn’t see her at first either. How could I with all this mess? It’s going to cost big time to get this unit cleaned up. Anyway, like I said, I came banging on her door this morning and she wouldn’t open up. I knew she was in there. She always was.”
Trick figured the manager for a prime suspect. He had a sneaky
