Page 19 of Lost Kingdom

“I got used to that a long time ago. So now I can recognize everything else, too.” I bring my focus around to the studious Officer Clay and smile. Because he reminds me of a cute little puppy, eager to please. Excited to fetch a ball. The kid needs a partner. A detective to take him under their wing. But Fletch and Archer are already bonded, and a third is simply not workable. So he hovers instead, helping, but not officially part of the team. “Perhaps you could knock on doors, Officer? Encourage the residents to make coffee.”

His eyes flicker with curiosity. “Coffee?”

“Trust me.” I turn to Fletch. “You ready?”

“Sure thing,Detective.” He shakes his head and hobbles past me, nodding at the other uniformed officers who arrived on scene first. Then he opens the door and steps through first. “You’re getting kinda bossy these days, you know that? Minka comes along and tells us what to do. But now you’re here too, ordering our uniform to canvas. That’s kinda my job.”

“So do it, and I won’t have to.” I toss a playful response back as I come to a stop in the middle of a messy apartment. Not messy, as in it was tossed by vandals. But messy, as in the occupant didn’t value a regular cleaning schedule. “She was a hoarder.” I sniff to escape the stench, which makes no sense at all, considering I pull more of the rancid air into my lungs. “I smell ammonia, too.”

“Victim has cats,” Officer Clay offers from the doorway, swallowing when I glance over my shoulder. “They’ve scattered since we opened the apartment door. But the litter trays are still here, and the floor is… well…”

He looks down. So naturally, I follow his gaze to find mounds of cat shit everywhere. Fresh. Old. Trodden. Eaten and regurgitated.

“Vic is this way.” Fletch walks carefully, tiptoeing over the few clear spots of stained carpet, and hopping every second step when he places all his weight on his bad leg. He gulps from the pain, but says nothing as he moves through the packed space. Towers of newspapers make a wall, and mountains of trash spear up every few feet. Soda bottles lay strewn, and cat shit—so much of it—sprinkles the apartment like confetti at a birthday party.

I wish for my boss, my friend, my colleague, if only to tease her about her cat. But Minka’s taking a well-deserved day off, so I clutch my murder bag and make my way through the kitchen—I know it’s the kitchen, because there’s an oven, the door open, and an impossible number of pizza boxes stuffed inside.

“Did the vic live alone?” I speak without inhaling, a skill I mastered in my early days on the job. But I don’t pinch my nose. I definitely don’t bring my shirt up and cover it. “Who called this in?”

“Neighbors noticed the stench.” Fletch reaches back to offer a hand when I’m forced to step over a washing basket filled with… stuff. Certainly not laundry. “I imagine everyone is used to the usual smells around here. But decomp is different.”

“Prepare yourself.” I let him help me back onto steady feet, then I release his hand and look toward the nearest door. A bedroom, I can only assume.And the source of death. “The fact she had cats tells me they feasted before they escaped.”

He swings a pair of honeycomb eyes around and stops on mine. “Tell me you’re lying.”

“All these years on the job and you haven’t pulled an unattended with cats before?” Grinning, I step past him and gently push the door wide, only to find the saddest view I’ve seen in a while.

I’ve handled murder. I’ve autopsied children. Mothers. Infants. I’ve seen enough death in my life to be reasonably confident I’ve experienced it all. But sorrow envelops my soul as I find a hospital-grade bed parked in the center of the room. Steel rails on each side, and a pull bar at the top for the occupant to grab onto when they want to sit.

There are no IV poles. No machinery that might imply medical intervention.

The cause of death, here, without testing and formally stating so, started with the victim’s morbid obesity.

“Jesus.” Fletch comes up behind me and gags. It’s fast. One time. Then he gets himself under control, swallowing the vomit Iknowteases the base of his throat. “What the fuck, Aubs?”

“Female,” I recite for the record. “Approximately fifty-five to…” could be a hundred. “I can’t say. I would guestimate time of death at roughly five to seven days ago.”

“You can tell already?”

“Yeah.” I set my murder bag on the floor and slowly cross the room, careful not to step on anything unpleasant. “Presence of maggots,” I narrate. “They rarely bother with the arms and legs. Not when the big, juicy organs are available. The vic has been skeletonized over the upper torso and face.”

“Cats?” Fletch questions. Though I swear, it almost sounds like ‘barf?’. “Or maggots?”

“Both, probably. Maggots would have started before the cats. They’d have opened her up, and then the cats would have come looking for their dinner and discovered something perfectly suitable. Vic’s skin has peeled away from her left ear. Her hair has moved with it.”

“Peeled, like…” Fletch stops on my right, his broad chest brushing against my shoulder blade. “Uh…?”

“She’s been here awhile, and when that happens and decomposition begins, the skin simply slides off.”

“Jesus.” He presses a fist to his lips. “Gross.”

“Her skin has dried in some spots to a tough, leathery consistency, and her main organs—brain, heart, liver, and lungs—have provided a smorgasbord to the local fly population over the last few days.”

“Homicide?”Please, I know he silently screams.Tell me it’s not homicide.

“I can’t know until we take her to my autopsy suite. But my initial thoughts lean toward her dying of health problems. Given her size, it’s quite possible she suffered cardiac arrest. Her body was too large and her heart couldn’t cope. I’ll do my job,” I turn from the bed and collect my bag, “formally call death, then we’ll move her. You’ll need to get towels or something.”

He glances around in search. “Because there’ll be juices and stuff beneath her body?”

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