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“That smell ever go away?”

“So goes the body, so goes the smell. When we’re gone, boil some coffee and a pot of vinegar. That’ll eat it up pretty good.”

The landlord hustled down the hall and into the elevator. Sanj looked at Livia, whose eyes were watering. “Welcome to ride-along week.”

The apartment was a one-bedroom with a living room and a kitchen. Sitting on the couch was a very overweight and very dead Anthony Davis, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, no socks, no shoes. Livia walked around the couch to get a better view while Sanj and Kent gathered what they needed from their canvas bag and took preliminary scene photos.

When Sanj stopped clicking his camera, Livia snapped on a pair of gloves and approached Anthony Davis. His skin was a pallid gray, his lips nearly white, and his eyelids slivered open to expose a hint of blue iris, the corneas long since dried and desiccated. Getting closer to the body, Livia greatly appreciated the overhead ventilation system at the morgue. It pulled more foul air than she understood until she found herself in a closed apartment with a rotting body. She put her hand to her mouth momentarily as if she might vomit.

“Here,” Kent said, handing her a tub of Vicks VapoRub. “I can’t stand to watch you anymore. Schultz? We’ll let him suffer all week. For you, Dr. Cutty, we’ll help you out. Smear some under your nose.”

Livia took the jar and stuck her gloved finger into the petroleum, placed a small amount on her upper lip and inside her nostrils. The lemony-menthol odor immediately overwhelmed her, which was a much better alternative to the wet rot of Anthony Davis.

Sanj and Kent, donned now in gloves and protective eyewear, approached the body and began their investigation. Livia stood back and observed, which was how this week was meant to go.

“Moderate stage of putrefaction,” Kent said. “I’d say five to seven days. Rigor is spent and the body is in a state of secondary laxity.” He felt Anthony Davis’s swollen legs. “Blood is fixed. Definitely a week.”

Sanj took notes and more pictures, snapping shots of the body and the apartment from every angle as Kent moved around the body. “Definitely a heart attack risk.”

“Or stroke,” Kent said. “He died on the couch and never moved. Lividity in the butt and legs.”

After they gathered everything of relevance and found nothing else to photograph, they managed Anthony Davis carefully into a black vinyl body bag and placed him onto the gurney. As they were securing the body, Livia took note of the couch and coffee table. A half-eaten pizza remained on the grease-stained box it was delivered in, and a Styrofoam container next to it sat suspiciously undisturbed. Livia carefully lifted the lid with her pen to find the dried, brittle bones of eaten chicken wings. A soda can was on its side on the floor, having stained the carpeting from where the syrupy liquid spilled.

She looked back to the gurney. “Can I check him?”

Sanj looked up from his clipboard. “The body? Be my guest.”

Livia unzipped the bag to expose Anthony Davis’s face, then used her penlight to illuminate his mouth. Sticking her gloved fingers between his lips, she pressed down on his lower teeth and caused Anthony Davis’s mouth to gape open. She put the penlight closer to his mouth to get a better look, the VapoRub losing some of its effectiveness this close to the rot.

“Got anything, Doc?” Sanj asked.

“Yeah,” Livia said, staring down Mr. Davis’s throat. “He choked on a chicken wing. I see the bones in the back of his throat.”

Kent and Sanj had a look.

“That’s why you’re the doc, Doc.”

“Anyone would have found it on autopsy,” Livia said.

“Yeah,” Sanj said. “But this makes us look smart.”

“I bet he dropped his soda when he started to choke.”

Sanj made sure to photograph the spilled soda can, then zipped up the bag and they pushed the gurney out of the apartment. Outside, the residents watched with morbid expressions as Sanj and Kent loaded their neighbor into the van. While the investigators talked with the police and finished their report, Livia found the building’s owner.

“You’re the landlord, is that correct?” she asked.

“Yeah. I’m the one who found him.”

“Neighbors called to report a smell, is that right?”

“That’s right, Doc.”

“That ever happen before? Neighbors call with a complaint and you had to check on a tenant?”

“Tenants complain all the time. But I usually make a phone call and settle things that way. I called Tony for two days, and he obviously never answered. So I came over to see what was going on.”

“How did you get into the apartment?”