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“Two-nine-four, we have a ten-ninety for twelve-oh-one Washburn, please respond.”

Officer Willie Glass of the Philadelphia Police Department grabbed his radio and replied, “Ten-four, this is two-nine-four, on my way to twelve-oh-one Washburn. What’s the situation?”

"We have a resident complaining of a strong odor coming from the neighboring apartment. Both the neighbor and the building manager have attempted to contact the resident of the apartment from which the odor is emanating and have received no response. The manager is requesting a wellness check."

Willie felt a chill when he heard that. This had all the hallmarks of a dead body.

Don’t jump to conclusions. Could be an old cat lady who lets her pets pee all over and doesn’t clean up after them. Which would only be marginally better than a dead body.

Despite that last thought, he felt the chill subside as he imagined some crone with thirty cats shedding, meowing, hissing and pissing all over everything.

He smiled. Hissing and pissing. That was a good one. He’d have to find a chance to use that.

“Ten-four, dispatch. I’ll be on location in three minutes.”

“Roger, two-nine-four.”

He replaced the radio handset, hit the lights and flipped a U-turn.

In high school, he and his friends used to call that flipping a bitch.

He had no idea why. It was just one of those things kids said, thinking it made them look cool and tough when it only made them look dorky and stupid.

But he was just as dorky and stupid as the rest of them, so he wasn't going to judge.

At least flipping a bitch was more exciting in his police cruiser than in his 2001 Honda Civic.

He reached the location in three minutes as promised and pulled to a stop in front of the Wakefield Apartments. The manager and a middle-aged woman wearing a flannel nightgown—Willie assumed was the neighbor—waited for him just past the entrance.

“Hey, officer,” the woman said. “Sorry to bother you so late in the evening, but I’m worried about my neighbor, Jean. She’s not answering her phone or her door, and her apartment smells like death.” She blanched and said, “Oh God. I wish I hadn’t said that.”

Me too , Willie thought. The chill was back now. He kept it from his face as he asked, “Can you show me where the unit is?”

“It’s right up there, officer,” the neighbor said, pointing at the second floor of one of the buildings.

“Which unit?” Willie asked.

“One-twenty-four,” the woman replied. “I’m one-twenty-six.”

Willie nodded and turned to the manager. “You don’t talk?”

The manager frowned, and Willie regretted his rudeness. Jeez, why was he so jumpy?

“Do you need me to?” the manager asked, clearly and understandably miffed.

Willie would need to turn on the charm to make up for his earlier question. “Not at the moment, sir, but if you have a key to the residence, I’d appreciate it if you tried that so I don’t have to damage the property.”

“I tried it already,” the manager said. “Why would I call you if I hadn’t tried to get inside first?”

Because it’s against the law for you to enter a tenant’s home without their permission , Willie thought but didn’t say.

“I understand that, sir, but I need to see you try again just for my own records.” As an afterthought, he added, “It’s department policy.

” It wasn’t, but it was a useful generic excuse that could be applied to just about any situation, and he seriously doubted the manager was going to bother to follow up on that claim.

The manager muttered something about "lazy pigs" and shuffled toward the stairs.

Willie let the insult roll off his back.

In twelve years with the department, he'd heard far worse things than that.

Besides, Willie's own fear had made him short with the manager to begin with.

No doubt, the manager was just as worried about what they would find.

The neighbor followed behind the two men, keeping them in front of her but craning her neck to see past them. Willie despised looky-loos. How pathetic did your life need to be that you needed to gawk at the misfortune of others?

You’re only focusing on them because being irritated is more comfortable than being afraid, he told himself. Grow a pair and do your job.

The manager led them to unit one-twenty-four and tried the door. The key turned easily enough in the handle, but when the manager pushed the door open, it only moved a quarter inch before stopping. A harsh scraping noise accompanied that movement. Something was blocking the door.

Willie's eyes narrowed. "Back away from the door, you two."

The manager noted the change in Willie’s voice and turned worried eyes on him. “You don’t think someone’s in there, do you? I mean—”

“I don’t know. Back away.”

The manager complied. Willie drew his weapon. Strangely enough, now that it was all but certain he was going to face danger, his fear had subsided. He credited his training for that. He’d never had to fire his weapon outside of the range, but if it came to that, he could handle himself.

Hopefully, it wouldn't come to that.

“Philadelphia Police!” he called. “Open the door and come on out with your hands clearly visible!”

No answer. He drew in breath to try again, and when he did, the odor hit him: thick, sweet, and rotten. He gagged, and when he repeated his command, his voice trembled.

No answer.

The chill had returned slightly, not because he feared there was a killer still inside the apartment, but because he hadn’t heard any cats behind the door either, and if it wasn’t a pet making that smell, then it was something else.

Or someone else.

He sighed and squared himself in front of the door.

He used to have a fantasy of kicking a door down like a badass cop on tv, but now that he was here about to do just that, he felt no excitement at all.

Once the door opened, the mystery of what lay behind it would be revealed.

He wasn’t sure he was prepared for that.

He took a deep breath, fought back another gag, and kicked hard. A crack split the door in half horizontally. The top half swung inward, revealing a chair hooked under the doorknob that now held only the bottom half in place.

The smell rolled over Willie like a tidal wave. Behind him, the manager swore and gagged. Willie moved the chair out from under the doorknob and opened the door.

He stepped inside. The apartment was dark and appeared to have been ransacked, but it wasn’t the home’s treasures that Willie was concerned with.

The reason for the odor sat in the kitchen, tied to a chair with nylon cables around her ankles, her wrists, and her neck.

Willie could only just tell the victim was a she.

Hell, he could only just tell it was human.

The body had been dead for several days, and it was impossible to know if her horribly disfigured face and limbs were a result of all of her tendons and ligaments being cut or if gas built up inside of her had bloated the body beyond recognition.

When he got to the eyes, he lost control. He turned around and vomited heavily, struggling for breath as he listened to the neighbor scream.

When he got himself under control, he grabbed his radio and said, “Dispatch, this is two-nine-four requesting additional units. We have a homicide.”

He turned back to the body, but the sight of the festering donkey’s tail pinned to the head where Jean’s right eye should have been overwhelmed him once more.

He stumbled out of the unit, sank to his knees and vomited again, the acrid stench of the vomit mixing grotesquely with the rotten sweetness of the dead woman’s body.