Wednesday, November 05, 2014

Heat Wave

"Boy do I have stories. Every policeman does. You need stories? Just ask a policeman. There was one I'll never forget. This elderly couple must've been in their eighties. The man was quite a bit older than the wife, healthy, but the wife was not all there mentally so he took care of her. They lived in a triple-decker. One day we get a call from the neighbors about a horrible smell. It was during a heat wave. Some of my guys couldn't go in the apartment the smell was so bad. The husband had died. I remember I sat with the wife in the kitchen and she was eating a bowl of cereal and her dish was right next to the mop where she had been cleaning up bodily fluids. I couldn't believe it. And then she says to me, and I'll never forget it, 'He's not feeling well, he's not himself.' The poor guy had been dead for days. When the body has been sitting like that over time the fluids drain out. Luckily she had relatives and they took her to a home."

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