O’Halloran wore an N95 mask. He slapped one against Larkin’s chest and said, “Welcome back. You’ll need this. If you have to puke, puke on the tracks.”

Larkin caught the mask. He glanced toward the double doors a second time and watched two individuals in full PPE and respirators move about in what he surmised was some kind of utility closet. “My lieutenant said this was a matter for Cold Cases.”

O’Halloran nodded.

Larkin put the N95 on, adjusted the nose piece, then said, “Human bodies begin the decomposition process roughly four minutes after the time of death, and in an ideal setting, the timeline is consistent from rigor mortis to bloat to active decay. But in a hot and humid environment, the progression is often accelerated. In summer of 2018, the Regional Plan Association took the temperature in sixteen of New York’s busiest subway stations. They confirmed that twelve of the sixteen reached over ninety degrees by late morning, making these platforms hotter than the ambient temperature outside, which was eighty-six degrees. And while Fifty-Seventh Street was not among the record breakers—the 4, 5, 6 at Union Square was one-hundred-four, and the uptown 1 at Columbus Circle was one-hundred-one—I cite these examples to emphasize how heat down here will compromise time of death estimations, and that what smells like human soup served up in a large-size, polypropylene IKEA shopping bag, available for ninety-nine cents and owned by just about every New Yorker, making it untraceable, has likely been deceased a week or less. Therefore, this murder—I assume murder, as the individual likely did not lock themselves in a utility closet, crawl into a reusable Swedish tote, and expire of their own volition—is firmly Camp Homicide, not Cold Cases.”

After a moment, O’Halloran shook his head, muttered, “Jesus Christ,” then walked toward the double doors.

Larkin reluctantly followed, the stench permeating his mask the closer they got, and he was forced to take shallow breaths through his mouth instead of his nose. Both detectives stood in the doorway, watching as one of the techs collected maggot samples from the mass writhing on the bloated and partially melted body.

“You fuckers done playing with bugs yet?” O’Halloran asked.

“All bugs are insects,” the tech answered as he screwed a cap onto the vial in his hand. “But not all insects are bugs.”

The dry and sardonic delivery, the upward lilt in his voice—Larkin’s mental Rolodex spun to March 30, to the morning thunderstorm, the uprooted crabapple, the crate, the CSU detective waist-deep in mud as he’d suggested, “That is a death mask.”—Neil Millett.

Larkin inclined his head politely, saying, “Millett.”

“We meet again, Everett Larkin,” Millett answered, voice slightly muffled by the respirator mask. “Sorry it’s under such conditions.”