A bull-shaped patrol sergeant stepped out from one of the side doors. “Hi, Joe. Sorry to get you out of bed.”

“That’s okay. What happened?”

“Old lady got a bunch of obscene phone calls over the last few days. The guy finally said he’d visit tonight and do to her what he did to the cat. She waited for him in that chair and blew him away when he opened the back door.”

“What he did to the cat?”

The sergeant, George Capullo, approached the fallen chair and motioned at a doorway. I stepped over the chair and looked around the corner. It was a bedroom, cluttered but neat, lit from a single bare bulb on the wall.

“On the bed,” said George. He stayed where he was.

I approached the bed, a ramshackle iron spider’s web held together with crisscrossed wires. Covering it was an old quilt, not especially pretty but carefully made, and under the quilt was a small lump. I flipped back the corner.

The cat lay on its back, spread-eagled, its dry eyes wide in arrested agony. It had been slit open from neck to crotch and its innards pulled out for display: lumpish, red, and still slightly wet. I swallowed hard and dropped the quilt back.

“Christ, George. You could have told me.”

“Gross, huh?”

“More like weird. Did somebody call the State’s Attorney?”

“Do unto him like I did unto you?”

“Spare me. And spare him too. He doesn’t have my sense of humor. Is J.P. here?”

“Yeah, and I already called the SA. He should have been here by now. J.P.’s out back taking pictures.”

I returned to the hallway. “Did you respond first?”

“About two-thirty. She called it in herself. The neighbors claim they didn’t hear a thing. That’s bullshit, of course. She let loose with both barrels at once. Must have made the whole block jump.”

“Who’s the body?”

“Don’t know. We haven’t searched him yet.” George hesitated. “To be honest, I didn’t get too close. He makes the cat look good.”