One of the detectives looked so young he might have been the other detective’s son; his name was Albert Curry, and he was a pasty-faced, cherubic man of twenty-seven who looked twenty. The man he was following down the step incline into the ravine was Martin Merlo, a tall, thin, serious-looking individual with glasses. He might have been a school teacher. He was, instead, one of the best homicide detectives in the bureau-partnered, at his own request, with Curry, the city's youngest detective.

Curry, whose first assignment was to partner with Merlo, and who this late Monday afternoon was going out on a murder case for the first time, had no idea why the older, well-respected cop had requested him. But he was not complaining; he felt lucky to be here.

Lucky, that is, until he saw the man with no head and black socks.

"Judas priest," Curry said, and he turned away and threw up in a nearby bush.

Merlo came over and put his hand on Curry's shoulder as the younger cop bent forward, hands on his knees, staring whitely at what had been in his stomach.

"I'm okay, Detective Merlo," Curry said.

"Try not to puke on any body parts," Merlo said, not unkindly, slapping him on the back.

Merlo, notepad in hand, pearl-gray fedora tilted back on his head expos-ing his professorial brow, began questioning the two boys. The two railroad dicks, a middle-aged stocky guy and a slim guy about thirty, both in rumpled brown suits, got them dirty by kneeling in sandy earth perhaps twenty feet from the bush under which the corpse lay. They began digging with their hands, as if rooting for truffles.

Curry, feeling dizzy but better, approached them. "What are you men doing?" he asked.

"Looked disturbed here," the stocky one said. He had a face as rumpled as his suit.

"Looked disturbed?" Curry asked.