Seventeen live cats and four dead cats had been removed from the small apartment before Sid removed the elderly man's body. The extensive decompositon showed that the corpse had been there at least two weeks, and judging by the looks of it, the remaining cats had been surviving off the body for just about as long. Danny and Lindsay had processed the scene as quickly as possible, so that animal control could work without compromising evidence.
Now, they stood outside the apartment door, watching as the last of the animals were rounded up and placed in crates by the animal control officers. One AC officer stood with them.
"How can someone call that living?" Lindsay asked, her nose and mouth still covered by a disposable mask.
The AC officer, a man in his mid-30s, shook his head as he held a piece of guaze over a nasty cat bite on his arm.
"This is what we call a hoarding situation," he explained.
"The hoarder isn't necessarily a bad person, but feels like they're the only people that can help the animals, but they're actually doing more harm than good." He said, and Danny indicated the bloody gauze the man was tending to.
"You gonna be alright?" Danny asked, and the AC officer nodded, wincing as he peeked under the guaze.
"I've had worse," he said, adding;
"This is a paper cut compared to what a boxer did to me last year." He pulled up his pant leg, exposing his calf.
An angry red scar twined around his leg, from his ankle, almost to his knee. Part of his calf was missing, making it look deformed and ugly.
"Shit," Danny breathed, and the AC officer grinned.
"Yeah; took over 80 stitches," He said, and pulled his pant leg down again.
Danny looked at Lindsay, who was watching Sid wheel the gurney with the body on it between piles of garbage and cat feces.
"Let's get out of here; grab some lunch and get back to the lab. We need to find out where this guy's daughter's disappeared to." he said, and Linday nodded, heading for the stairs.
"How can you think of lunch after being in there?" she asked incredulously, once they were out on the street again.
Her clothes and hair reeked of the heavy smells they'd encountered in the apartment, and Lindsay was quite sure she could never get the sight of the desperate, starving animals out of her mind.
"Mind over matter," said Danny, and hugged her to his side briefly.
"You'll learn, Montana;" he assured her.
"You stink," she said playfully, pushing away from him
Danny looked down at her, a half grin on his face.
"You don't exactly smell like roses yourself," he quipped as he opened the car door for her to get inside.