Never, though, in that first month had he considered that she might be dangerous enough to do what some suspected of her. As tiny and young as she was, he could not imagine that she was capable of the brutality that the police described to him. Blood had sprayed the outside wall of the Crown Arcade up to fifteen feet high, they said, and not just miniscule droplets. It had been so thick on the cement of the sidewalk that the police had no choice but to walk through it, leaving thick tracks as they moved from one body to the next, searching for any sign of life.
All of the police had struggled with what they saw, the total waste of young lives. It shook them to their souls, but they managed to push forward as they dealt with the bodies. They saw the lacerations and the broken bones and managed to take it somewhat in stride. Humans did these things to each other far more often than they should. But then the medical examiners had taken charge of the six bodies. It took two different examiners nearly a week to complete the autopsies. Then they silently handed a report to the police detective in charge, announced that they would be going home for the rest of the day, and left. Both showed dark smudges under their eyes, and the hands of the one holding the report shook badly. It took the detective one page to understand why.
