I gave her directions, glad that she was interested.

The neighborhood had changed with darkness. The buildings, shabby by day, took on a reclusive, ominous look at night. Locked and shuttered, little light escaped. No one was visible on the dim streets. The streetlight at the corner wasn’t working. Shattered by vandalism or left unlit by the neglect of the city, I couldn’t tell. We drove slowly by the front of the building, then turned down the side street that bordered it.

“Should there be lights on?” Joanne asked.

“I don’t know. There are late hours tonight, but surely not this late.” It was past ten now.

“Let’s look,” Joanne said, parking her car. “Just remember, no heroics,” she admonished me as we got out.

“No, ma’am, Sergeant, sir.”

She gave me a stern look, but said nothing. We walked around the fence into the yard. It appeared that the inside hall light was on. Shards of light appeared through several door frames. Joanne motioned me along the street side as she headed for the side next to the empty lot. I noticed she had pulled her gun.

I crept slowly beside the building, listening for any sound that might indicate this was something other than a night-light. Sight, not sound, confirmed our suspicions.

A foot was silently slipping out of a window, not five feet in front of me.

Unless someone on the staff had cat-burglar fantasies, that foot belonged to a someone who didn’t belong in the building.

Joanne had said no heroics. Since the person was about to step on my head, I figured the most cowardly thing I could do was apprehend him before he caught sight of me.

I grabbed the dangling foot and pulled. I vaguely hoped that the foot didn’t have a hand holding a gun attached, but I figured if I was going to get shot, it would be just as easy to get me in the back as I ran to find Joanne.

The foot belonged to a very strong leg. It kicked and jerked out of my grasp, disappearing back into the window.

I jumped, grabbing the window sill, and hauled myself up. I glimpsed the body attached to the foot in silhouette as it went through the door into the lit hallway. I clambered through the window and went in pursuit.

Just as I got to the door, the lights in the hallway went out. I couldn’t see a thing. I can’t stand here waiting for my eyes to adjust, I thought, whoever it was had to have seen me. I started to edge back into the room. Then I heard a noise to my right, maybe twenty feet down the hall. If you can’t see them, they can’t see you. I ran toward it, hoping I would crash into something soft and human.

There was a slight shuffle at the sound of my approach, giving me the exact location of my target. The leading edge of my elbow caught someone’s stomach. He went into the wall with a grunt. Then I felt a knee in my groin. This body was fairly tall and knows how to fight, I thought as I bent over. I spun out of his reach. For a moment I thought about calling Joanne, but didn’t because that would only reveal where I was. Besides, Joanne had to have heard the scuffle and my yelling wouldn’t bring her any quicker.

Then I was tackled, my assailant doing to me what I had hoped to do to him. We were on the floor, him on top. He tried to grab my arms, but I jerked them free. Then with my left hand I caught his shoulder, pushing him away. And, more importantly, giving me a pretty accurate picture of where to punch him in the nose. My right hand swung back, ready to strike.

The lights blazed on.

“Stop! Police!” Joanne’s official voice filled the hall.

I looked at my assailant, fully intending to stop after I punched him, not before.

I caught myself just in time, barely grazing her jaw instead of breaking her nose.

“Micky!” Cordelia said, as surprised to be sitting on top of me as I was at being under her.

“Oh, shit! Are you all right?” I exclaimed, wondering how much damage my pulled punch had done.

“I’m fine. I’m sorry,” she said as she got off me. “Here, let me help you. Are you okay?” She extended a hand and helped me get up.

“Only my pride,” I mumbled. “Were you climbing out a window just now?” I asked, remembering my dangling foot.

Joanne joined us.

“What happened?” she contributed.

“You saw someone climbing out a window?” Cordelia questioned.

I nodded. We exchanged stories. Cordelia had been seeing patients until after nine, then stayed to finish paperwork. She had seen the main hallway light come on and heard noises. She wasn’t too worried, she explained, as there were often people here this late. She’d come out to look, the lights went out, and I’d rushed her.

Joanne, hearing the noise, had come in the front door, finding it unlocked.

I was the only one who had seen another person. Cordelia pointed out that the front door shouldn’t have been left unlocked. The intruder had probably run out that way.

“Whoever it was, they’re gone now,” Joanne commented. “Let’s see if they took anything. Cordelia, check the clinic. Micky, the rest of this floor. I’ll do the upstairs,” she ordered. Giving us no time to dissent, she headed up the stairs, still holding, I noticed, her gun. Just in case he was hiding out up there.

Cordelia gave me a quick smile, then a shrug, and went into the clinic. I headed down the hall, checking doors to see if any locks had been tampered with or if anything looked out of place. Nothing. I turned and headed to the back of the building, rechecking to see if I had missed anything. Still nothing.

I walked to the back door and looked out at the overgrown lot behind the clinic. Someone could hide for days in that and not be found.

Then I noticed that the door to the basement was open. The lock was lying on the floor. The door that I had so carefully closed and semi-locked this morning. I turned on the light and went down the stairs. The basement, ill-lit in daylight, was now worthy of a Vincent Price movie.

“Nothing down here but a vicious gang of killer rats,” I said out loud, noting silently that Joanne was certainly right, whoever I had seen was long gone.

I ventured from the stairs to the first pool of light. The basement appeared as barren as it had this morning. Dampness and dirt, a pervasive moldy smell. Hardly threatening. I walked on to the next pool of light.

The only person foolish enough to go into this basement is you, I told myself, seeing only more dirt and undisturbed spiderwebs. Then why was the door open? Any number of reasons came to mind. The killer rats may have decided to move into a better neighborhood, for example. Maybe my foot person opened it looking for a way out. Maybe even hightailed it out one of those rotten windows. But he (or perhaps she, I couldn’t be sure) certainly hadn’t left a plethora of clues in this dismal basement.

It was not likely that whoever broke in had anything to do with the letters. Probably someone trying to steal drugs from the clinic.

There were even fewer lights in this part of the basement. The next one was a good thirty feet away.

Then I noticed some loose soil lying on the hard-packed dirt floor. Odd, I thought, freshly turned from the feel of it. Perhaps the killer rats were digging their way out.

I continued to the next light.

As I got to it, something beyond it caught my eye. A lighter shape against the dark dirt. A piece of paper, perhaps?

I headed toward it, leaving the light behind, losing the object several times in my shadow. The damp and the darkness seemed to be enshrouding me the farther I got from the light. This basement badly needs to be aired out, I thought, as the fetid smell of the dampness assaulted my nose.

Then I recognized what I was walking toward. And realized that what I was smelling wasn’t the moist air of a basement.

I stopped, the hand pale against the dark earth, outstretched and grasping for me. Just as the other one had been.

Only the arm from the elbow down was visible, the rest of the body hidden by one of the thick brick supports. It was covered in dirt as if some hasty attempt at burial had been made. The hand seemed to be reaching out of its hurried grave.

I turned my head away, took a quick gasp of air, and forced myself to go closer, circling around to see what lay behind the column.

She was splattered with dirt, shoved in a trough that was impossibly shallow for her. Her eyes were open and staring, mercifully oblivious to the inadequacy of the earth at covering her nakedness. For she had no clothes, nor jewelry, nothing to mark who she was and how she had come to be left here.

I felt my lungs burn, begging for a breath. I was reluctant to take in the decayed air.

She wasn’t here this morning, I suddenly thought. I would have seen her. She hasn’t been here rotting for days and days.

I let my breath out. And was assaulted with the smell of putrefaction. The dank air of the cellar seemed to amplify the stench of her decomposition. I gagged. Then I ran, to get away from the reach of her hand and the long grasp of decay. The pools of light seemed distant, hidden by shadows and their horrifying secrets.

Finally reaching the stairs, I bolted up them, taking two at a time, stumbling into the clear air of the hallway. For a moment, I just leaned against the nearest wall, purging my lungs of the foul air. Then I shook myself, abashed at my panic.

Cordelia came out of the clinic.

“Micky, what’s wrong?” she said when she saw me.

“Where’s Joanne?” I answered.

“I don’t know,” she replied, coming over to me. “What’s wrong?” she repeated, putting a hand on my shoulder.

“We’re going to need to call the police,” I said, trying to think what to do. Joanne will know, I thought.

“Why? What’s missing?” Cordelia asked.

“Nothing…there’s another one,” I finished, so softly she had to lean in to hear.

“Another…oh, my God!” She shook her head as if in disbelief, then pulled me to her, holding me.

“Am I interrupting something?” Joanne said, descending the stairs.

“I wish to hell you were,” I replied. We broke our embrace.

Cordelia turned to Joanne, still keeping an arm around my shoulder.

“There’s a body in the basement,” I stated matter-of-factly, steadied by Cordelia’s arm.

“What?” Joanne exclaimed. “Are you sure?”