The smell hit like a physical thing and he vomited helplessly. Like roadkill, a dead skunk on the roadside. The music stopped on a dime, but he would have sworn there were people in the Savoy Ballroom, hundreds of them.

But no, there were only five, other than himself, and they were all dead. That didn’t register at first, the door swung closed on its recently-oiled hinge and he pushed it open again to make sure.

Men and women paired up, embracing on the floor. A small body perched up on a chair as if there should have been a table at hand. All well-dressed; to the nines, as they used to say. Thomas Williams and son in tuxes. Mother and daughter in evening dresses. The late Williams baby dressed up, too, in short pants and everything. Like they were all out for a night of dancing, stomping at the Savoy. And Fletcher would have sworn on a stack of Bibles (though he never told a soul, least of all the detectives) that he heard one last warble from the stage.

Which was when he turned around and ran like Hell.