This one was almost certainly a suicide. The woman, one Abby Abernathy, had swallowed a bottle of sedatives, downing them with booze. The corpse, in full rigor mortis, lay on the floor in front of the television, which was still on, though he had muted the sound. Abernathy had, at some point in dying, obviously been less than peaceful and had fallen or maybe convulsed out of her chair while her body desperately tried to save itself by expelling everything, from every orifice, that it could. It lay in bitter, sour-booze vomit streaked with metallic-smelling blood. Fecal matter stained the woman’s jeans, its odor mixing with the vomit smell and the first hints of decomposition to make Hoyle feel like vomiting himself. Although most cops claimed you got used to the smell, Eric could still smell it. He always could. Luckily, he rarely encountered such odors. If he had, he would have had to find another line of work. He watched the police photographer finish up, then a couple of guys wheeled in a gurney and waited while the assistant county coroner and her crew finished their work.
