On an otherwise beautiful cloudless  morning, the naked remains of Robert “Woody” Woodrow were discovered in a shallow grave that October morning by three middle school boys who had decided to take the day off from class without parental consent. The term shallow grave was a bit of a stretch considering it was little more than a recess in the ground with no shovel marks and the body had been haphazardly covered with some loose palmetto fronds and some Spanish moss gathered from the only live oak nearby.

Bobby Woodrow may not have been found for weeks or longer, if not for the boys scaring up the buzzards that were feasting on Woody’s corpse. They had been riding there bikes on a old fire trail when the buzzards flushed up from the palmettos less than fifteen feet away, scaring the hell out of the three in the process.

With the many swamps, forests, lakes and palmetto hammocks, the Florida landscape is ripe with places to dump a body with little chance of discovery. Between the carnivorous wildlife, the buzzards and the fire ants, a carcass could be reduced to a skeleton within a week or so, making identification difficult if not impossible in some cases.

Woody Woodrow was lucky in that respect, though some would disagree that luck was the proper word, considering what the buzzards had done to him, but at least the county would have something to put in a casket.

Other than his parents, had they been alive, there would be few others that would cry over the passing of Woody. Robert Woodrow Jr. Had spent his life thinking he was far more important than he really was. His narcissistic attitude and his reputation for bullying anyone who got in his way, wouldn't enamor him to many who crossed his path.

The medical examiner had been at the taped off site for about an hour when he not only identified the body, but also the cause and time of death. A liver temperature probe combined with some local weather calculations gave the time of death as sometime during the previous 36 to 48 hours. Woody’s wallet lay under his head, as if used for some final comfort feature, complete with credit cards, a Florida Driver’s License and minus any cash.

The fact that Woody had been found within a half mile of the local high school was troublesome to 1st Detective Emerson Hardin, though that fact would become less important in the moments that followed.

The last homicide in the sleepy town of Port St. John was twenty years ago, not long after Hardin had joined the tiny police force as a rookie patrolman in nearby Titusville. That one was a murder-suicide of an elderly couple that had been married for nearly fifty years.

The note left by the loving pair stated that the "Missus had gotten the cancer” and that they would “leave this Earth to gather with the Almighty, hand in hand.” It was a “cut and dry” as they like to call it and was a fairly regular occurrence considering the number of elderly that lived all across the Sunshine State. It was also Hardins's only experience with a homicide. Most of his detective work was recovering stolen goods form B&E's and minor drug busts. 

This case would be something totally different and Hardin was getting a roiling feeling in his gut. Maybe he shouldn’t have had that second helping of flapjacks over at the new I-Hop.

“Well Doc, what do you make of the dead guy there. A drug deal gone wrong, or what?” Hardin probed as he hoped for another "cut and dry". 

Dr. Harvard Jameson, M.E. Had been called in from nearby East Orlando and had seen it all in his thirty plus years at the Medical Examiner’s office. He wasn‘t known for mincing words. “I wish it was that simple, Hardy. I think we got a serial killing on our hands.”

“Ah, come on Harve. Don’t tell me that shit, I got three weeks vacation starting first of next week. What do you really think?”

Hardin owned his position because he was the only one on the tiny force to pass the detective’s exam, although not until his third try. The detective didn’t do much detecting and he didn’t like where the conversation was heading.

“I think you should cancel that vacation, is what I think. I had one of these up in Sanford two months ago. Same M.O. And I know of four more around the state like this one in the last two years, so that‘s six total. We’ve managed to keep it under wraps from the media so far because we've got no solid leads, but I think we are going to have call a spade a spade and notify the news people before somebody else gets killed.”  

The Doctor made the statement with a hint of distress and added with a disquieting tone, “I’ll get some of the boys out here to help comb the area with their dogs. You better call the sheriff and then call everyone you’ve got into work and find some volunteers. This is going to take a while. I’ve got my guys on the way to pick up the body. Nothing more I can do here. I’ll know more when I get him back to the lab. Try not to disturb the area too much until the troops get here.”

“Now…just wait a minute, Harve! Don’t be going crazy here. Is there any chance….eh…. what the Hell makes you think it’s a serial killer, anyway?” Hardin asked as he saw in his mind, his Caribbean Cruise sail out of port with neither him, nor the new waitress from the I-Hop on board.

“Sorry Hardin, let me fill you in,” the M.E. said as he stooped below the yellow tape. “This fella has a clean two inch wound just under his left nipple. I checked the depth and figure it to be about six and a half inches deep. Between the ribs  and straight up into the heart. He died almost instantly. Maybe a minute or less. Probably a hunting knife, but I’ll know more after the autopsy. The cincher is the poor bastards genitals were removed with a very sharp object. A scalpel or a xacto knife. Just like the others around the state.”

“But the buzzards could of…,” Hardin protested.

Jameson cut him off, “Unless you know a buzzard with surgical skills, it wasn’t the fucking buzzards Hardin, these are clean cuts. The buzzards may have eaten his junk or the killer may be collecting them for souvenirs. I don’t know, but the cuts are clean. Maybe you’ll find the missing parts when you search the area. Think of it as an Easter egg hunt with a side of link sausage.”

“Oh, for Crissakes, Harvey. Do you have to put it like that? I just had a full breakfast.”