I walked to the newspaper-wrapped bundle, looked at the mud smears on it—and at another brown stain. Then I gripped a corner of the paper and unwrapped it from the thing inside.

I didn’t know what it was at first. But two minutes later, using the phone in a nearby house, I was talking to my good friend, Phil Samson, Captain of Central-Homicide. “Sam, this is Shell. Get somebody out here on Chavez Ravine Road. I think I’ve found a—a leg.”