Crossing the Line
By Thomas R Clark

Scatman sat in the shadows behind the police line, waiting for dinner to take itself out. The falling rain masked his breathing, and the stench of the place covered his own. You don’t shit where you eat, the old adage said. Unless your name is Scatman, in which case you eat where you shat.

For most people, some things are better left unseen by those possessing any moral compass. They’re the shit-stained skeletons in your closet. Like the bottom of a car, pitted and rusted. The interior of a septic tank filled with years of crap and piss. Or any of your relatives fucking. And then there’s the location of a murder, something altogether in a league of its own.

Despite the circumstances surrounding its inception, all murder scenes come to the same conclusion. They’re tantamount to a pile of crap. They’re wretched…