Within twenty minutes of the Water Department worker calling 911, the boxy backyard was turned into a huge present offered up to the grieving, wrapped up in miles of yellow police tape.

Keep this area clear. Sir, get back!

Sargent Ferrone studied the scene. The wooden deck had been removed leaving six large rotting skeletal squares. They framed approximately four thousand bits of bone and thirty six clowns. Another clown had to be ripped out of the discoverer’s hands. That made thirty seven.

Get that command station’s communications up and running. I want a hotline in twenty!

By the end of the day large white tents went up, like a circus. Reporters and onlookers balanced on the curb like vultures. As darkness fell, floodlights were assembled.

Ferrone’s wife was a gardener. He purchased bone-meal for her many times, sifting his hands through its crumbly whiteness. But bone meal wasn’t made from the crushed bones of children.

Let’s light this place up and get these children home people!"