
Fighting the good fight: Trial by fire
This is the second in a series of stories about retired RCMP officer Patrick Guy Roy who is slowly slipping into Alzheimer’s. I’d been with the detachment for approximately five months when I got a complaint from telecoms (police radio) about a possible death at what appeared to be a house fire. I was alone that morning when I headed out. When I arrived at the house, the firemen were already there. They led me inside and showed me the body of a dead man. This was my first time witnessing a dead body. He was lying on what was left of his burnt bed. All of his clothes had ignited, and the only things left on him were a melted belt buckle and a pair of melted boots. The smell was unbearable. It was a mix of burnt flesh, blood, organs, a kind of copper metallic, musky, fecal odour
