Chapter 2
"Your guy here died of exsanguination, but I'm sure that's no surprise given how much blood you documented at the scene." Doc Robbins said in autopsy to Greg and Morgan.
"Are there any other organs missing?" Morgan asked.
"Actually yes. The heart and the kidneys are missing as well. He's also missing some skin." Doc Robbins said, pointing at his leg and arms. He had a one rectangular shaped wound on each arm and one on his left leg with trace materials around the edges. Greg collected samples of the trace. He frowned at the patterns.
"No defensive wounds, which means was out when he was sliced. I sent blood and hair to tox to check what was used to knock him out." Doc Robbins said.
"Do you know who he is?" Greg asked.
"Dental records confirm his identity as Chad Burns, 32 from Vegas." Doc said.
"Thanks!" Morgan said as they removed their gloves.
"No problem." They left the morgue and returned to the lab, delivering their trace to Hodges who was rushing around excitedly.
"What's got your underwear all in a twist?" Greg asked. Hodges rolled his eyes and Morgan smirked.
"Didn't you hear?" Hodges hissed.
"Hear what?" Morgan whispered, looking around.
"Catherine and Grissom are here. In the lab, right now! They're having a private meeting with Ecklie and D.B about Finn and Sara's mummy case." Hodges replied.
Greg's mouth fell open in surprise. "I haven't seen Grissom in six years!"
"Yeah, me either. You think it'll be awkward between him and Sara since they're divorced?" Hodges asked. Morgan felt slightly left out. She'd never met Grissom, although she vaguely remembered her dad's complaints about work when she was younger.
"No, it won't be awkward because Sara is a professional. Is there anything you can tell us about our case?" Morgan asked, interrupting the conversation.
"Yeah, well I'll process your trace, but the mummies have gotten everyone in a tizzy. Did you know that they were missing organs? Dave said he couldn't definitively determine cause of death since there weren't any other serious injuries to the skeletons or the tissue." Hodges said knowingly.
Morgan perked up at this and elbowed Greg who was still reeling from the idea that Grissom had returned with Catherine!
"Greg, were you listening just now?"
"Huh? No, sorry. What?"
"The mummies. Sara and Finn's mummies were missing vital organs!" Greg frowned.
"Why didn't the Doc tell us about it?"
"Dave worked on the mummies. I guess Doc Robbins hasn't seen them yet. He's been busy processing more recently deceased bodies. " Morgan replied.
"Yeah, I guess. Let's go find Finn and Sara." Greg said.
~XXXXX~
Finn and Sara knew that Grissom and Catherine had arrived, but they were in a closed door meeting with D.B. and Ecklie. Finn had interrupted the meeting to update them on the case and Ecklie had promptly ushered her from the room to talk with D.B., Catherine and Gil in private. In the meantime, they worked to identify the other bodies using dental records, DNA and rehydrated fingerprints. So far, they'd had luck only one of them.
Greg and Morgan appeared in the doorway as Sara and Finn were reviewing the dental records of the other two mummies.
"So, I hear your missing some parts." Greg said. Finn and Sara looked up at the same time. Sara smiled.
"Yes we are. Are you here to help?"
"Actually, we're here to find out which of the parts are missing." Morgan said.
"Why?" Finn wondered.
"Well…we responded to a scene earlier and our guy had some missing organs. It made it difficult for Doc Robbins to get a fixed time of death." Greg said. Sara and Finn exchanged a glance.
"I'll show you mine if you show me yours, Sanders." Finn said with a playful smile. Greg chuckled and showed them the autopsy photos of their victim, Chad Burns. Finn and Sara poured over them, noting the rectangular wounds.
"Which organs were missing?" Sara asked.
"Liver, heart and kidneys." Morgan said.
"And we know that the blade used to make those wounds was serrated, like a steak knife. This whole thing is beginning to be uncomfortably familiar." Greg said. They all looked at one another nervously.
"Don't tell me I'm not the only one who immediately jumped to the Eater conclusion." Greg said.
"No…you aren't." Finn said, nodding at Sara. She showed Greg and Morgan a print out of the confirmed fingerprints on one of their mummies.
"Guess who one of the mummies was?" Sara asked.
"Who?"
"Owen Linder."
~XXXXX~
"So we're looking for a copy-cat or an apprentice of the original." Grissom said. Ecklie was pacing the room.
"Well, the issue with that theory is that there was no physical evidence of the suspect at any of the scenes. Ever." D.B. said. Ecklie shot him a dirty look.
"Todd Burris was the Las Vegas Cannibal. There is no other story." Ecklie said sternly. Catherine raised an eyebrow and moved to stand in between Ecklie and D.B.
"Calm down. We have to run through all the possibilities to get at the truth, right? You know that, Ecklie. Let us do our jobs and find the guy." Catherine stared him down. Ecklie threw his hands in the air and huffed angrily.
"Do what you need to do, but I don't want to hear any press on this, you understand? This stays completely silent until we know." He opened the door and left abruptly, slamming it behind him.
"So, brief us on this Todd Burris case." Catherine said, ignoring Ecklie's outburst. D.B. sat down with a sigh and pulled up the file on his computer. He showed them the photos, the evidence they gathered and the photographs from each scene. He summarized the case for them while they looked through the files and processed evidence.
"It was all part of a fetish community called Vore, short for vorarephilia. The people that we talked to weren't actually consuming human flesh, they considered the whole thing to be an elaborate role-play set up. Todd Burris was a security guard who came into the police department, claiming to have captured the cannibal after they released his sketch to the public." D.B. showed them the sketch.
"All we found in Todd's car was a dismembered hand in a pair of handcuffs and blood everywhere. The hand and the blood were never tested because Todd Burris died of cyanide poisoning while in police custody. He had a watch from one victim in his pocket and a piece of clothing from another; those were the only items we found connecting him to any of the victims. We couldn't connect him to the scene of any of the crimes that took place and Ecklie decided to prematurely release a public statement announcing that the suspect had died in police custody." D.B. explained. Catherine whistled as she stared at the sketch.
"This guy'll give you nightmares." She muttered. Grissom was studying the evidence from the previous cases.
"So, you say that the previous victims were stabbed with this knife. At some point he took slices of flesh from them to consume. As I understand it from these new cases, the victims have slices of flesh missing as well as several internal organs. That doesn't match the original killer."
"Well, the original killer was motivated by anger. He used to have a relationship with a man named Gary Korlov. Gary would have pieces of his flesh surgically removed and he would watch Eater consume them. Gary is the one who provided the details for our sketch. He ended his relationship with Eater when a woman named Brenda Waring, who called herself Miss Feed, satisfied his urge to be consumed by using a snuff film." D.B. said.
"Snuff film? For people who want to consume flesh or to have their flesh consumed? How does that work?" Grissom asked.
"Endoscopic camera down the throat. She and her cameraman were murdered in the middle of a session. We think that Eater became enraged when he lost his meal ticket, so to speak, and lashed out. The other victim, Owen Linder, wasn't killed. He was taken willingly by Eater, but based on the statement he gave Greg and Nick at the time, he misunderstood Eater's intentions. He thought it would be a role-play situation, but Eater sliced a piece of skin from his leg and he ate it. Owen escaped. We haven't had any cases that match this M.O. since that time." D.B. said.
"So…why did he stop?" Catherine asked.
"Better yet… why did he start again?" Grissom wondered.
~XXXXX~
"I know that I'm supposed to know who that is, but I don't recognize the name." Morgan said. Greg sighed.
"He made the first report. Nick and I took his statement when he said he was abducted and someone sliced his leg and ate it in front of him. Geez!"
"Have you identified the other two mummies?" Morgan asked.
"No, we were working on that now." Finn said. "How about you tell us about your victim?"
"Chad Burns, he's a 32 year old Vegas local. We haven't dug up much on him yet because we saw the connection between his death and your victims. We found him in an abandoned house near some train tracks, but it was obvious he didn't belong there." Morgan said.
"Why not?" Sara wondered.
"Nice hair, manicured nails, expensive dental work. That's how we identified him. His prints weren't in the system and he had no identification on him."
"One other difference…" Greg noted. "Our victim was stitched back up. All of the mummies had open chest cavities, right?"
"Yes. The abandoned meat processing plant we found them in was not the original scene of the murders, though. We didn't find any blood evidence." Finn said.
"We found plenty of that." Morgan said, pointing at the photo of the blood pool and smears. A knock came at their door and they all looked up to see Hodges.
"Trace evidence from Sara and Finn's mummies match Chad Burns. Olive oil, sage and salt in the rectangular wounds. Same trace as on Dennis Hagel and Miss Feed from the original case." Hodges said, showing them the reports.
"Well it's official. Our cases are connected." Sara said.
"Excuse me." They all looked up. Hodges moved out of the doorway to see D.B. standing there.
"I believe there are two people who would like to help out." He said, backing away enough for Greg, Morgan, Finn, Sara and Hodges to see Catherine and Grissom standing in the hallway.