Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, only the plot (most of it). I'm making no money from this. It's only for entertainment, etc.

Author's Note: The style of the murder in this chapter may seem familiar. This is intentional. Though it may not seem it at first, there is a method to my madness. Bear with me. I apologize for taking so long to update. I've had a case of writer's block with this chapter, mixed with some unfortunately stressful family problems. I have much of the rest of this planned out; hopefully I'll be able to post quicker.

Dragon Tales

By RaajmdTMP

Chapter 2: Murder 101

"We haven't seen the last of Hastog? You mean you think he's going to kill again?"

Gil Grissom sat with the note in his hand and nodded grimly.

"How do you know?"

"You said it yourself. Why would there be lamb's blood at our crime scene if it wasn't to send a message?"

"We could have another serial on our hands."

Gil nodded again. "We'll just have to wait and see."

"You might not have to wait that long," Captain Jim Brass said from the doorway. "We have an unusual scene in a hotel room off the Strip. Apparently, someone left a whole bunch of strange weapons in the room after checkout."

"No body?"

"No."

Grissom sighed and stood up from the table. "You coming, Catherine?"

"Count me in," she replied, standing up as well.

~*****~

Twenty minutes later, Catherine and Gil found themselves looking at what definitely was an 'unusual scene.' It seemed that there was every type of tool, gadget and device designed to inflict pain on another human being scattered around the area.

"Who called it in?" Grissom said, taking in the dungeon of a hotel room.

"Cleaning lady, Emma Rickman. 'Do Not Disturb' signs don't mean much after you've checked out. The room was registered to a 'Kestime Truthta,' who apparently checked out in the late afternoon. Miss Rickman walked in, minding her own business, and," Brass gestured to the troubling sight before them. "Found this."

"There isn't much blood," Gil stated, walking cautiously around the room. There was a well-stocked office area in the corner. It seemed this hotel catered to the wealthy business traveler. 'Even a Xerox machine,' he thought, shaking his head slightly.

Even with the overwhelming assortment of torture instruments strewn around the rest of the room, the neat and tidy desk seemed to unnerve him for some reason.

"Definitely enough tools to do the damage," Catherine commented, her eyes darting around the room. "Where do we start?"

"See if you can narrow down which of those 'tools' drew the blood," Grissom answered, still studying the office.

Catherine began to painstakingly test the weapons for blood. About ten minutes later, a sound startled her from her work. She looked over to where Grissom stood and saw that he had turned on the copier next to the desk. A piece of paper slid out of the machine and Gil picked it up with a gloved hand. "What is it?" she asked. He stared at the page in his hand with a puzzled expression. "Gil?"

"Cath, what does this look like to you?" he responded, perplexed. He held the paper out for her to see.

"A recipe for dip," she answered.

"No, not that. This," he clarified, indicating a cloudy area on the paper. "Does that look like a face?"

She looked closer. He had a point. The shadow darkening the sheet looked like the side of a person's face. She looked up and met Grissom's eyes. She could almost see the wheels turning in that mind of his. Suddenly, with a look of dawning understanding, his eyes traveled from hers to the torture instruments and finally back to the desk. She looked with him, trying to figure out what he had discovered. Abruptly, he moved from her side to his case of supplies. He came back with the same ones she had been using, swabs and Luminol. "Grissom?" she said putting a hand on his arm. He started and looked at her.

"What?" She gave him a questioning look. He realized quickly enough that he hadn't explained what he was up to. "Catherine, what have I said about making assumptions?"

"You said to assume nothing. It makes an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me' both."

"Exactly," he said. He picked up a staple remover from the desk and swabbed the metal teeth. One drop of Luminol confirmed the presence of blood.

~*****~

An hour later, Grissom had finished testing the office supplies, finding evidence on everything from the stapler to the pushpins. After their revelation, Catherine had set back to work testing the torture instruments, though she believed, correctly, that there would not be a trace of blood on them.

Grissom sighed as he eyed the mounting evidence. There was a lot really but, without a body, there was no evidence of murder. Evidence of violence, not death. There had not even been enough support to say that a struggle took place. First impressions obviously weren't always correct. The horrid medieval devices around the room would seem out of place in a normal hotel room, but it seems the room's former occupant had a liking for such things. There were various books dealing with similar subjects, pain and torture and death.

Catherine sat on the floor by the window, flipping through a book about cannibalism. Gil had discovered it while perusing the drawers and had quickly set it aside with a look of disgust plain on his face. She had been drawn back to the book when she had finished her testing because it was the only one in the considerable collection to have a bookmark.

The improvised bookmark was holding the reader's place in a chapter titled 'Modern Cannibalism' but it was the bookmark itself that caught her attention. It was a program from a European exposition called Atrocious Torture Instruments. The exhibition toured Europe, the program explained, and stayed for an unprecedented six months in Florence's famed Forte di Belvedere. The first stop on its new North American tour would be New York, continuing on to such places as Baltimore and Los Angeles. Join the crowds at any of these cities and marvel at the collection of more than twenty classic instruments of torture and extensive information on how they were used.

Catherine bagged the program, stood up and headed for the door. There wasn't much else that could be done here. It was better for them to start processing the evidence at the lab until such time as a body turns up.

Grissom stood up from his place by the window to follow her out. The book Catherine had been examining lay open on the desk where she left it as she exited. Cold eyes gazed up at him from under the chapter heading and he closed the cover on them as he went by.

~*****~

Gil opened the driver's side door to his SUV and was about to get inside when something across the street caught his attention. He straightened up, closed the door and walked over without so much as a backwards glance to Catherine. Luckily for her, she had known him long enough to recognize when he noticed something with potential importance. She grabbed the kit she had just put away and followed him across the street.

Blood drops. They seemed to have fallen from relatively close to the ground, but they still pointed the pair in the right direction. Gil and Catherine followed the trail into a small park. The trail wasn't as easy to follow as it could have been. It looped around in a staggered pattern until it finally came to a stop under a large tree. The source of the blood became apparent as they rounded the tree. The furry white body of a small dog lay lifeless at the base, its short coat matted with blood. 

"Poor thing," said Catherine, looking down at the battered animal. "I wonder why he came all the way out here."

"They say animals like to find privacy to die."

A breeze blew through the park as Grissom bent down to get a closer look at the canine corpse. There was a creaking noise and the sound of rubber squeaking against rubber coming from above. Catherine looked up at the tree to see what had caused the noise.

"Uh, Gris? I don't think this little guy died alone."

"Huh?" he replied, looking up at her. He then craned his neck, following her gaze. "Oh."

"We should call Brass, get him back out here with some backup," said Catherine.

Grissom got back to his feet and brushed off his knees. "Yeah," he agreed, still staring up.

Hanging from one of the thicker branches high above the pair's heads was a young man, nude save for a pair of black boxers. His wrists and ankles were bound together with pieces of cloth. A bright orange extension cord served as a noose. His face was upturned to the branch that suspended him and his eyes were wide open, partially covered only by his unruly sandy hair.

~*****~

"Well, that explains a lot," Brass said as he stared up at the obviously tortured body dangling above the park. The once quiet area was now bustling with activity. Almost all nightshift workers were on the scene. Warrick was nearly the only one who stayed behind at the lab, still trying to work out anything useful from the Presnell evidence. Grissom had set Nick to work on the dog as soon as he arrived. Now Gil and Catherine were telling Sara the details she missed on her day off.    

"Sheep's blood, huh? Wouldn't be into any kind of devil worship, would he?"

Gil shook his head. "I don't think so. But I'm not ruling anything out yet." He watched as the workers began to free the victim from his makeshift gallows. "Hey, careful up there! Make sure you cut it in the middle. We don't want to lose that knot."

The young man was slowly and painstakingly lowered to the ground. The trio walked quickly over to the body. The signs of torture were even more apparent up close.

"This one's been through hell," said David, the coroner on scene. "And it took a while, too. Some of these had already started to heal," he added, indicating the scratches on the victim's bound hands. "There's a piece of paper tied to his wrists, Mr. Grissom."

"Let me see," Grissom said, holding out a gloved hand. He unfolded the crumpled paper and held it so his colleagues could read along.

My dear Dr. Grissom,

 I'm flattered you have taken an interest in my case. It will make all this so much more meaningful. I can see the headlines now: ELUSIVE KILLER STRIKES AGAIN, INVESTIGATORS BAFFLED! Or something to that effect. Not that it really matters. By the way, what did you think of the room? Our friend here thought it was to die for… See you around.

Hastog

"Unbelievable!" Sara exclaimed. "You were right. He is enjoying this."

"Obviously. And it's just what Vegas needs right now, another depraved bastard playing with out heads," Catherine responded. Grissom was still holding the note extended from his body and he was watching David work. "You're being awfully quite, Gil."

He shook his head slightly and then tilted it, looking at the corpse with obvious confusion. "I feel like I've seen this before."

Sara took a closer look as well, unconsciously adopting her boss' posture as she did so. "Now that you mention it, this does seem familiar."

"What exactly are you two going on about?"

"The torture, the condition of the body, the position," Grissom explained, shifting his gaze back up to the tree. "I recognize it."

"From where?"

His brow furrowed. There was something else. He couldn't put his finger on what, but he knew he was missing something important. "I don't know. Maybe I read about it somewhere. I can't remember."

"Sounds like something that would warrant a search," Brass added, joining them as the body was moved away.

"Good idea, Jim. Sara…" he started, turning to her.

"I'm on it," she agreed, without argument. Normally, she might have protested to being exiled from the scene but she was anxious to find the answer to this puzzle.

"Good. Catherine, care to start sifting through Mr. Truthta's personal effects?"

"Sure. You coming with?"

"No, I'm going to stay here with Nick and process the scene. You and Sara see what you can find back at the lab. Call me if you get anything useful."

"I'm on it," she said, echoing her colleague. Grissom frowned faintly.

"Oh, and check in with Warrick. See if he came up with anything," he called after her retreating form.

"Yes, master," she replied sarcastically.

~*****~

"This guy's going to have us running in circles."

"Not if we can help it, Nick," Grissom answered as he held open the door to the crime lab with his back, allowing the younger man to enter ahead of him with his bagged evidence. "We just have to take our time and sort through all this. He's bound to have messed up somewhere."

"Gil!"

He turned his head in the direction of the call. "Hey, Cath. You find something?"

"Actually, Sara did. She found that case you were talking about. It was last year, out of Miami. College professor up a tree without a ladder. Matches this case to a 'T.'"

"Good. We should give our Floridian friends a call, ask them about it."

"Already done. They'll be sending the info up, as soon as day shift starts," she paused, looking at her watch, "which is soon. 'H' is on vacation, but he'll call us when he gets back."

"'H'?"

"Horatio Caine."

"You're on first letter basis with him, I see," he teased with an amused little smirk on his face.

"That I am, 'G,' that I am."

"I'm impressed. Where is Sara?"

"Seeing if she can track down the guy that covered the Miami case for the papers. He's supposed to be local. I told her she could run with it."

"I'm glad to see you can do my job."

"Very funny."

"Has David started on Kestime yet?"

"Not yet. I was going to head over there as soon as I called you. Since you're here, why don't we go down now?"          

~*****~

"What have we got, David?" Gil asked as soon as he crossed the threshold into the morgue.

"Oh, Grissom, you're back. Hello, Catherine."

"Hi, David. You got anything for us?"

"Just the preliminary. He didn't bleed out."

"Really?"

"Yes, whoever did this managed to miss all major organs and blood vessels."

"So, the cause of death was…"

"Asphyxiation. It's a wonder, though, with all the different injuries. I've been trying to count them. I was up to forty-seven when you came in."

"Look at his feet," said Cath, indicating the small puncture wounds. "Those must have hurt."

"Yeah, what do you think made those? Thin, sharp object like a needle or a—"

"Pushpin. Cath and I found evidence of blood on the office supplies in the hotel room."

"On the office supplies? Really? Well, how do you explain this?" David walked around to the man's head and showed them his eyes, which were still wide open.

"What's wrong with them?"

"Apart from the superglue holding them open, they've got retinal burn. How do you get snow blindness in the middle of the dessert?"

"Wait a minute, I remember. In the article Sara found, they said the snow blindness was caused by the—"

"Copier."

"Yeah. This is weird. To think someone's done this before."

"I think that's the point, Catherine. Thirteen different kinds of wounds, thirteen weapons…one killer."

"A copy cat."

"Exactly."

-TBC-

Next Chapter: F/X- Hastog hits closer to home when he copycats a killer the Vegas CSIs have dealt with. (I'm sorry, Jackie-boy!)