PART 2

They were all working hard under the unforgiving sun, the ground was hard and not easy for digging, and the temperature continued climbing all afternoon – reaching unbearable heat. Horatio tossed the shovel aside and looked around the field where 10 fresh holes had been dug in the last hours – several of them were now marked with numbers and yellow police tape. His phone rang and he took a second to wipe his brow before answering it – hearing Alexx on the other end of the line.

"What have you got for me Alexx?"

"Well. The equipment here is pretty outdated so most of the tests are going to take a while" she started telling him "but this is what I have for you so far – the first body is female, approximately 25 years old, Afro-American..."

In the county morgue Alexx leaned closer to the body and moved a few strands of hair from what was left of the young woman's skull "she was beaten to death H, half of the skull is gone, the entire left side of the skull was bashed in by some kind of blunt object"

"Anything else you can give me?"

"Not on this one" Alexx moved over to the next table where a second body was laid, although it was hard to describe it even as a body anymore. The corpse was badly decomposed, most of the flesh was long ago eaten away and rotting and the bones were exposed in several places through what little flesh was left "The second body is older, I'm talking much older Horatio, Isent bone samples to the lab to have them dated but if I had to guess I'd say this body is about 8 or 10 years old"

"Is it female?"

Alexx checked what was left of the pelvic bone "No, male, looks like this one has been shot – I may have a bullet here for Calleigh"

"I'll tell her" He saw Erik waving frantically at him from the other end of the field "Do what you can Alexx, call me when you have something"

He hung up and made his way over to Erik in a few long strides. He pushed through the few police officers that were already gathered around and Calleigh and Speed moved aside to allow him a look. The grave was deep, much deeper than the one they found the first bodies in. the body itself was wrapped in some kind of fabric, but most of it was already eaten away – revealing the body itself.

"There's something wrapped around the neck" Calleigh pointed out "Maybe it was strangulation"

"There's enough body tissue, Alexx will probably be able to give a good cause of death" Horatio rose to his feet and gave the police officers behind him a sign to take the body away as Speed came closer – whispering to him.

"H, that makes 6 bodies – and we haven't even finished half the field"

Horatio nodded but didn't answer, instead, he gave Speed a look that after years of working side by side needed no explanations. When Speed walked away Horatio noticed Jamie standing by the jeep, watching them, and made his way over to her. He leaned against the jeep next to her and for a few moments, neither one said anything.

"what can you tell me James?" Horatio finally broke the silence

"Not much" She shrugged "It's probably one killer, maybe a team of two but I doubt – it seems too personal for a group killing. Are we talking different methods here?"

"Alexx tells me the first body we found was beaten to death, the second one was shot, the one we found right now looks like it's been strangled – the rest of the bodies we can't know for sure right now"

"It looks pretty random to me – he doesn't care that much about the method – it's more about the kill itself" She shook her head as if trying to get the thought out of her head "I don't know – I can't give you anything yet. I don't have enough information"

Calliegh looked around her at the lab the Covington county forensic unit provided them. It was a long way from the conditions they were accustomed to. The place was old and small – none of the open spaces and cutting age equipment they had back home. She walked over to the lab table and placed the box of evidence she brought back with her from the field, finding a small jar with fragments of a bullet waiting for her – curtsey of Alexx.

Jamie who walked in right behind her smiled slightly as she watched Calleigh pick up the jar and examine the bullet closer to the light "you know, that look you get on your face when you see a bullet or a gun...you scare me sometimes Call' "

Calleigh chuckled and continued to survey the bullet "What can I say – I'm a simple girl. This looks like a small caliber, probably a 52, it's pretty smashed but I think there's enough her for me to work with"

"Well then, don't let me stop you" Jamie cleared the doorway and Calleigh smiled back and disappeared down the hall on her way to the ballistic lab. Once alone, Jamie stepped over to the large box and started unpacking it's content – making sure to keep everything it order and mark all the items carefully. There wasn't a lot to go on but she pulled on her latex gloves and went to work anyway.

"The first brown envelope contained soil samples from the first grave site – she looked around, looking for a microscope, but there wasn't one in the room so she placed the envelope aside for later. The second second envelope contained a piece of plastic that was wrapped around the first body – she picked it up with a pair of tweezers and looked at it under the lamp – but there wasn't anything unique about it at first glance. Another large bag contained a wallet found in the ground next to body number four – the leather was eaten away and the wallet was glued shut from years of sitting in mud and dirt. She used a surgical knife from her kit to open it – there were a few business cards but most of them made out of paper and there for too far gone. She checked carefully until she found what she was hoping for – a laminated card that could be salvaged.

Unfortunately, the card was facing the inside of the wallet and glued to it – preventing her from making out anything written on it. She looked around a bit until she found a small basin and started checking around the shelves for the right ingredients. She mixed a few different kinds of dissolvent, then carefully cut out the wallet around the card and placed it in the basin – leaving it for the chemicals to do their work and separate the card from the wallet.

She was about to head back to the evidence box when there was a knock on the door that made her nearly jump out of her skin. A young lab tech stuck his head through the door and looked relatively concerned at the terrified look she had on her face.

"I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. They sent me here to give you your pictures"

"My pictures?" Jamie was still slightly panting

"The young man handed her a large stack of freshly developed crime scene photos. She opened the first envelope and started skimming through the photos immediately. In a routine that was almost like second nature to her she pulled out a roll of scotch tape from her kit and started hanging up several pictures on the walls around her – creating a wallpaper of skulld and corpses in various stages of decomposition around her. It was only a few minutes later that she realized the young lab tech was still in the room – watching her with a frown that was a mixture of disgust and confusion.

"It helps me see things more clearly, organize them" she tried to explain in an apologetic tone but her quietly backed out of the room, looking at her in that weird way that made her feel like a freak of nature.

She sighed and went back to work – dedicating a section of the wall for each one of the six victims they had so far, making sure that the she had photos covering every possible angle. When she was finished she sat back down next to the lab table and looked around her for a long time – trying to find a pattern, trying to get a sense as to what they were dealing with.

The phone rang and startled her yet again, and she actually cursed herself under her breath for being so jumpy before picking it up and answering the call.

"Hey James!" As always hearing Speed's voice on the other end of the line made her smile broadly

"How's life on the work detail?" she asked with a smile

"Getting worst by the minute" Speed's voices sounded tiered from the strenuous physical labor

"More bodies?"

"Yeah, 2 more in the last hour" Speed said gravely "We pretty much stumbled onto someone's private cemetery here"

"How many bodies do you think are still out there?"

"I don't know – but we're going to be digging all through the day and probably well into the night. They've just brought down this x-ray machine that should make this a little easier. Did you get anything from the evidence we got so far?"

"I'm just starting out – there's a laminated card in the wallet we found next to body number four – I'm hoping it might give us some idea as to the victim's identity" she replied, still looking around at the pictures that surrounded her "Hey Speed is there any pattern to the graves? Are they organized in some kind of special order?"

"Not that I can see" he sounded pensive, and Jamie could almost see him in her mind casting a long look around the field, considering the possibility "We found body number 7 and 8 practically one on top of the other..."

"would you draw me map?" she asked "Mark where each body was found so we can see if there is some kind of pattern to the burial?"

"I'll get right on it – it'll be a nice change of pace from the digging" he laughed "Horatio will be heading your way soon, I'll send it over with him..."

Calleigh spent an hour or so cleaning what was left of the bullet carefully with swabs, removing all the remains of dried blood and tissue that covered it. The job required extreme delicacy because she didn't was to jeopardize or alter any of the distinct markings on a bullet that was already pretty degraded.

Once the bullet was fairly clean she placed it under the microscope and carefully examined it – it was a 52 calliber just like she suspected from the beginning but it was custom made and clearly manufactured a long time ago. Even through all the rust and decay she could still make out a few distinct markings that might be useful later.

She took a digital picture of the bullet from all sides and scanned it into the computer – the scanner and the computer system were so outdated it took her three tries to do it. She was just about to run the bullet through the database when Horatio walked in, with Alexx close behind him, in mid sentence.

"We have males, females, different ages, different causes of death..." Horatio sensed that there was something she was holding back but didn't say anything, giving her time to come to it herself "Horatio, there's only one commonality I can point to so far – all victims were black!"