Chapter II: Fiery Tempers Abound

"So, who's our girl, Doc?" Mac asked.

Dr. Evan Zao looked at Mac and said, "Her prints are going through AFIS now. We should have something on her soon."

Mac looked down at the body and noticed some bruising on her ribs.

"Doc, what happened here?" Mac said, indicating the bruising.

"I was just getting to that. An x-ray that I did earlier on her shows that her 11th and 12th rib was cracked simultaneously…almost as if our suspect was roughing her up before the final blow." Evan said.

Mac asked, "What about the slash and chunk out of her throat?"

"Well, I can tell you that the slit across her throat happened after her ribs were broke. Our suspect had to of had a weapon. Most human fingernails don't slash like a knife." Evan said.

"And the chunk?" Mac asked.

"That's the weird part. I made an impression of the marks around her neck. They came back human. The only weird part is that the canines were longer and sharper then the rest of the teeth." Evan said.

"So our guy either had falsies or his teeth are different then the rest of us." Mac said in a hypothetical way.

"Not exactly, I could tell that there is the same dentition as every other human on the planet. It just looks like our suspect's teeth are sharper then the rest of us." Evan said.

"Any sign of rape?" Mac asked, somewhat dreading the question.

"Surprisingly, none…just bruises from being punched in the gut." Evan said.

Mac was about to leave when Evan said, "One other thing, the crack to the ribs wasn't the first blow."

Intrigued, Mac walked back to allow the doctor to show and explain. The doctor, having Mac's attention, turned the body over and show him what looked like claw marks stretching from the body's shoulders to her hips.

"I found these also. Judging by the amount of bruising, blood-to-skin ratio, and the fibers I pulled out of her back…this was the first wound that our victim had. And, I managed to pick up some partial fingerprints off the wrists. But the way that the weather was foggy last night, I don't know if they were contaminated by the water in the fog or not." Evan said.

"You at least did your best, Doc, nothing more could be done." Mac said as he left.

Mac now had somewhat had a picture in his mind:

The victim was walking through Central Park on the night of her death. It being foggy, she could hardly see the nose in front of her face. She passed by the murderer, who jumped from behind and slashed her back. She fell, causing her attacker to grab her wrists. She pushed him off of her and shakily stood up, attacking back. The murderer, apparently liking her being feisty, punched her in the ribs to make her stay still. She fell back to the ground, her ribs broken and she trying to catch her breath. He then produced a knife-like weapon and slashed her throat. While she was bleeding to death, the murderer bit a chunk out of her neck…effectively killing her.

"Where ever you are you sick bastard, we'll get you." Mac said with quiet anger and finality.

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Stella walked into one of the many labs that were in the NYPD Criminalistics Department. She noticed Lindsey Monroe working with some hair that was found at her and Mac's crime scene that didn't belong to the victim.

"What are you working on, Lindsey?" Stella asked.

Lindsey turned to her superior and said, "Well, I was processing the hairs that you found in Central Park…"

"…And?" Stella asked.

"And…they are definitely different, that's for sure." Lindsey said.

Stella looked a little miffed and asked, calmly, "How different are they?"

"Well, they have human DNA…and canine DNA. There's almost a complete match-up of human and animal DNA." Lindsey said.

Stella looked dumbfounded while asking, "Our suspect is part dog?"

"That's what it looked like." Lindsey said back.

"Could I have grabbed two different hairs?" Stella asked.

"Not only did I check for that, but I also checked to see if the machine was malfunctioning…there was only one hair, and the machine is in proper working order." Lindsey said.

Mac came in and asked, "Anything with our hairs?"

"Yeah, our suspect is part dog." Stella said.

Mac deadpanned at this.

"Lindsey checked the machine for bugs and looked for double hairs. Nothing on either count." Stella said back.

"AFIS chucked out who our dead woman is. 'Higurashi, Kagome…Age: 19…recently moved here from Tokyo, Japan." Mac said.

Stella did a double take and said, "Tokyo?"

"Yep, same place that gave birth to 'Gundams' and sushi. Only, in this case, it gave birth to our mystery as well." Mac said.

Lindsey looked at Mac and said, "Do you want me to do a DNA match up?"

"Yeah, just as soon as we get some DNA samples…" Mac began before looking at Stella.

"What?" Stella asked.

"You up for a trip to richer half of the city?" Mac asked with a smile.

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And that does it for chapter 2. Hopefully you like it and I'll update soon. Don't forget, Read and Review.

Disclaimer

See chapter 1