Chapter VI

Back to the Start

Less then three days after finding the body of Melody Wendell, Warrick, Sara and Sofia were out in the desert again. Sofia looked up at them, "I'm getting a feeling of de-ja-vous here." Sara smirked and put her kit down on the ground. The horizon was painted in orange and red and tinted with just the beginnings of violet and indigo, the desert sunset was gorgeous. The body the sun set over was not.

Sofia began to go over it, "John Doe, found nude in the desert by a passing tour helicopter. No physical sign of COD, but since we're about 2 miles from where Melody Wendell's body was dumped...I've got a good feeling that if we plug him up, he'll light up like a Christmas tree." Sara nodded, "We may have a serial on our hands." Warrick nodded gravely, "I've got that feeling too...but until Robbins confirmed we should work this as a separate case." Both women nodded and set off to their respective jobs.

Despite what people might think and what Hollywood might portray, police work was not all that difrint from any other career. It had it's ups and it's downs, it's good aspects and it's bad and it was full of long boring stretches of paper work and repetition. This, though, was just down right creepy. No fibers...just like the Wendell case. Non descript tire tracks, and a naked d.b. Warrick wondered if his life was on a rerun. The victim, this time, however, was a man. David, and he agreed that he was approximately fifty years of age and he was Caucasian. The eerie similarities to the Wendell case stayed with Warrick, but it might just be that...eerily similar. Serials rarely switched gender, and this three hundred pound golden-oldie was definitely no woman...though he hadn't been much of a man either.


Faced once again with skimpy evidence, they had Robbins rush the autopsy. He confirmed their suspicions. There were more signs of struggle, bruises and a blow to the head, the COD had been neon gas poisoning...which meant that Vegas had a very twisted and very crafty killer on the lose.

They'd made head way, but in the end when it came down to it...they had no suspect, no motive and very little evidence. They had two dead people and no leads. They were back at the beginning again.


The second victim was quickly identified as Gene Taylor, a low income father of three. He'd been reported missing when he hadn't showed up to work the day before.

Knowing that, Warrick and Sara began the painstaking process of putting together victim profiles. He took Taylor and she took Wendell. After a night of work, they had very little to show for it. The case board was annoyingly well ordered...and revealed absolutely nothing.

Sara paced the room. "Melody Wendell was twenty-six, engaged and she had no criminal record, not even a parking ticket." Sara scoffed, "Hell, even I get parking tickets." She waved her hand vaguely in the air and continued, "She worked at the Java Hut as an assistant manager. The workers Sofia and I talked made it clear that she wasn't very popular, but none of them had motive to kill her. Fiance has an air-tight alabi, he was doing National Guard maneuvers out by Lake Meade." She frowned at the picture of the young woman. "No Church affiliations, no gym memberships, no gambling debts, no children. Her parents are right here in Vegas, she was a native."

She looked at Warrick and he sighed. "Gene Taylor was fifty-one, married to Sylvia Taylor. Oldest son, Mitch, is doing time for possesion with intent to sell; daughter, Anna, is fifteen and pregnant, youngest son, Kyle, is eight..Taylor bounced from job to job...Had a record of petty theft, domestic abuse and drunk and disorderly." He ran his hands over the back of his neck, "Frankly, these two were as different as two people could be. She still lived with her parents in Henderson, he's from the wrong side of the tracks. I don't see one thing that connects them...except they're both natives."

Sara crossed her arms and stared at the board, as if glaring at it would make it cough up some kind of answer. "This case makes less and less sense the further along we go." Warrick nodded, "Tell me about it...and all we can do is wait for him to do it again."

They wouldn't have to wait long.