"We met a few weeks ago. He was one of those fans, you know, the ones that are obsessed with everything about the band. So, we hung out. He took me to lunch, helped me pass out flyers. Then, one night we…you know…really hit it off. We went back to his apartment and had "fun". An hour I left because he was too shy for me. That was the last time I saw him. And, contrary to what you detectives may be thinking, he was alive when I left. He was begging me to stay. But, I left anyway. I'm not one for children."
"Thank you, Miss Marro. The police officer will take you home." Bobby stood and opened the door for the girl. After she left, Goren turned to Eames. She raised her eyebrows at him and he shrugged playfully.
"The Green Lantern?" Eames sat down in her rolley chair at her desk. Across from her, Bobby was flipping through the pages of a comic book.
"No, not exactly." A smile spread across Bobby's face. "I went and picked this up at the comic store." Goren put his hand over his mouth and leaned on his elbow. He stopped and rubbed his brow. Bobby put the comic book on the edge of his desk, facing Alex. "Look familiar?"
Eames picked the book up and looked at the glossy drawing of a handless body floating in a bathtub.
"What is this?"
"It is 'Death by Numbers'. It's the 5th comic in the series put out by Evangeline Marro." Bobby placed a stack of several comics on Eames' desk. "It is the story behind Psycho Puppy's music."
"There's meaning behind that trash?" Bobby snorted at Alex's comment.
"Yeah, a lot of it. The body in the tub," Bobby motioned towards the book on Alex's desk. "Is Victor Lugh. He's one of the main characters. He is killed. His head is shaved clean and his hands are hacked off. The killer is never revealed in the issues that I bought, but from what I gather it is a young girl…." Bobby grabbed the book on the top of the stack and flipped through it until he found the picture he wanted. It was of a girl with bright blue hair and a smirk on her face. The girl was sitting in a tree looking down upon children playing. "Her name is Annabella Signale. She is some sort of sorceress that plans on taking over the world." Bobby handed the book to Eames.
"Wow, what a resemblance to our dear Evangeline." Alex raised her eyebrows.
"I'm not done." Goren turned to his computer and began typing. Eames got up and walked to where she could see over Bobby's shoulder at the computer monitor.
He went to a search engine and typed in "Psycho Puppy". One of the top results was Evangeline's online blog.
"Listen to this: 'for some odd reason, I find myself searching for the perfect Victor. Few have come close, but I think I found him." Bobby looked to his partner.
"This girl really is a Psycho Puppy."
Morgue
"An axe took his hands off. A very sharp axe with a lot of force behind it. I'd bet my money on the killer being male."
"What was the cause of death?" Eames looked at the redheaded examiner. Behind Eames, Bobby was prodding and poking the corpse.
"He drowned. I found bloody water in his lungs. What's strange is that there are no signs of struggle, like he was allowing himself to be killed."
"We didn't find any signs of struggle at the crime scene either." Eames looked to Bobby. He was now smelling the cadaver.
"What do you smell, boy?" She asked him, sarcasm tinted her voice.
"I thought I smelled…" Bobby had smelled his way to the corpse's neck. "Vanilla…" He raised his head up to look at Eames. "Vanilla…and brown sugar lotion around his neck."
"The lotion…I-I smelled it on Evangeline when she walked out of the door." Bobby was explaining the significance of the scent on Trosner's body.
"So that's why you were so googly eyed over her." Bobby snorted at Alex's comment.
"Hardly. I've smelled it before. Not just on Marro, but somewhere else." The two walked up to their desks and sat in their different seats across from each other. "I don't remember where though." Goren's hand came up to his face and he started rubbing his forehead.
"Well, that's a first. Let me set your mind at ease." Eames reached into her purse and pulled out a bottle of vanilla and brown sugar scented lotion and threw it in front of Goren. Her reply was a smile.
(Author Note: I was excited about this one. It kind of shows how Goren doesn't just smell bodies and boats, he actually smells women! Of course, this little characteristic of hissmelling people, not smelling the bodies was given to him by me. It isn't a fact that his character even notices the smell of his partner, but I just thought I'd throw that in for those who love BA moments!)
