A/N: It's been weeks and people are still following and adding this story as a favorite. Truth be told, I didn't expect such a response when I decided to stop, and I'm still not sure that I will, but after the last episode, I was able to finish this. Thanks tons for your support. This is now an Alternate Universe, pure and simple.

Let there be Truth – Tell no soul 3

Unlike most of the crime scenes Chloe had been too, this one didn't stink of death as much as it did of blood. That meant that the murder had been reported moments after it occurred, which usually led her to one of two conclusions. Either the place was rather public, so she would easily find witnesses as well as a traumatized civilian who walked on the corpse; or the crime scene was secluded, so the killer probably called it in. Seeing as this was a shady apartment in the wrong side of town, rented by a single man who let his dirty laundry littering the floor besides his bed, she assumed he hadn't been found that quickly.

The responding officers told her that the tenants weren't exactly friendly towards the department. There weren't any active tension between the police and the neighborhood, but too many people had a brother or a son in jail to care about their on-goings.

When Chloe saw the body sitting at the kitchen table, she almost felt glad that nobody walked in on this. The lips were sown together, the throat slashed with a bloody mass coming off of it. Perhaps her stress-fasting wasn't such a bad thing after all, because it helped her keep it in. She turned towards her partner to see if he needed a bag or not, but Ramirez didn't seem really fazed by it. In fact, he seemed the less affected in the room.

Even Lucifer seemed troubled, which was weird of its own. The devil kept at a safe distance from the body, frowning and crossing his arms. For a man she'd known to have trouble concentrating, he seemed pretty focused on the body.

"What's wrong?" Chloe asked him.

He immediately relaxed and smirked as usual. "Admiring the handy work. Apparently, we've got a crafty little bugger running around." Lucifer gestured towards the mouth with his finger. "Tight stitches, don't you think?"

"Yeah," Ramirez said. Chloe suddenly realized he had put his blue gloves on and was carefully inspecting the corpse.

"Don't temper with the body," she warned him. This was his first day on the job, but she didn't think he'd go ahead and mess up this much. This was for CSI to do, not for them, contrary to what some TV shows would have people think.

Ramirez gave her that same look again, then he went on, "Figure eight stitches. Either the perp has medical training or they're a good knitter."

Chloe's eyes widened. She wouldn't have been able to tell a suture from another even she'd wanted to. Rather than continue arguing over the wisdom of inspecting a corpse before the coroner came by, she let her curiosity get the best of her. "And the thing…" Uncomfortable, she placed her hand on her throat.

"That's his tongue," Ramirez told her without the slightest sign of disgust. If anything, his distant attitude felt more and more creepy to Chloe. What was his deal? He could resist Lucifer's charm to an extent, and had no trouble with tongues sticking out of necks? The word sociopath came to her mind.

Don't judge him, she immediately thought. With a face and a record like his, he might have been forced to learn how to seem detached in difficult situations. Chloe took a deep breath.

"A Colombian necktie!" Lucifer exclaimed as though he just remembered it. "From Colombia, just like the name suggests."

Ramirez nodded. "Not much of a lead, though. It was popularized by books and TV shows."

Lucifer let out a deep sigh as Ramirez took away his moment of brilliance.

"That and the sown lips, I'd say that our vic talked to someone they shouldn't have," Ramirez continued.

This time it was Chloe's turn to burst someone's bubble. She shook her head. "No. Seems like a bit much to send a message. Sowing the lips on its own is enough, as well as slashing the throat." She shook her head and pointed at the floor, where there was almost no blood. "This was probably all done post-mortem, including the slashing of the throat. People who want to send messages usually make sure that their victim suffers."

Ramirez pressed his thumb against the corpse's eyelid, rolling it back a little to examine the white of the eye. "Petechia," he commented, as he revealed the bloodshot eyes of the victim by stepping aside. "He was strangled. If his throat wasn't in that state, we might even see the bruising."

"I told you, you would learn a thing or two from my detective!" Lucifer mused.

Both officers looked at the devil with an expression of disbelief at his inappropriate tone, and then immediately looked at each other. Ramirez seemed to suddenly understand how much she needed his help, and Chloe was pleased to have finally found it. Two heads were better than one when facing Lucifer's childishness. On the other hand, three heads probably wouldn't be too many to try and make sense of this murder.