Chapter V

The Playground

The empty space that had held the Rampart at one time had picked up a bad reputation for good reasons. It was a pit where they found a body every week or so.

When they arrived, Greg sighed dramatically "I just got the concrete dust out of my boots from last time."

Sara smirked, "Welcome back to Sam's Playground."

She only hoped Greg didn't start spouting off odd facts about Vegas' less than reputable past. They ducked under the neon yellow crime tape and carried their kits from the outlying area that was used for parking -- CSI had been there so much they'd almost claimed a parking spot at this point -- and followed a uniform's lead. The gravel and crusty dust crunched under their boots as they went. Sara was snapping on her gloves and didn't catch whatever it was the uniform had told Greg. She shook her head; knowing Greg, she probably didn't want to know.

The assignment slip hadn't provided that much information on what to expect. Going on what she did know: two dbs, one male and one female, it sounded like a trick roll gone wrong. It wouldn't be the first time that month they'd pulled a trick roll out of the Playground.

She took out her camera and checked the night-flash as she walked. They worked their way across the mostly abandoned construction site, wary of sinkholes and sharp pieces of rebar that had been left where they'd fallen. Their crime scene was around the outskirts of the main construction zone, close to the center of the site. There were more people here, and more floodlights to keep them from tripping and planting their faces in evidence. Sara caught the scent of the crime long before she saw it. Cement dust, exhaust from the nearby car-packed Strip, sweat left over from the one hundred and twelve degrees day, the tacky polish on the uni's shoes and over it all was a thick invisible fog of death. The metal tang of blood and foul, stenches of death, smeared the clear night and assaulted her nose. As they came closer, Greg and Sara first caught sight of the coroner and the detectives.

Sara, a half step ahead, spoke first, "What have we got?"

Sofia's back had been to them, but Sara saw a slight smile on her face when the blonde woman looked at them over her shoulder. "You've got to see this one to believe it."

Sofia had worked as a CSI, albeit a day shift CSI, but a CSI never the less, and a detective. If she said it was interesting, Sara wanted to see. She put her kit down on the hard-packed ground and moved around to see for herself. In her years of working murder scenes, she had never seen anything quite like it. Camera momentarily forgotten, Sara moved closer to the bodies, minding the evidence only by habit rather than thought. David ran through what he knew, from positioning to time of death. His words were registered in her mind for later discussion, but the majority of her concentration was on the scene before her.

The two bodies were posed in a mock-up of sex. Sara noted that the woman, Jane Doe, was nude. That was unusual in itself; a hooker never shed all of her clothes on a street pickup.

Sara moved her flashlight around, "Greg we've got clothes." The younger CSI moved over to them.

Sofia nodded, "They were left undisturbed."

Sara nodded and let Greg handle their processing. She turned back to the corpses. "They were found in this position?" She didn't even wait for an answer, she continued, carefully picking her way around the two bodies. Sara cocked her head to a new angle. "They're still together? When he died his muscles wouldn't have supported him and her positing isn't cradled enough to really take it either." She looked at David, "What's holding them together?"

Sofia chuckled, "That's what Dave's been obsessing about for the last ten minutes or so."

Greg, a yard or so away processing what were presumably the woman's clothes, looked up, "Natural adhesive, maybe?" Sara and Sofia both, without knowledge of the other's action, rolled their eyes.

Sofia took the toothpick out of her mouth, "Has your natural adhesive ever caused two people to bleed out, Sanders?"

Sara stifled a chuckle and David looked up at them, "No ID on either body."

Jim sighed, "They never make it easy." The older detective straightened up and was proud of himself for not grunting when his right knee popped loud enough for everyone to hear. "The guy looks like a run of the mill scumbag, but the girl doesn't look like a street walker to me."

Greg moved back over to the bloody primary scene with brown paper evidence bags in hand. "Designer jeans in size four, American Eagle tee shirt, extra small." He blew out a breath, "Underwear was Hanes Her Way."

The investigators looked at the dead woman. "She wasn't a hooker." Sofia's voice was even and almost monotonous. She had bitten her toothpick in half.

Sara went down to one knee and framed up a shot of the unnamed woman's face. "Petecheal hemorrhaging and peri-mortem bruising around her neck." She pushed a stubborn strand of hair behind her ear, "How long have they been here?"

David glanced down at his notes. "They were found an hour and a half ago." Jim grunted, "By two good Samaritans who declined to hang around and talk to us."

Sara moved to get a wider photo. The male victim was on top of the woman. It was as though he had collapsed on her. His arms were draped over her shoulders and his face had fallen on her chest. His cheek was on her left breast, his face half hidden against it. John Doe had been on his knees, straddling the woman, his pants still half on. Sara lifted one of his hands; it was covered with dry blood. Sara moved around the two bodies taking pictures while Greg marked the edges of the blood pool and worked a small grid search around the scene.

Once they had finished processing the immediate area, Sara looked at Dave. "Okay, let's lay them out." They of course, were the bodies. Greg, who had been sketching the layout of the crime scene, and Jim who had been talking to a pair of uniforms, along with Sofia who had been watching, turned.

The tips of David's ears went bright red. "I told you they're stuck."

Sara put her camera on the ground, "So we separate them."

Everyone watched David flinch. "I think we're going to have a problem with that."

Sara only lifted an eyebrow in response. David's entire face went crimson, "He's stuck inside of her."

A moment passed and Sara's only response was "Oh."

Greg blinked three times then seconded her with a much louder, "OH!"

He unconsciously took a step away from the bodies. He looked from Sara to the bodies then back again. "Sara, I'm going to work the perimeter, see if I can't find a purse or keys maybe."

He started to back up from the primary scene. Sara looked up and for a moment she only stared, her face unreadable. After a minute she nodded slowly, "Take a uniform with you."

Jim held up a hand, "You know what, I'll go with him, canvas the area."

He took another look at the two bodies, "I've had enough of this part of the Playground for a while." That left Sara, Sofia and David alone with the connected bodies.

Sofia put a fresh toothpick in her mouth, "So how are we going to get these two to the morgue?

Sofia watched with morbid fascination while Sara and Dave tried to maneuver the bodies. Every time she thought they'd made progress, one of them would shake their head or mutter a curse. The two naked corpses were robbed of all dignity as they were twisted around. Both Sara and Dave had to put their hands over their genitals more than once. As a cop, Sofia knew that their actions were clinical, necessary even. As a woman, she cringed.

She turned her attention to the investigator's faces instead of their hands. David, despite his night after night experience with handling corpses, had a distinctly uncomfortable expression on it. Sara, on the other hand, looked perfectly removed from the scene. Her face was like a Neo-Classic bust under the floodlights, pale as marble and rigidly controlled.

A bead of sweat slid down Sara's forehead and jawline. "Dave, twist him." Sara moved carefully, trying to both respect the bodies and do her job.

Super Dave grunted and with his hands between the two people's legs, he began to twist. A sickening tear of flesh and sinew marked the separation of the two bodies.

Sara straightened up, "Finally."

David, however, was still knelt in place. When he moved his head, Sofia saw why.

David Phillips, Coroner, had a severed, bloody penis in his hands.

Dave went so pale he tinged green. Sara, still completely calm in the face of a David's "Bobbit Situation" held out a large, clear plastic evidence bag. "Doc Robbins is not going to happy."

David nodded mutely and Sara handed him the now full bag. He looked positively thrilled to have it.

After taking another series of photos, of the individual victims and of the dismembered penis, Sara gave Dave one last look. "I'm going to go go over the perimeter and trace evidence with Greg." Again David nodded and Sara turned.

Now facing away from David, Sofia could see that Sara was grinning. She couldn't help but smile herself. "Poor guy."

Sara and Sofia paced off the crime scene in search of their male counterparts. Sara took note of the few and far between markers Greg had set down to mark possible evidence. Out of habit, both women had their flashlights trained on the ground, forever in search of the case-breaking evidence that would probably never present itself. They were close, almost brushing shoulders.

Sofia walked them through the case as they went. "Guys a punk, dollars to doughnuts says he's got a rap sheet as long as my leg. Girl looks clean cut. With what we know, it looks like he jumped her, pulled her into the playground, and raped her." She looked over at Sara, "And-" She shook her head.

Sara shrugged, "The penis was, well it looked like it lost a fight with a lawn mower. I took samples from the blood pool, I think it's all his. As for Jane, it looks like manual strangulation to me."

Sofia rolled the toothpick across her tongue, back and forth, obviously thinking. "What, how, what happened to his penis and what kept them together like that?"

Sara didn't have an answer.

When they caught up with Greg and Brass, they had worked their way all the way across the Playground, tracing the most direct route back to the public sidewalk. Less than three yards from the gated -- not that it ever stopped anyone -- exit to the street Greg found a discarded messenger bag. He put a bright yellow plastic marker down by the purse and took three quick pictures of the purse. He took down quick notes about the purse, numerically designated with evidence marker number six. After observing it in place, he knelt down and opened the flap.

Brass came up beside him, "What have we got?"

Since Brass wasn't wearing gloves, Greg only held up what he'd found. It was a wallet with four dollars, a bus pass, a UNLV student ID, a debit card, and a Nevada Driver's License. All of them belonged to their victim. Their strangled Jane Doe was twenty-four year old Erica Green.

Author's Note: Definitly the most disturbing murder scene I've written to date.