Please note that this will not be a chapter fic, really. The case is important, of course, but the focus is DL, as it always is for me. :) Don't be expecting a huge focus on the case itself.
A caution that there is a BIT of gore in this chapter - but if you watch CSI, you should be accustomed to it.

Thanks for your reviews thus far - they are greatly appreciated! Hearing your thoughts always interests me and keeps my muse working (she has a lazy streak).

Chapter 2

Lindsay gasped at the scene that lay in front of her: a man's mutilated body, sliced in the center where the train had passed over him. The shoulders and head were lying on one side of the tracks, the pelvis and legs on the other. The entire abdominal area had been obliterated. It was a horrific sight, even for two people accustomed to a daily dose of murder. Uniformed officers were combing the ground, picking up tiny, scattered pieces of tissue and bone. One man, a seasoned cop Lindsay recognized from many crime scenes, ducked into the brush and vomited.

She suddenly felt as if the air had thickened into a porridge, and struggled momentarily to draw a breath into her lungs. Danny's hand, a gentle pressure on the small of her back, helped her regain her composure.

"What happened here?" she asked Wyndham, casting Danny a flash of a grateful smile.

"There was no I.D. found on the body, we're checking with Missing Persons," Wyndham sighed. "It looks like he was chained to the railroad tracks by his wrists, with his arms out crucifixion-style. The workers have been here since seven this morning, but never heard any calls for help or struggling. That makes me wonder if he was already dead when he was brought here."

"There's too much blood," Danny said, shaking his head. "It looks like he died here, or was maybe unconscious when they brought him and chained him up. We'll send him to Hammerback to confirm. Did anyone see anything strange this morning?"

"The station manager saw a guy in a red sweatshirt running off into the woods around eight," Wyndham recounted. "The next thing he heard was the commotion of the train stopping and--well," he nodded to the grizzly piles around them, "the rest is history."

Lindsay nodded grimly, picking up the camera. "We'll let you know what we find," she told Wyndham.

Danny snapped on a pair of latex gloves, then pointed to the two portions of the body. "Okay, Montana, your turn to pick. You want on the top or the bottom?"

Lindsay glowered at him, feeling that familiar tug-o-war between wanting to strangle him or kiss him senseless. She was grateful that Wyndham had wandered off and was out of earshot. At least Danny was trying to lighten the mood. Despite the teasing she endured, she was glad it was him here with her.

"I'll take the top," she replied tartly, wondering if there was truth to the old adage that trying not to blush only made the coloring more intense.

She set to work photographing the body and the blood-soaked earth surrounding it, and documenting every piece of evidence she could find. Unfortunately, little was left intact. The horror she saw required her to work quickly and without room for emotion. Still, a wave of nausea snuck up on her every so often, stealing her breath away. She hoped fervently that this man had died before being placed on the tracks. She couldn't imagine the terror he would have experienced otherwise. Sadly, the evidence before her told a different tale: his eyes were bulging out in fear, his mouth still open in an O-shaped silent scream.

Shuddering, she avoided his face and moved to his hands. The welts around his wrists showed just how he had been chained to the tracks, completely immobilized and helpless. Examining his hands further, she noticed red, cotton-like fibers under the fingernails.

"Look at this," she called over to Danny, using tweezers to deposit the fibers into an evidence bag. "From a red sweatshirt, you think?"

Danny looked up from where he was positioned over the bottom half of the body. "So maybe he tried to put up a fight. He knew what was going to happen." He shook his head, then pointed to the man's legs. "He was tied down by his thighs, too, with your average bicycle lock and chain. Same as the wrists. He had no hope of getting away."

"It's like a horror movie," Lindsay replied softly, pausing to zip up her jacket. It wasn't the weather, but the crime scene which left her so chilled.

Danny summoned both the station manager and train conductor for questioning, and she listened casually to their exchanges in order to distract herself from the ruins before her.

"Do either of you know this man?" Danny asked, pointing to the victim's upper half.

"I've never seen that guy before in my life," the manager gulped, trying not to look directly at the gruesome remains. "Although, it's sort of hard to tell… I mean, there isn't much left…".

"Yeah, yeah, we get that," Danny said impatiently. "What did you see this morning?"

"The only thing unusual was some guy in a red sweatshirt running like a madman into the woods." He shrugged, pointing off into the distance where the trees were thickest. "I thought maybe he was just some bum who slept off his hangover on our loading platform. It wouldn't be the first time that happened."

"What else do you remember besides the red sweatshirt? Race, features, build, anything?"

The manager chewed his lip thoughtfully, exposing teeth blackened from a lifetime of chewing tobacco. "No, I saw him from behind. Though, he had really long black hair, in a ponytail, and he was kind of short. About your height."

Dusting the railroad tracks for prints, Lindsay smiled as she saw the brief look of annoyance pass over Danny's face from the unintentional insult. His masculinity was certainly taking a beating this morning. He, however, brushed off the slight and turned to the conductor.

The man had witnessed an unspeakable horror, but was impatient and uncooperative. "Look, I told my story to four different cops already," he drawled, spitting a wad of chewing tobacco onto the ground. "Can I get going now? I have to get this load to Akron or my ass is on the line."

"Easy, Buddy," Danny countered, gesturing to the body that was being loaded into two separate body bags. "Right now, we've got something more important on the line. I have a couple more questions for you...".

Lindsay wandered away from the group of men, their voices fading behind her. She began snapping pictures of the blood-spattered front of the locomotive. It was a typical freight train: black engine car in the front, with an endless line of windowless boxcars behind it. As she stepped back several feet to examine the engine, she noticed an open door on the fourth car of the train. That struck her as unusual, because this had been an emergency stop. No cargo was due to be loaded or unloaded. Trading her camera for her kit, she walked over to the car and peered in. Curiously, a clump of dirt and gravel was on the ledge. Lindsay ran her gloved finger over it; it was damp and fresh. Someone was in here, she thought. While all the attention was focused elsewhere, someone had snuck in, for some reason.

She considered getting Danny before going further, but she could see he was still in an intense discussion with several station workers. The conductor had disappeared. There was no reason why she couldn't just hop in and take a quick look for herself. First, she tossed her kit up on the ledge, then climbed up.

Instantly, she grappled for her flashlight – the inside was dark beyond dark. The beam of light picked up floating dust particles, a thin layer of straw on the floor, and a mysterious pile of clutter in one corner. She crept closer to inspect it. As her flashlight beam fell across the bundle of items, she knew she had just struck gold.

"Bingo," she breathed, gently prodding and poking the items.

Documenting and processing the things she had found would take some time, so she figured she should call Danny for help after all. This was big. Peering out the door, she saw he was finishing up his questioning of the last station employee. Perfect timing.

"Hey, Danny!" she shouted. "I have something here I think you need to see."

----

Stan Cleaver was normally a patient man, but today was proving to be a rotten day. Not only had he indirectly sawed a guy in half, but he was going to be late with his delivery. That meant another warning to his record, making his third, and that would result in a dock in pay. He needed to get a move on.

"Damn cops," he muttered. The body had been taken away by the coroner, nothing remained on the track. No one had approached him for at least fifteen minutes, so they were probably done with him anyway. The cocky detective with glasses had told him to stay put, but what would happen if he just left? He snorted with the realization that they sure couldn't stop a train with those 9mm pistols.

"To hell with this," he muttered to himself, and began walking back to the engine car. "I'm out of here."