While Knox worked the phones Jensen got to work trying to flesh out their case. It was unlikely that someone with a fetish as particular as stealing livers would only commit two murders sixty years apart, even if they were connected. So she started looking for similar cases, hoping that something would stand out.
It was less than an hour before she had her first hit and after that the computer sent them streaming into her partner’s desktop all pinging with matching details. What concerned Jensen the most was that some of the cases that were cropping up weren’t old cold cases, they were active cases, nearly half a dozen within the last eight months. She was terrified to use the words because of how quickly the case could be taken away from them but they were right on the tip of her tongue; serial killer. She was surprised that the FBI hadn’t found her by now since they were likely involved in the mysterious disappearances of the girls on the screen in front of her.
They were all similar in appearance; blond, pretty, slim, and in their twenties, quite the opposite of the Boston case, but she had a hard time believing they weren’t linked in some way. She reached over and grabbed a notepad and a pen off her desk, jotting down the various cities where each of the murders had taken place: Jacksonville, Orlando, Miami, Raleigh and Savannah; all major cities in the southeast.
“Are you planning a trip?” a voice asked and Jensen turned to see Lawrence the lab tech leaning over her shoulder curiously. He was holding a file folder in his hand (Melissa’s file no doubt if he was at her desk) while peering down at her notepad.
“What do you mean?” she asked, doing a double take between the scientist and the desk.
He motioned down to the names, “Well, it’s basically a list of some of the big cities along the I-95. It goes from Miami, straight up to Baltimore and then on to Canada through Maine. Are you going on a road trip?”
Jensen did a quick check of the dates, noting them next to the cities they happened in so they’d be in order (they had been listed on the screen alphabetically). Her hand covered her mouth as she stared at the page, the tech still standing awkwardly next to her, “Uh, what did you need?” she asked, ignoring his question.
He laid the folder in his hand down on the desk, flipping it open to the middle where it had Melissa’s photo and autopsy report listed on either side, “I took some trace elements, what I thought was dirt, from around the victim’s wound and I had been waiting for the lab to get back to me on what it was. The report came in today and it’s... well, it’s weird.”
“This whole case is weird,” she reminded him.
“Fair play,” he nodded while flipping the page to the report from the lab, “It’s a combination of mostly natural elements but a few of them poisonous. Large amounts of Tetrodoxin, which is the neurotoxin in puffer fish. There’s also another toxin commonly found on the skin of marine toads, venom from a Hyla tree frog, a bunch of random plants and this... this is the weird part...”
Jensen cocked an eyebrow, “That wasn’t the weird part?”
“No,” Lawrence chuckled, “There’s also human remains; ashes, to be specific.”
“Yeah, that’s definitely weird,” she agreed, “Any clue why anyone would put all those things together and why you would find them on an incision like that?”
“We have a hunch,” he explained, looking somewhat sheepish, “at first we thought it was too farfetched but really considering the circumstances it’s probably pretty normal. We did some searches for compounds made up of similar ingredients and it all mostly came back to one thing - zombie powder.”
“Sorry?”
“Zombie powder,” he repeated, “People who practice Voodoo supposedly used powders made up of similar ingredients to create the living dead. It was all a scam though, to convince people they could bring someone back from the dead. The powder is an irritant; it’s strong enough to break open a person’s skin if used in large amounts, and at the same time, leaves them completely paralyzed from the huge dose of neurotoxins going straight into the blood stream. The family would think they were dead and bury the body but it would eventually wear off and the person would wake up thinking they were a zombie. In our case I think the catalyst is the missing liver. I think whoever did this used the powder to paralyze Melissa so she wouldn’t wake up or feel anything while they were yanking out her liver, and there was enough on her that the irritants would have broken the skin so the killer didn’t need any tools to make the incision. Speaking of the liver, when we were doing research we found something else that we thought was really interesting...”
“Jensen,” Knox suddenly interrupted, rushing over from the phone he was using to try and track down Lauren, “I just spoke to Brian Littrell. No one has seen or heard from Lauren in days. He’s asking me how to file a missing persons report.”
~*~
Brian didn’t know the first thing about officially reporting a person missing but he knew he had to do something. Rochelle had planted a seed of concern in his mind and it had grown exponentially over the passing days.
Finally he caved and called Lauren’s sister himself, looking for her. The woman was clearly confused as to why Nick’s best friend would have been calling her instead of her sister’s boyfriend, but her concern was clear to Brian as she spoke the words, “I thought she was with you.”
From what Brian could gather Lauren had never made it to Los Angeles, so he found it hard to believe that Nick could have gotten a phone call from her to the contrary. Maybe she had just taken off and wanted to be alone but that wouldn’t explain why no one in her family had heard from her, but Nick supposedly had.
There was a lot holding him back as he thought back to the conversation he’d had with Rochelle just days before. If he called the police they would automatically point a finger at Nick because he was her boyfriend, but he couldn’t help but wonder ‘what if?’ If Lauren was in trouble and his phone call could somehow improve the situation then it would be worth it. He didn’t want to accuse his friend of anything unjustly but there was a smell in the air and it was certainly fishy.
He had gone through the phone book on his cell phone a dozen times trying to think of who he should call before he remembered the business card that he had been given when he was first brought in to give a statement to the police. If anyone knew the proper procedure to follow it would be the police.
Knox had definitely been willing to help him, but there was only so much he could do because Lauren hadn’t gone missing in Baltimore. As far as Brian knew though she could either be in California or Georgia, so the detective volunteered to be a liaison with the other departments.
What he hadn’t counted on was Lauren’s sister making another phone call after she spoke with him. He knew immediately though when he swung open his hotel room door to Nick’s angry face that he was well aware of what was going on.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Nick asked, shoving past the smaller man to get into the room. He turned, his hands firmly on his hips, “Lauren’s family is freaking the fuck out because of you! Why would you call them and tell them she’s missing?”
Brian sighed, closing the door slowly, “We’ve been trying to reach her for days...”
“I told you I talked to her!” Nick snapped, glaring down at his friend, “She said she’s in LA! You’re worrying them for no reason!”
“Her sister and her parents haven’t heard from her at all! They said she didn’t show up at the airport, Nick! You told me not 48 hours ago that Lauren said she was happy to be back with her sister. If that was true then why is her sister thinking Lauren’s with you?”
Nick moved further into the room, putting himself in front of the large picture window overlooking the bright lights of the Las Vegas strip. Brian used to be very good at knowing what Nick was thinking but recently he had become more difficult to read. It made him nervous watching the taller man standing with his back to him at the window and he couldn’t remember a time in the near 20 years he had known Nick that he had ever made him feel that way.
Suddenly Nick turned and the anger that had been in his eyes only moments ago was replaced with concern, “What if someone made her call me? So that we wouldn’t look for her...”
Brian couldn’t help but be slightly suspicious of the sudden change of heart but nevertheless he agreed, “That’s what I’ve been concerned about, that something happened to her. Especially with everything that happened in Baltimore.”
Nick’s voice was low and breathy, “Do you think that whoever killed that girl could have kidnapped Lauren?” he worried.
“I don’t know,” Brian said honestly with a shrug of his shoulders, he sat down on the arm of the couch, watching Nick pace slightly, “but I think we just need to find out for sure.”
The taller man ran his hands through his blonde hair, pulling on the ends, “This is all my fault.”
“Nick,” Brian said sympathetically, quickly crossing the room to rub his friend’s back quickly, “Don’t blame yourself. You couldn’t have changed what happened.”
