Serious Snafu

Chapter 10

LaSalle and Percy drove awhile in silence, still absorbing all they had seen. About halfway into the ride, Chris got the distinct feeling that Sonja was staring at him. As they slowed down for a light, he turned to see that she was indeed gazing at him with a semi-wistful/psychotic smile. She suddenly grabbed his shoulders and kissed him hard.

While he enjoyed it immensely, he couldn't resist teasing. "So I can't touch your hand, but you can kiss me?"

She put her head on his shoulder and sighed. "No one's around. And, you're right, I went kinda cray cray this morning."

"What changed your mind?"

"After seeing that guy all rippered, talking to that girl. I realized how lucky I am to have you," she said.

"Yeah, I still have my nuts."

She frowned briefly and sat up. "I talking about the way we work together. It was tres sexy, seeing you in action," her frown turned to a sly smile, she began to slowly stroke his arm with the nail of her index finger.

"You've seen me in action plenty of times before...in many ways," he smirked. The light changed and he looked forward.

"But it's different now that you're my, my ..." Sonja searched for a word.

"Lovah?" he suggested and she rolled her eyes. "Boyfriend?" he laughed

She tilted her head, "I was leaning toward sex-slave." Now, he rolled his eyes. "But, if you insist, then BF."

He grinned as he kept his eyes on the road, "Then that makes you my ..." he stopped talking; the grin disappeared.

"Can't say it, can you?"

"I can, but...hey, give me that picture of our vic with eyes attached." He swerved to the curb.

She handed him the man's military photo. He looked at it and looked again up at something else.

"So Ken, what is so distracting?"

He pointed to the left. "Well Barbie, I think I just saw our dead man go into that building."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Back at the morgue, Loretta was making some discoveries of her own. Before she was ready to call him. Sebastian burst into the lab, holding a forceps with a piece of tissue in one hand and a print out in the other.

He chattered away. "Aha! Vindication! So, I'm paranoid, I read too much, I go down the rabbit hole. Well, Loretta Wade, M.D., I just found out that..."

"Yes, dear, I know. Try to curb your enthusiasm while I call the team," she said.

She clicked the NCIS office number into Skype. Pride and Brody appeared on the screen. The senior agent had a pained look on his face.

"Please tell me you have some answers Loretta, because apparently this isn't the only body. NOPD also found three others with similar mutilations," Pride said.

Loretta smiled. "We have good news. I think you can tell the city to calm down..."

"Oh please, let me tell them...please, please, please," Sebastian begged as he protruded his lower lip and tilted his head down to show sad puppy eyes. "It's all I have."

Loretta waved her hand. "Go on." She stepped back.

Sebastian displayed an uncharacteristically smug face. "First answer me this. Were the other victims a cheerleading coach, a tailor, and a florist?"

Pride and Brody looked stunned. "Yes. But how...."

Sebastian put up his hand. "And further, did the coach have her breasts removed, the tailor's fingers and toes were switched, and the florist had his mouth and anus sewn up."

Pride shifted his feet, his arms akimbo, "C'mon Sebastian, what do you know?"

Sebastian paused. "First, I want everyone to apologize for making fun of my 'crazy' theories." He used air quotes for the word crazy. "And, I want all of you to accompany me to the next Conspira-Con."

Loretta leaned forward, "Don't negotiate dear, just tell them."

"The bodies were faked."

Pride's eyes went wide "What! Loretta, wouldn't you have picked up on that?"

Loretta looked at Sebastian, who gestured for her to take the lead.

"I did think that something was fishy at the crime scene, but I didn't want to say until I got a chance to study it further. It's a very sophisticated model," she said.

Sebastian couldn't help himself. "If I may doctor," he interrupted. Loretta squelched a smile. He held up the specimen he had brought into the lab. "It's artificial skin grown from real human epidermis. The same stuff they use for skin grafts. Have never seen so much of it before, or any of it actually..." he trailed off again as was his fashion.

Loretta continued, "Only the area around the parts we thought were removed were covered with the good stuff. The rest of the body is just a standard dummy."

Brody pursed her lips. "That doesn't explain how Sebastian knows all about the other murders," she said.

"I'd like to know that too," Loretta said, crossing her arms.

Sebastian stepped up again. "Well, as someone mentioned at the scene - oh, I think it was me - this looked like the work of a serial killer," he said.

Pride gave Brody a side glance. "So?"

"So, I looked up serial killers from New Orleans in Wikipedia, and that lead me to the upcoming premiere of a horror movie, 'Hatchet Harriet.' Loosely based - and I mean hanging by a thread - on the Axeman attacks in the early 20th century."

"Axeman murders?" Brody said.

"Serial killer who killed about eight people in the city and Gretna," Sebastian said. "Used axes he found in the victims' homes. Sent a Jack-the-Ripper style letter to the press saying when he would strike and would spare anyone who was playing jazz music."

Pride's face finally broke into a smile, "Jazz saves souls."

Sebastian continued, "Except in this new version, set in the tumultuous '60s, the killer is a woman who takes revenge on people who mocked her for being fat or a bad baton twirler or something like that, anyway: her victims are her step-brother, a Marine; a cheerleader coach; and a tailor. Oh, and a florist, but, I'm not quite sure why the florist mocked her."

Brody shook her head. "So this was all a publicity stunt?"

"Yep!" came from the front door, LaSalle and Percy came in dragging a very fidgety Henry Vance.

"Huh!" Pride said. "Looks pretty frisky for a dismembered man."

"I didn't do anything wrong," the man yelped. "It's the producers, it was all their idea."

"Shut up!" LaSalle and Percy both yelled at the same time.

Sonja rolled his eyes, "He won't stop talking! Even after we Mirandized him."

"Then maybe we'll wrap this up by lunch," Pride said. "Take him to interrogation room."

"With pleasure King," LaSalle said as he and Percy wrestled the man though the office. Pride turned back to the plasma.

"I believe my work is done here," Sebastian said. "Now about that apology..." Loretta and Pride both clicked the done button and the young man blinked out of sight.

Brody laughed, "Ahh poor Sebastian, his moment of glory."

Pride shook his head, "And he won't let us forget it for a long time. So, do you want to do the honors?" He nodded toward the courtyard.

"I think we both want a piece of this guy," she said with a straight face.

Pride cringed. "That was painful."

"That's what he said," she chirped. Pride just turned and walked away.

Meredith followed. "I still think I'm right about the Mouse Twins," she called after him.