Criminal Case: Pacific Bay

Chapter 17: Under the Skin-Part 2

While Frank and Marie were reviewing what they know so far about the case, Ramirez came into the office wearing a Chinese lion costume and he informed them with a pale face that he found an operating room and it was filled with pictures of human organs on the wall while he was infiltrating the Chinese festival for an undercover mission. When they heard that, Frank asked with a shocked look, "Pictures of organs? What kind of organs?"

Ramirez then informed them, "The bloody kind! There was a heart and lungs and even a spine!"

Frank and Marie looked at each other and Frank said to her, "You thinking what I'm thinking darlin'?"

Marie nodded and said, "I sure do! First there was the heart from that Chinese girl that we never found. Then there was the lungs missing from Radovan's corpse. And the spine that was ripped from that priest at the Saint Patrick's Day parade! And then there's Nikolai's missing skin too. I wonder?"

Frank asked her, "You think it could have been stolen too?"

Marie shrugged and she said, "Could be."

Frank then remembered something and he said, "But wait minute! Nikolai was killed by having his skin removed! So his killer is the one who took his skin."

Marie then came up with a thought, snapped her fingers and said, "I think I got it Frank! I think this all points to the same person! I think we have an organ stealer on the loose!"

Frank's eyes went wide when he heard the news and Ramirez offered to take them to the operating room happy to help them with their investigation. Marie gratefully accepted his offer and soon the two of them followed Ramirez to the operating room. Once they arrived at the room and parted ways with Ramirez, Frank and Marie looked at the room and Frank said, "Well darlin', I guess your friend was right. Between the pictures of our victims on the walls and the blood on the operating table, we have found the organ stealer's den!"

Soon, Marie started to look around until she found a gun and thought if this was her room, she too would come here armed. Marie also found a broken device and wondered it could be once she put it back together. Marie also found a tray of discarded operating tools and Frank informed her with a flirty wink that she should wear a pair of gloves before she rummages through them cause he didn't want her to catch a disease and Marie rolled her eyes and thought, whatever.

The first thing Marie did was put together the broken device until it was whole again and the two officers saw that it was a voice recorder. On the recorder, Marie saw a strip of tape that says 'Skin Surgery' and she knew that the cassette has to belong to the killer. Soon, Marie sent the recorder to the lab to be analyzed. After Marie sent the recorder to the lab, she then put on a pair of gloves and looked through the tray of operating tools until she pulled out a paper lantern from among them.

As soon as he saw the lantern, Frank thought how the heck it even got there. Marie then suggested that the lantern is the missing link between the operating room and their crime scene. When he heard that, Frank agreed that it's time to give their crime scene a second look. Before they could have another look at the crime scene, Marie got to work dusting the handgun for fingerprints until they appeared. As soon as that was done, Frank sent the gun to Hannah so she could analyze the fingerprints.

After that, the two officers went back to the crime scene to see if there were anymore clues. Once they were there, Frank and Marie looked around the festival decorations until Marie found a bank statement that was faded and a torn piece of paper. Frank then thought if she found one more, they can make a hat. Marie just rolled her eyes not wanting to know what Frank was thinking and when she looked at the bank statement she saw that it came from Nikolai Kamarov's account and for a rather hefty sum of $500,000 in total. Frank smirked when he saw the amount of money and said, "I wouldn't say no to some of that!"