“Hey Grissom,” Sara Sidle called to her supervisor as she entered the Las Vegas Crime Lab, “Catherine and I may have a follow on to the murder you and Warrick worked last week.” She paused seeing the confused look on the older man’s face.

“The case where the host of an outrageous party was found dead in the dining room with a G carved onto his stomach.” Catherine Willows the small strawberry blond CSI-3 at Sara’s side explained. Grissom nodded at the reminder and glanced over at Warrick Brown and Nick Stokes who had lifted their heads from their microscopes at Sara’s voice.

“Yeah,” Warrick began, “the victim was Brian Gregson. He was famous for his parties, lots of drink, food, drugs, sex you name it.” He glanced at Grissom and then went on. “There were no fingerprints or weapon left at the scene. We’re trying to match a weapon to the wounds and carving. Captain Brass is also going through a list of his enemies, though funnily enough there doesn’t seem to be many.”

“Gregson was a very sociable man.” Nick put in, “although drugs and sex were available at his parties, the drugs were free and the sex was by mutual consent.”

The others looked at him. “Cite your source.” Catherine stated with a grin. Nick looked slightly flushed but was prevented from commenting by Grissom.

“So what makes you think this new murder is connected to ours?” He asked. When he had sent the two women out to the 419 there had been no similarities in the description of the victim or scene.

Sara glanced at Catherine and an odd look passed between them, there was a flicker of a smile on the younger woman’s lips and Catherine gave a wry grin. “Our victim was found in the car park of one of the strip clubs off the strip.” The strawberry blond began, “Like yours no weapon or prints. Again like yours the man was stabbed to death, he also had a letter carved onto his body...” she paused a moment for effect, Grissom’s eyebrow shot up and he glared at her to proceed. “He had the letter L carved onto his...” again she stopped then quickly added “penis.” She caught the quick intake of breath from her supervisor and saw the grimace on the two younger men’s faces.

“So we have two men stabbed to death in two completely different locations but both have a letter carved onto their body.” Grissom summarised. “Let’s set up the pictures, and what information we have, out in the layout room and see if we can come up with anything.

“Could the initials be linked to their names? G for Gregson.” Sara was suggesting when Jim Brass entered. “L for..”

“Nope,” The homicide captain informed them, “we found the victim’s wallet in some bushes, his name was David Hombard, he visited the club on a regular basis often going home with one of the dancers. He worked as a barman in one of the smaller casinos and apparently has no connection with Gregson, not in his social circle.”

“Let’s look at what we’ve got” Catherine stated. “Two totally disconnected victims except for the fact they have been killed with the same weapon and then had a letter carved onto part of their anatomy.”

“If the letters don’t stand for the victims name could the killer be spelling out a word or name?” Nick put in thoughtfully, “GL something.”

Warrick looked at his colleague, “If he is spelling out a word I hope to God it’s a short one.”

The others nodded, two killings were two too many.

“Okay,” Grissom began, “Warrick you concentrate on the weapon that did the killing, Nick the knife used to carve the letters, if we can at least identify them we might get some kind of a clue to the identity of the killer. Sara, check for any other crimes.”

Seeing Warrick was about to comment that he had been doing that already Grissom hurried on, “both here and elsewhere, go back ten years.” He turned to Catherine, “You’ve got a court appearance tomorrow so take this time to make sure everything is fine, you can pick up on this after that.”

Brass grinned at Grissom, “Will you be joining me in a little old fashioned police work?”

“What else,” the CSI replied, “if there isn’t any evidence you have to do some digging to get some clues.”