Mirror rorriM - by K-Chan

Gil Grissom studied the scene that lay before him. This was possibly the most bizarre case he had worked. He was staring at many copies of himself, as if he had been cloned. His latest case was at an amusement park, which would have been easy – exept for one thing. This murder had taken place in the Maze of Mirrors. Just finding the body would be hard.

Sara noticed Gil standing at the maze’s entrance as she walked under the yellow tape, crime kit in hand. She noticed that he was sulking, as if something were troubling him.

“Hey, Gris. What’s up?” Sara said as she approached him.

“Allow me to introduce my selves.” Gil sighed, gesturing towards the many mirrors that stood in front of them. His reflection showed up in many of the mirrors, along with an image of what appeared to be a dead body in a small few.

“Geez! Throw me a bone here, I mean, is this even possible? Where’s the body?” Sara asked quickly.

“The only person that found it can’t remember where it was. And, there’s too many reflections to find the real one right away. So, we’ll have to go in there ourselves.”

“What about first witness, first suspect?”

Gil shook his head. “No. Brass already talked to him – the guy’s story checks out. He has no weapons, and plus, he said the body was covered in blood. There isn’t any blood on the guy, and the ride operator said he came out of the maze really – panicked. He was definitely innocent. And the ride operator’s being questioned by Brass right now.”

Sara gazed blankly into the many mirrors. Blood was on almost every one, as was some barely visible fingerprints. “So, what now?” She sighed.

“We find the body.”

* * * * *

“Ouch! I think this is the most painful case you’ve assigned me, Grissom.” Sara exclaimed after running into another dead end.

“I’ll agree with you there. I think my nose is bleeding.” Gil said, looking at himself in the mirror he just front-ended to make sure.

“There is an easier way to do this, right?” Sara groaned, boxed in by three dead ends.

Gil thought for a moment.

“Yes. There is. How do you get through a hedge maze?”

“Hmm… I dunno. Hedge Clippers?”

““No. By holding your left hand to the left wall. Since everything in here is reflected, almost over and over again, every turn is a blind spot – our eyes can deceive us. But our hands… cannot. Now, the witness said that he found the body near the center of the maze. So…”

“So… we use our hands.” Sara said slowly.

A few tediously slow minutes later, Sara and Gil came across the body.
He was stabbed once, right in the side of the neck. The knife was driven straight in, poking out through the other side. Blood was everywhere around the body, splattered on the floor, mirrors surrounding the body, and all over the unlucky man’s clothes, the face was partially skinned, as were the hands. Sara had a hard time looking at it.

“Ugh… Oh, god. Can we get him outta here?”

“That’ll be kinda tough. This maze has over one-thousand double sided panels – one of the largest made.” Gil explained, examining the body with his usual thoroughness and care.

“Oh, it’ll be easy, then.”

“Yeah – David will have a lot of fun with it. This is the coroner’s job. We just have to gather evidence.”

“Or complete lack of it – this looks pro, maybe… a mob hit?” Sara said, looking around the scene. She was right – the killer was surprisingly thorough.

“Not ruling it out.” Grissom grunted as he checked the body for any sort of identification. “No wallet, no ID, no cash, no nothing. This guy was picked clean. He’s a John Doe.”

“Yeah – I’ll say.” Sara said, disgusted as she stared at John Doe’s half-skinned head. “And how are we going to ID him? His face is…” Sara took a shuddery breath before continuing. “His face is mutilated beyond recognition.”

“We could get his dentals – maybe we’ll have luck there.”

“I’m going to print that knife handle, see if I can get anything.” Sara dug around in her field kit, looking around for printing supplies.

“Here – this is new stuff, we can try it out here.” Gil said, handing Sara a pot of bright lime-green printing powder. It seemed to glow, even without a UV light.

Sara held up the pot. “Whoa! Let me guess – your own concoction? What do you call it?

“Haven’t come up with a name yet. We’ll think of it later.”

Grissom stared curiously at the body as he and Sara did typical field procedures. Hovering around John Doe, He seemed thrilled with the challenge of a half-skinned, barely recognizable possible mob hit. Sara, who was dusting prints, seemed grossed out, and obviously not

“Okay – it’s dusted. How do you turn off the lights in here?” Sara said, staring curiously at the knife handle.

“I’ll get it. The switch is at the front.” Grissom said, rising to his feet from the squatting position he was in.”

Sara waited patiently for darkness, watching her boss walk back to the front of the maze. Luckily, the CSI’s had marked the right path with tape, so he didn’t have as much trouble as when he came in. Suddenly, the lights went out, and Sara flipped on the UV light to reveal any fingerprints.

Sara moved the light all around the dusted area. It glowed a bright lime green that was probably visible for a long distance. Gil appeared behind her, after walking back from the front with a bit more difficultly than before.

“Damn it! Nothing! This guy was good!” Sara said disappointedly at the bright-green knife handle. It was covered in dust, but it yielded no prints.

“This guy was good. He hardly left any evidence.”

“So, what now?”

“Well, the coroner’s here – we get John Doe to Dr. Robbins, pick up his dentals and hopefully someone on the database will have something, and we go from there.”

“I just don’t get it…” Sara thought outloud.

“Get what?”

“How anyone commits a crime so gruesome like this, practically out in the open, and no one saw him!”

“Well……” Even Grissom didn’t have an explanation for this. “C’mon… let’s get to the lab.” He said, starting toward the Tahoe. Sara followed him, looking back at the maze. It looked like David was still trying to figure out how to get the gurney into the small-spaced maze. Sara sighed and climbed in, still looking back.

“Who are you, and why were you killed?” Sara thought silently, still looking back at the maze as the Tahoe pulled away from the amusement park.

Grissom stared curiously at Sara. He knew, somehow, what she was thinking. He smiled at the thought of it – somehow, he was thinking the same thing.