On a dirt road in the forest . . .

"Hey, Adalet," Frank says as they drove along the bumpy dirt road, "do you know what this red light means on the dashboard? It's been blinking for a while. I just hope this clunker makes it home before beer o'clock!"

Adalet leaned over to see the light, "Frank, that's the fuel indicator! We're almost empty!"

"You're saying it's the fuel indicator? But . . . The tank was nearly full this morning!" he assured gripping the wheel tighter, "I can't believe this! Just what we need, getting stranded in the woods like a couple of girl scouts."

"And if the cops at the station hear about this . . ." she groaned.

"You're right, Adalet, if we call the station for help we'll never live it down! At least I won't!" he added, "just wait until Andrea finds out I can't even be trusted to fill up the car."

"Did we pass by a bar a few minutes ago?" she asks not believing what she was suggesting.

"Genius idea, Adalet! We should go to that little bar we've just passed by! The Mad Cow! Somebody will help us out with a can of gas!" he says making a hard U-turn once the road widened out.

A few moments later, at The Mad Cow Bar . . .

"At least the car was kind enough to stop near the only bar in the forest! What do you think of the place, Adalet?" Frank asked as they entered the smelly bar, "I've been here a couple of times . . . It's the only decent place around here."

"I'm not a big fan of the decorations . . ." Adalet admitted as she saw all the taxidermied animals around the room.

"You think the decoration's weird? Well, yeah, it's tacky," he agrees, "but, you know, it's just a jive bar, not an art gallery, ha-ha!"

"I meant this!" she says as she hopped up onto the stage and pointed to a head-mounted to the wall.

"Oh, you mean this . . . This . . . Holy smokes! You're right!" he cried seeing the human head, "what's wrong with that decoration?! OK, folks, nobody moves until Capt. Adalet has examined the place!"

The few patrons that were in the bar bolted before Frank could stop them, but they allowed the drunken men to leave as they wouldn't be helpful in their current states. Adalet reached the center of the stage as she pulled on a pair of gloves and got a scalpel out of her case. She pried the head off the plaque as Dean paws at a broken board and Hunter picked up a wallet.

"Frank," Adalet says as she finished removing the head from the wall, "if this is what you call tacky, I don't want to visit your house!"

"Agreed, Adalet, a human head on the trophy mount definitely takes tacky to a whole new level! I know the woman who runs this joint, I'll find her for you straight away," Frank promised turned to face the bar, "hey! Hey, Betty-Lou, come over here for a minute! Capt. Adalet wants to know if you recognize this man!"

"Eeeek! It's Sammy, Sammy the Swindler! I mean, Sammy Duncan! Of course, I recognize him! He's a regular, he . . ." the woman behind the bar backed up until her back hit the wall, "aaaaaahhh . . ."

"Betty-Lou?" the detective walked over and peeked over the bar, "ah, well, I guess the severed head was too much for her. But don't worry about her, Adalet, we'll talk to her when she's feeling better."

"In the meantime, I sent word to the station about this," Adalet says as she placed the head on a plastic evidence bag, "they'll be here soon to pick up the head."

"I see you've already arranged to have this head sent to Roxie. Imagine her excitement when she opens the parcel!" he laughed, "and you've already made some progress with the crime scene, too! A broken blackboard? My eyes are too old for puzzles in this dim light, Adalet, but you're really good with patching things up!"

"There's also this wallet with the name "Sammy" stitched onto it," she held it up, "didn't Betty-Lou say the head's name is Sammy?"

"You're right, Adalet: Betty-Lou said the victim was called Sammy! Good idea, let's see what he kept in there!" he grinned.

Adalet picked up the pieces of the broken chalkboard and placed them on a table to work with. She got out a roll of duct tape and taped up the blackboard without trying to smudge the message written on it in chalk.

"I see you've restored the blackboard you found, Adalet. What does it say?" Frank asks as she gave it to him, "No credit given - except to Sammy"?"

"It can only be referring to our victim!" Adalet deduced, "it would be best to go and see if Betty-Lou's feeling better. I bet she can tell us more about the victim!"

Before going to see Betty-Lou, Adalet grabbed the victim's wallet and looked through the contents. In the pocket where the cash and change were kept, she found a newspaper article advertising the sale of a beachfront condo in Ocean Shore.

"So, you've found a newspaper ad in the victim's wallet, Adalet? I guess you'll want to take a closer look at the faded message under it. Attention to detail, right?" Frank smirked.

Adalet beamed, "right!"

She got her brush ready and dusted the missing message on the advertisement. It was addressed to their victim by someone who must have known him well.

"Nicely done, Adalet! You retrieved the message on the ad you've found in the victim's wallet! What does it say?" Frank inquired.

"Sammy, we should get it! Vanessa K"?" Adalet pondered the last name, "it might be from Vanessa Kimmel."

"Wait, you're saying you know a Vanessa Kimmel? Small world, the Bayou . . ." he snorted, "the victim knew her, too, it seems!"

"They were probably a couple," she reasons.

"I agree, if this Vanessa chick and the victim were looking for flats together, they were probably a couple. She even drew a little heart! Oh, to be young again, eh!"

"We'd better find Vanessa and ask her about this ad."

They gather up their clues as the backup officers arrived to take the head back to the station. Once they were gone, Adalet and Frank went over to the bar to talk to Betty-Lou about the victim and his head being displayed in her bar.

"Are you feeling better, Betty-Lou?" Frank asks, "Capt. Adalet wants to ask you a few questions about the victim."

"Oh, I'm alright . . ." Betty-Lou assures as she wiped down a glass, "I've seen uglier things on a regular Saturday night here, ha-ha! Now, can I re-open the bar? People 'round here get cranky without their drinks!"

"Not before you've told us a little bit about this blackboard Capt. Adalet found," he tells her holding up the sign, "seems like Sammy was a well-liked customer . . . Yet the board was smashed to pieces!"

"Sammy Duncan always settled his bills, it's true! But where did he get the money? It ain't like he had a job! Folk here notice a kid with a wad of cash and a loudmouth," she whispered despite them being the only ones in the bar, "people talked. And talk ain't good for business. And you two pokin' round lookin' for corpses ain't no good either! This is a reputable pub for reputable drinks!"

"With a severed head hanging above the stage," Adalet quipped.

"That's why I banned Sammy from the bar! And how right I was! Look what he brought me: cops and trouble! Trouble and cops! Now, order a drink or get out!" Betty-Lou orders.

Adalet and Frank left the Mad Cow and headed into the forest to find Vanessa. They checked around the area she was known to frequent and managed to find her on the edge of the swamps to hear an old dockyard.

"Sammy's dead? But . . . But . . . I counted on him! And now he ups and dies on me?" Vanessa raked her nails down her face, "why does everything end in disaster for me in this awful place?"

"Hm . . ." Frank hums, "I'm not really good at relationship advice, Vanessa . . . But do tell Capt. Adalet a bit more about your boyfriend. You were going to live together, isn't that true?"

"Boyfriend? No, I was just . . . seeing him. I liked how . . . smart he was! He had ideas! He could have made it anywhere!" she explains with a light blush, "and me, I'd have done anything, anything to leave the Bayou, Capt. Adalet!"

Adalet nodded, "so I've seen."

"I told him we'd both find jobs in the city. Better jobs than working in The Mad Cow, and . . . whatever sordid things Sammy did in the forest," Vanessa says, "I begged him to leave with me and never look back! He'd still be alive if only he'd listened! Capt. Adalet, you get away from here while you still can!"

"I don't know, Adalet," Frank whispered as they walked off, "Vanessa's clearly a sandwich short of a picnic!"

"But she did mention that the victim did something sordid in the forest," Adalet pointed out, "it might be a lead . . ."

"OK, OK," he grunted, "just don't expect me to camp out there overnight. You know how I feel about the great outdoors!"

In the dark, creepy forest . . .

"I don't like the look of this forest, Adalet. These dolls hanging from the trees all over, they give me the creeps!" Frank shudders looking through the mist, "and so do these broken porcelain pieces you've found!"

"Its evidence!" Adalet defended.

"Evidence, schmevidence! Easy for you to say, you haven't been cursed by a doll! Restore the pieces if you insist, but I want to go on record stating that I officially . . ." his face lit up as he saw what was at her side, "wait, you've found an empty barrel, too? Why didn't you start with this? The barrel changes everything, the barrel needs prompt examination!"

She rolled her eyes, "I take it you didn't see the note?"

"And there's a note on it as well?" he pulls the paper off, "I'll drink this to your death, Sammy!" Whoa! This message was clearly intended for our victim!"

"Does that mean you take a look at the barrel?" she asks.

"Sure," he patted the wood, "I'll help check what was in that barrel!"

Knowing Frank wouldn't be able to wait for her to fix the porcine pieces, Adalet checked out the barrel first. Adalet removed the lip from the barrel and a strong scent hit her nose from inside. She swabbed the interior of the barrel and got a sample of the liquid inside. They resealed the barrel and packed up the sample.

"Wow, Adalet, you have the extraordinary skill to collect drops of liquid even from an empty barrel! How I wish I could do that!" Frank joked, "just kidding, Adalet!"

Adalet shakes her head, "this is our most promising lead so far! Let's send the sample to the lab!"

While Frank checked to make sure the barrel was resealed up properly, Adalet picked up the porcelain pieces. The pieces looked to make up a doll and she glued the limbs back to the torso and finished it off with the doll's head.

"Did I mention this forest gives me the creeps, Adalet? And that I hate these dolls?" Frank questioned.

"Only a dozen times, Frank!" Adalet shakes her head," but look!"

"OK, I understand you wanted to restore it . . . But we can break it again now, right?" he replied baking up slightly, "listen, why don't we go back to The Mad Cow, Adalet? I mean, having a pub for a crime scene, doesn't get any better than that!"

She puffed out her cheeks, "Frank! Its evidence!"

"OK," he sighed, "I'll get the forensic kit and see if we can collect something from this doll. I just hope I don't have another voodoo curse coming!"

Frank retrieved Adalet's case from the hummer and brought it over to her. Adalet placed it on a tree stump and oped it up. She picked out a dipper from the case and searched the doll for anything of use. She found a faint sample of sweat in the doll's hair and placed it into her USB microscope.

"I'm still not sure this doll will bring us anything but trouble, Adalet. But at least you got a decent DNA sample off it!" Frank said, "so should we send it to the lab for analyses?"

"Don't have to!" Adalet replied frying up her tablet, "I can do it from here!"

"You say you can run the DNA through the database yourself? That's great, but don't we have lab rats for this sort of work?" he smirked.

"This'll take less time!" she argued.

"OK, OK," he chuckled, "let's go and see if the DNA turns up a match!"

Adalet examined the DNA sample from the sweat with her microscope and found the structure of the molecule. She matched up sections of the DNA to three of the closest ones on file and found out who it belonged to in no time.

"So, you've found a match for the DNA on the doll in the forest, Adalet?" Frank inquired.

"The DNA belongs to a 30-year-old man who lives near the woods by the name of Bertie Cornman," Adalet replied.

"Hmm, a grown man with a doll . . . After the mad survivalists and voodoo maniacs, how many more weirdos can crawl out of this woodwork, Adalet?" he wondered, "I can't wait to meet this one!"

They learned from the man's file that he lived in the house that was built along the edge of the swamp. They walked up the small path to the front door and knocked on the rotted front door. Bertie oped it with a loud creak and Adalet informed him of the reason for their visit.

"Well, I'm not surprised Sammy's dead," Bertie tells them, "I told him the dolls would kill him."

"Is that so? And why would your dolls do such a thing, Bertie?" Adalet inquired.

"Sleep deprivation. The dolls turn mean if they can't sleep! And Sammy disturbed them, meandering around in the woods at night!" he growled, "the dolls guard the spirit of my little sister, Lizzie. She drowned near this place many years ago. We must do what the dolls want, so Lizzie rests in peace!"

"Hm, and so you made sure Sammy wouldn't disturb your dolls again, and killed him, right??" Frank promoted.

"No, I didn't!" Bertie denied, "but I won't miss him now that he's gone, that's true!"

At the morgue . . .

"Hey, guys! Thanks for the lovely severed head you've brought back! It was hacked off with a sharp blade, by a single cut, while the victim was still alive. But you'll need the actual murder weapon to be sure," Roxie says, "but check this out, Adalet: I found egg white in the wound! Quite a lot of it, all along the edges of the gash!"

"Egg whites?" Adalet questioned.

"Egg whites are a rural home remedy for bleeding. Entirely un-scientific, but popular. And cute! Exactly the kind of thing my great-aunt Aurora would have done!" she chirped.

"She would have done . . . what, Roxie? Chop off someone's head and put it on display in the local bar? And then . . . make an omelet?" Frank deadpanned.

"No, Frank, I'm saying the killer tried to stop the bleeding with eggs! Probably so as not to leave a trail of blood while carrying the head to the bar," Roxie explained amused, "I can't help you find the missing body, but I can tell you you're looking for a killer who uses eggs, Adalet!"

They thanked Roxie for her findings and left the morgue. They Headed down the long halls to the forensic lab to see what Yann had gotten from the barrel's sample.

"Hello, Adalet!" Yann greeted, "I hope Frank's mood swings aren't giving you any trouble?"

"I wouldn't call them swings . . . More like a rollercoaster!" Adalet teased as Frank glares.

"The countryside can disturb his psyche . . . But I have some test results to cheer you up!" he chuckled at the detective's misfortune, "the barrel you found in the woods, guess what was in it: a mix of fermented fruit, sugar, and ethanol. In other words: distilled liquor."

She nodded, "makes sense for why I didn't recognize the sent . . ."

"I compared the samples to thousands of known recipes of commercialized brands. And it didn't match any of them. Which means the liquor is homemade. Illegally, as you've guessed," Yann added, "homemade liquor used to be called moonshine because it's brewed secretly in the dead of night. Quite poetic, isn't it, Adalet!"

"Poetic?! Did you see the threatening message on the barrel?" Frank asked pointing to it on the side table, "I'll drink this to your death, Sammy!" It's the killer who drinks that moonshine, Yann!"

Yann nodded, "yes, I figured as much."

"Which means the sooner we arrest the killer, the sooner the booze becomes police property!" he beamed, "Adalet, I'm counting on you to find this booze-addict killer extra fast!"

Later in the forest . . .

"Adalet, I feel we're just stumbling in the dark. Let's see: Sammy Duncan's severed head was found in The Mad Cow," Frank ticked off on his fingers, "the owner, Betty-Lou, says the victim wasn't welcome in her bar. Something to do with showing off his money."

"Bertie Cornman said Sammy wasn't welcome in the forest, either! Apparently, the victim disturbed Bertie's dolls with some kind of night-time job . . . probably brewing moonshine. Which also earned Sammy a death threat," Adalet guesses, "and then there's Vanessa, who was in a relationship with the victim, and . . ."

"Wait . . . Isn't that her on that boat over there, Adalet?" he asked as they reached the docks.

"Ahh . . . I think she's trying to escape!" she says as the engine was heard trying to start.

"Wait . . . What do you mean she's escaping? Holy booze, you're right! She's trying to get away on that boat!" he cried as they began running, "Hey, you! Crazy lady! You are under arrest! Stop that boat right now! You are a suspect in a murder investigation! You can't go anywhere! Get off that boat immediately!"

"I'm so sorry, Capt. Adalet!" Vanessa apologized holding up her hands, "I never meant to escape! This is Sammy's boat, I cast it off by accident!"

"I hope for your sake you're telling the truth! Capt. Adalet will talk to you!" Frank assured.

"And if this boat belonged to the victim, we must search it and make sure Vanessa hasn't gotten rid of vital evidence!" Adalet added before turning to the woman, "Vanessa, what were you trying to do?"

"Capt. Adalet, I didn't mean to steal Sammy's boat, I swear!" Vanessa promised, "I was just collecting my personal belongings! I spent the night here with Sammy once . . . He poured me a glass of moonshine, we sat on the deck, drinking . . . It was so romantic!"

"Look, miss, we ain't got time for nostalgia! Cut to the chase or I'll have you handcuffed to a crocodile until you . . ." Adalet jabbed Frank in the side, "sorry, Adalet. You're right, that's no way to talk to a witness. Vanessa, what were you really doing on the boat of a murder victim?"

"Capt. Adalet, you know how much I want to escape the Bayou! Sammy promised to get me out of here, so I gave him all my savings," Vanessa explains, "but I soon found out Sammy lied to me! He used my money to start one of his businesses! Now I'm trapped here more than ever! Please, Capt. Adalet, believe me! I only want what's mine, so I can leave this dreadful place! The things I had to do to earn this money, you don't want to know!"

As Vanessa left the docks, Adalet and Frank climbed aboard the boat. They searched the deck of the boat and found a metal jaw trap that looked like an extreme bear trap. Adalet also picked up a tackle box from the edge of the boat.

"Are you sure it's the right moment to go fishing, Adalet? 'Cause, you won't find much other than fishing equipment in this box, trust me!" Frank smirked.

"How about this then?" Adalet asks holding up a metal jaw trap.

"Now that thing, with the rusty metal teeth, I'm not touching it with a barge pole, Adalet! What on earth is it?!" he cried.

"I think it's an alligator trap," she replied," one that someone tried to file the serial number off of!"