8. How the Sausage is Made

Complete story — includes the ending

Sherlock has been lying to Joan about attending recovery meetings. Meanwhile, a man's death is caused by eating poisoned sausage made of human meat. The second victim is Joaquin "Joaq" Pereya, a researcher who made a breakthrough in the artificial meat industry. A rival company hired a father-daughter team of assassins. Confronted with evidence for various murders committed by the pair, the daughter admits to eight killings, but denies murdering Joaq. That hit was called off after Joaq's product was tested and classified by the Food and Drug Administration as a meat substitute, not meat. However, the data was doctored to produce that result. The motive was to get it recognized as non-meat, as that would bypass the kosher and halal meat restrictions and open up a vast market. The CEO and a researcher at Joaq's company did the killing and data tampering, respectively, after Joaq refused to fake the data himself. The kosher and halal certifying boards refuse to recognize the artificial meat as pareve (neither meat nor dairy) unless Joaq's murderer is convicted. The researcher is offered an immunity deal, as he is only guilty of data tampering. He takes it, and the CEO is arrested.