At last I got the time the continue with my fanfic. I haven't had the time for it for a long time, sorry. Since my cumputer is a bit slow today, I couldn't search for teh old thread, so started a new one. I'm gonna post the first four chapters in this post (old chapters), and the fifth (new) chapter in the next post.
Enjoy
1
Three murders, three cities
Again, a heat wave has struck Las Vegas. The heat was getting more unbearable by the minute. It was still early in the morning, but the temperature was already pretty high. This was going to be another very hot day, but like many other people Grissom, Catherine and Sara had to work. They were heading for a crime scene on the strip. Dispatch told them they had to be at the Montecito resort hotel and casino. This was one of the most famous casinos on the strip, ran by Big Ed Deline – President of Operations of the Montecito Groups. The former CIA operative who sometimes looked like a mob boss was into his sixties. The Montecito casino was one of the best casinos, mainly because Big Ed ran the place.
Grissom who never likes to drive going to or coming from a crime scene was sitting in the back seat. He wondered what was waiting for him, he’s always anxious to know what’s there for him at a crime scene. Catherine who was driving the GMC Yukon XL Denali was a little bit pissed. The shift was almost over and she could go home to her daughter, but once again she had to call Ms. Goodwin to take Lindsey to school. Normally Catherine wouldn’t even be with Grissom and Sara because of the recent shift-changes, but because Ecklie thought – for some vague reason – that Greg should work with Nick and Warrick for one time. Because of that, Catherine had to back-up with graveyard. Sara, who was sitting next to her, looked a bit distracted. Almost like she was day dreaming.
“Hey Sara,” Catherine said. “What are you thinking?”
“Oh nothing special,” Sara answered.
But Sara indeed was somewhere else with her thoughts. She was thinking about her mother, lately she thought more and more about her mother. Her mother killed her father when she was a child and was put away for it, for a long time. Her mother still hadn’t been released from the clinic she was put into. But Sara didn’t want to say that to Catherine.
Finally they arrived at the casino.
When they walked inside Ed Deline and Danny McCoy, head of security, already walked towards them. Danny was still pretty young, but he did his job very good. “Follow me,” Ed said, “We’ll have to be at the seventh floor, murder central.”
Murder Central was a phrase used by CSI’s to indicate the room closest to the emergency exit, so with only a room on one side. Big Ed also knew such a phrase because he used to be head of security and he used to be with the CIA.
When they stepped into the elevator Ed said: “This is going to remember you of the golden years, literally. 1964, to be specific.”
“What do you mean by that?” Catherine asked.
“Do you know the Bond movie ‘Goldfinger’?” Danny asked.
“No you’re kidding,” Sara reacted, “The victim is painted gold?”
“You bet ya,” Danny said.
Grissom asked: “so I assume you found the victim?”
“No Sam Marquez found her,” Ed answered, “She’s the casino host, the victim was a client of hers.”
“Where is she, we’re going to need to speak with her,” Grissom said.
“She’s down at the casino with Mary Connell, Special Events Director,” Danny answered.
Then the elevator stopped at the seventh floor. Grissom, Catherine and Sara stepped out. “We’re going downstairs again if you don’t need us,” Ed said.
“That’s alright,” Grissom answered.
“You’re not going to believe this,” Brass said when the three entered the room. Brass had his famous grin on his face.
“We’ve heard,” Grissom reacted.
“You believe it, like we’re back to the sixties,” Brass said.
Sara walked to the bed, where the victim was on and looked at the sheets. “The paint’s still wet. The killer was here not long ago,” she said, “But why would someone paint the vic gold?”
Grissom said: “You know what they say about him.”
“Huh?” Sara said a little confused.
“What?” Catherine reacted.
“He loves only gold.”
A few hours later Horatio Caine and Calleigh Duquesne also were on their way to a crime scene, but then in Miami. They were heading for the Conquistador, now owned by Daniel Boyle. Horatio had been there about two years ago on an other case. Catherine Willows from Vegas called him to arrest a man for murder. That man was Thomas Lessor; he was Daniel’s step father. He was kidnapped from the airport and then killed. It turned out that an artist, Maria Chacon, who played in the Conquistador let her uncle with his two friends kill him. After Maria fled to Vegas, Horatio called Catherine to arrest her. When he got to call her, Deborah Lessor, Thomas’s wife, had already killed her in their hotel in Vegas. She went to jail and Daniel became company president then.
Horatio was sitting behind the wheel of the Hummer; Calleigh was sitting next to him. The Southern blonde was also known as ‘bullet girl’, because of her outstanding knowledge about firearms, in which she’s specialized.
When the Hummer stopped in front of the Conquistador Calleigh and Horatio got out of the car and walked inside the hotel. There, behind the front desk, was Daniel Boyle, talking to the receptionist. Daniel Boyle was a thin man with short dark hair in his early thirties. He was dressed in an expensive Forrester Creation’s suit with as shoes a pair of Bruno Magli’s. When he saw Horatio he walked towards him. “Hello Mr. Caine,” he said very quietly, “Good to see you again. The victim is at the seventh floor, room 702.”
“Ok, thanks,” Horatio answered and went in the elevator with Calleigh. After a stop at the fifth floor they arrived at the seventh floor.
When they arrived at room 702 Calleigh said with a sarcastic tone: “what a surprise; murder central.”
“Well, you now what they say, closest to the exit, one room less next to you. Perfect for murder,” Horatio said.
When they crossed the tape they saw Yelina Salas standing over the bed. Yelina looked a little bit distracted. Horatio knew why. Her son Ray Jr. was going through a rough time. His father, Horatio’s brother, died a couple of years ago in an undercover drug operation. Ray Jr. got in fights more regularly lately, which worried Yelina sick. “Hey,” Yelina said, “maid found the vic when she wanted to clean the room. No ID in her purse, but no money gone. Add that she was painted gold, you definitely have a crime of passion.”
Calleigh was staring at the body and said: “Movie freak?”
Horatio answered: “That. Or he or she…just loves gold.”
A few hours later than the Miami action and around the same time as Grissom, Catherine and Sara were at their crime scene, in New York Stella and Mac also were heading for a crime scene. They were a few blocks away when a courier almost crashed into their car with his bike while Mac and Stella were waiting for a traffic light. “Damn those couriers,” Stella mumbled.
Mac didn’t go in on that one. “We’re here,” he said when he pulled up a parking lot.
He pulled up the parking lot of the Cosmopolitan, a hotel near Central Park.
When they walked inside Aiden caught them up. “Hey Aiden. Where’s Danny?” Mac asked.
“I don’t know,” she answered, “he saw something suspicious and chased someone. He shouted that I should go inside already.”
Once inside they walked to the front desk and asked for the manager. “I’ll page him,” the receptionist said. She was a blonde attractive girl with blue eyes, probably around the age of twenty. She was thin and wore a blue hotel outfit.
Moments later the manager showed up. A thin Latino man with black hair in a black suit. He probably almost reached his forties. The man said: “you will have to be at the seventh floor, room 701.”
Mac, Stella and Aiden went in the elevator and got out again on the seventh floor.
“Murder central,” Mac said when he arrived at room 701.
“That means the killer most likely took the fire escape,” Aiden said, and she went to the fire escape door. She began dusting for prints on the handles.
Detective Don Flack was already in the room. “The vic’s husband came in and found her like this,” Flack said, “he probably interrupted the killer because the bucket of paint is still here on the floor.”
“No windows open, so how did he get out of the room?” Stella said
“That’s something the evidence will clear for us later,” Mac replied.
Aiden came in and said: “a few prints from the fire escape door. All pretty much smudged though.”
Suddenly Danny came into the room.
“What happened to you?” Stella asked
“I just chased somebody. He came from this hotel and was in a hurry, had some blood on his suit. Too bad I couldn’t catch him. But you’ll never guess how he looks like,” Danny said, “A small, broad Asian man in a black suit with a bowler hat.”
Mac replied: “you’re kidding me.”
2
Actors and super models
Back at the Vegas crime scene the coroner’s assistant, David Phillips, had just arrived. He and Sara took a look at the body, but they couldn’t find any signs of what killed her.
“I’m going to take a little paint sample if it’s alright with you David,” Sara said with a smile.
“Of course that’s alright,” David replied with also a smile on his face. His smile seemed a little bit of a nervous smile though, but that was just David. He always seemed a little nervous.
“Catherine,” Grissom started, “you go downstairs with Brass to interview Sam Marquez, the woman who found the body. And Sara…you dust for prints. Also look for footprints. Take the fire escape as well, that’s most likely the way he got out.”
“Ok, Gris,” Sara replied.
Catherine was already on her way down with Brass.
When they arrived at the bar they looked for two women who could work here. Brass spotted two brunettes; one of them seemed a little shocked. “I think we need to speak to those two over there,” he said.
“Yeah, the left one seems a little bit shocked,” Catherine said.
“Sam Marquez and Mary Connell?” Brass asked.
The right one of the beautiful brunettes confirmed.
“I suppose you are Ms. Connell?”
“Yes. But please, call us Sam and Mary”
“Ok, we will. I’m Detective Jim Brass and this is Catherine Willows, Las Vegas Crime Lab. Sam, could you tell us how you found the body?”
“Right, I was with Jill’s husband,” Sam started. “That was her name: Jill Proscia. She married an Italian guy, Julio Proscia, who now lives in LA. He was here playing craps for a very long time. At first she was there too, but she had a headache and went to their hotel suit. About an hour ago he asked me to check up on her, see how she felt.”
“Is such a thing usual?” Catherine interrupted her.
“Well, he was a whale Ms. Willows. For people spending that amount of money, we do our best to keep them here.”
“I understand, and please, call me Catherine.”
“Anyway,” Brass said, “you went up to their suit. And then?”
“I knocked on the door a few times,” Sam proceeded, “after waiting about 20 seconds she still hadn’t opened. Mr. Proscia gave me their room key in case she didn’t answer, so I used it. When I entered I saw her on the bed like that. When I saw it I called Danny and a few seconds later he and Mr. Deline were at the room. When they arrived they told me to go to Mary and they stayed there until you guys got here.”
“Is that enough?” Mary asked
“Yes,” Brass answered, “for now it is.”
“One more question,” Catherine said.
“Could one of you call Mr. McCoy or Mr. Deline? We would like to get to the surveillance room.”
Moments later, after introducing them to Mike, Brass and Catherine were in the most high-tech surveillance room of all Vegas casinos. Danny and Mike already started on the video tapes that could have the killers face on it. Mike Cannon was just as young as Danny McCoy. But the young black man was also as good as Danny. They made the perfect team. Mike studied at MIT, so he knew all about technology. Danny on the other hand was more like the street smarts that were always needed on the case. That reminded Catherine of her and Grissom. She was pretty much street smarts and Grissom was pretty much book smarts.
“We’ve pulled everything up, but we didn’t find very much,” Mike said. “The killer new what he was doing, he probably explored the place before his big day.”
“The only time you can see something of his face is here,” Danny picked up. “Where running it through a facial recognition program”
“You know, you guys know what you are doing, it’s a busy day. I will come back later,” Catherine said.
“That’s ok with us,” Ed replied.
By the time Catherine and Brass were back at the hotel room, Sara and Grissom were almost done processing the scene.
Sara always felt to share if someone other on the case wasn’t familiar with the new evidence yet. A thing Catherine appreciated very much. That was one of the things that could ruin the case, people not getting the newest information fast enough and trails getting cold because of that. It was one of the things that put the Vegas crime lab on the map of best crime labs in the country. Everyone shared their information as fast as possible.
“Nothing here,” Sara said a bit angry. “Only one set of footprints at the fire escape, not even one decent fingerprint.”
“Not even a hair or something, the only clue in this room is the paint,” Grissom said. “We’ll take the sheets with us too, maybe something is on there.
“On our way up, we’ve been outside where the fire escape ends on the parking lot,” Catherine said. “We’ve found silver paint scraps on a dumpster next to it. Only thing out there. Could be enough though. The casino host, Sam Marquez, had nothing special for us. Her husband was a whale, he asked her to check up on his wife. She was upstairs because she had a headache. That’s when she found her.”
“Let’s go back to the lab then,” Grissom said.
In Miami there was also a coroner at the scene, Alexx Woods.
“Well, with all this paint I can’t say what the cause of death is yet,” she said. “I’ll take a paint sample and send it to the lab. The scene is all yours now Horatio.”
“Ok, I’ll meet you back at the morgue.”
“Have you already talked to the maid?” Horatio said
“Yes, nothing. Came in for cleaning found the vic instead. Saw nothing, heard nothing.”
Calleigh already went to the fire escape. She printed the door, but found nothing. Only thing upstairs near the fire escape were some footprints. When she was done, she opened the fire escape door and went down. Halfway down the stairs her eyes fell on a little piece of fabric, stuck on a piece of metal that stuck out. Thank God that piece of metal sprung, she thought. She collected it and cut of the piece of metal. She swabbed it and then put some phenolphthalein on the swab. It turned pink, which indicated there was blood on it. She put away the swab and collected the piece of metal. Downstairs she looked for evidence, but she didn’t find anything relevant to the case. The only thing she found was glass, but that was not even close to the fire escape. It belonged to a car. At the far end of the parking lot two cars got in an accident. So since she didn’t find anything, she went upstairs again.
Back at the scene Horatio was done at the hotel room.
“I know who she is,” he said
“Tell me,” Calleigh replied.
“Maria Capungo, age 25. I found her ID in the drawer of the night stand. That’s everything though. We’ll need to process the sheets at the lab, maybe that will give us something.”
“I think I have better news then. Found a set of footprints near the fire escape. No prints though, only smudges. Halfway down the stairs I hit the jackpot. A piece of fabric was stuck on a piece of metal that was sprung. But that’s not everything; There was blood on the metal.”
“That’s a very good beginning.”
In New York Mac, Stella and Aiden also went to work. Stella and Flack were interviewing the husband, while Aiden dusted for prints and Mac searched for other evidence.
“We’re lucky the guy was in a hurry and forgot the bucket of paint,” Aiden said. “Lots of prints on it, the fire escape door indicates he wiped the prints. But I’m thinking he wore gloves and that those prints were from some other persons. The prints on the bucket are probably from handling the paint at home.”
“Makes sense,” Mac replied.
“What I’m wondering is, when he’s so careful, why not a new bucket. Or also wear gloves at home.”
“He thought he could take the bucket back with him.”
“Yeah, but still. In case he would have got caught, like he did now.”
“The fact that he wore gloves doesn’t make him smart.”
“You’re right,” she said with a little smile on her face.
“Could you hit the lights, please?”
“Of course Mac.”
Mac grabbed a UV light and went over the sheets. Many fluids were revealed, but none of them were fresh enough to be part of the crime. After that he searched every inch of the hotel room, but nothing was found besides the fingerprints on the bucket, not even a hair. Then he figured the killer maybe hid behind the door when the husband came in. And yes, he found a partial shoeprint behind the door.
Stella was just rounding up the interview with the husband, when Mac and Aiden came out of the hotel room. The husband had been crying, but Aiden expected nothing less, since he found his wife dead, covered in golden paint.
“So once again, I’m very sorry for your loss sir. We’ll contact you if we would like to speak with you again,” Stella said.
“I hope you nail the guy,” he said.
“We sure do,” Flack replied.
And of the husband was.
“Hey,” Stella started, “the victim’s name is Sophia Masterson, age 28. She was here with her husband, Jonathan Masterson, they married a year ago. Celebrated their anniversary here.”
“We’ve found barely anything,” Aiden said. “Some prints on the bucket of paint and a partial shoe print, that’s everything.”
“You guys go to the parking lot the usual way,” Mac said. “I’ll take the fire escape down; see if our killer left us something there.”
Mac went down the fire escape and dusted for prints, just like Calleigh and Catherine had done. But the results were the same: nothing. Looking for other pieces of evidence than fingerprints, Mac also didn’t find anything. The killer was really careful, he thought.
Downstairs he looked for paint scraps near the fire escape. For blood, in case the killer nicked himself, but nothing.
When he arrived at his car, Stella, Aiden and Flack were already there.
“Nothing here,” Mac said. “Let’s go back to the lab.”
Back in Miami, Calleigh and Horatio weren’t the only CSI’s on a mission to reveal the truth. Eric Delko and Ryan Wolfe also were heading for a crime scene. As far as you could call it anyway.
Delko was sitting behind the wheel of the Hummer, heading for one of the most famous residences in Miami. Dispatch called in a kidnapping. The address they gave was the address of supermodel Rachel Crawford.
Ryan always had admired the beauty queen. He didn’t tell Eric though. First because he just wanted to act professional, although he could be professional even if he admired the victim. Second was that he didn’t want to give away his attitude of always being cool. He always wanted to seem the ‘cool guy’ if he was on a case.
Eric wasn’t that shallow, he was tough on most suspects, but he didn’t feel to be the ‘cool guy’.
When they arrived Detective Frank Tripp just got out of his car. Halfway down the path to the front door they caught him up.
When Frank rang the door bell, a woman who was in her fifties opened the door almost immediately. Delko thought it would be the model’s mom. She had black hair, although her natural color would probably be grey now. She wasn’t very tall in contrast with her daughter. She wore white linen pants with a green shirt on it and a pair of suede, green shoes.
“Thank God you are here,” she said in panic.
“I know it’s hard, but please try to be calm Miss,” Tripp said. “I’m Detective Frank Tripp and this is Eric Delko and Ryan Wolfe from the Miami Dade Crime Lab. How did the kidnapper contact you? Did he call, or did he leave a note?”
“They left a note at the coffee table. It said they would contact me at 5 pm. Oh I’m Rachel’s mother, Ellen Crawford.”
By the time Ellen was done talking she had walked to the coffee table.
“Did anyone touch the note besides you?” Delko asked.
“No, only me,” Ellen answered.
“I’ll dust for prints,” Ryan said
“I’ll search the house downstairs. After your done take the upstairs,” Delko said.
“I’ll talk a little more to Ms. Crawford,” Frank said.
First Delko searched the living room. Besides the note on the coffee table, there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Then Eric went to the kitchen. It seemed the killer didn’t even enter this room. After about a half hour search, he didn’t find anything there either. After searching the entire house downstairs, Delko only had one muddy footprint, which he found towards to the living room. The most likely he had saved for last, the main entry. Only by looking at it from a distance, he could see something he couldn’t see when he came in. He saw some blood with two hairs in it.
After printing the entire door he found no prints, except for the door bell. It was a partial, but definitely enough to match to something. Then he saw a shoe print in the soil right around the corner. You couldn’t see someone from the main entrance if someone was standing there. There also was an oil stain on the drive. He saw it when he first passed there, but waited with collecting it, before they had spoken to the victim’s mother. He took a sample. The oil was still wet, so there was a car not too long ago. A car with a leak. He searched around the house too. And right around the corner of the model’s property he saw a bouquet of flowers. That gave him a theory of how it probably went down.
The door bell rang. The victim, supermodel Rachel Crawford, first looked through the glass who was there, out of sight of the person standing in front of the door. She saw a man formally dressed with a bouquet of flowers in his hands. The victim didn’t have a security guard, because the main gate of the community was well guarded and no one could go through without a proper reason, so she opened the door. Suddenly a man with a gun jumped from behind the corner. She tried to close the door, but the other man pushed her away, causing her to hit the door and leaving a little wound on her head. In the meanwhile the other guy went into the living room, leaving a note that said: “We have Rachel, we’ll call you at 5 pm today.” Then they forced her into a car and drove away, throwing the bouquet of flowers out of the car window.
Upstairs Ryan was searching the house. The note had fingerprints on it, but only one set of them, probably the mother’s prints. After one and a half hour he was done and didn’t find anything. He guessed that Delko had more luck, since the kidnappers probably didn’t have a reason to go upstairs.
When he walked down the stairs, he already saw Delko coming towards him.
“Found anything?” Delko asked while walking in direction of the living room.
“No, the kidnappers probably didn’t need to go upstairs.”
“According to my theory they were barely in the house, besides the part were they put the note on the coffee table.”
Delko told him all about his theory and the evidence he found.
Entering the living room, Tripp had already rounded up the interview with the mother.
“Did she have something important to say?” Delko asked.
“No,” Frank answered, “she didn’t see anything suspicious. I asked her where Rachel’s father was, but apparently he died when Rachel was at the age of 16. Nothing useful on her account.”
It was another 5 hours before it was 5 pm, so the CSI’s went back to the lab.
“We’ll do anything to find your daughter Ms. Crawford. We’ll send some people who will tap into your phone and try to locate the kidnappers when the call. We’ll be here too. In the meantime don’t answer your phone.”
Ms. Crawford agreed with it, and Frank, Ryan and Delko were gone.
In Vegas there also was another team on a way to their crime scene. Nick, Warrick and Greg sat in a Yukon Denali. They could hardly see through the windows of the SUV though. They were driving through the desert heading to a movie set, and all the sand kept blowing up. Warrick was driving the car, Nick was sitting next to him and Greg sat on the back seat.
“Do you know what the movie was about?” Nick asked.
“You won’t believe it if I say it,” Warrick said
“Try me.”
“A movie about Vegas in western time. A strong group of people were supposed to be settled there, but they were killed by aliens who landed with there UFO. It’s was settled at Area 51.”
“Well, that’s crappy,” Nick said with a smile.
Behind them a Ford Taurus also was making its way through the desert. That car was driven by Detective Vartann, who also had to go to the scene.
When they were there, all four men got out of the cars and walked to the cop at the scene.
“What went on here?” Vartann asked.
“They did a shooting scene here. Supposed to be blanks, but the lead actor dropped dead after being shot.” Officer Metcalf said.
“Isn’t it a bit too much for you, interviewing all the actors and crew members?” Nick asked.
“I thought of that before I got in the car,” Vartann said with a smile. “I called O’Riley and Vega. They will assist me with the interviewing.”
“There they come,” Greg said.
About a minute later O’Riley and Vega joined them.
“Let’s start,” Vartann said.
“Yeah, we’ll process the scene,” Warrick said.
The director came to the three CSI’s and told them all guns were put against the left wall of the fort, a fake fort that is.
Greg fingerprinted all the guns and riffles and collected them to take back to the lab. Warrick and Nick examined the rest of the set.
Nick collected two bullets that were stuck in the wall of the set.
“I’ve got two .45’s,” he shouted.
After about an hour and a half they were done with processing the scene. Greg had tons of fingerprints, because gloves weren’t included in the movie costumes. It would be one hell of a job, matching all of the prints. Warrick had some fibers, they were from the window of the ‘sheriffs’ office. Nick had found two .45 bullets. Warrick also found seven shell casings. Besides that, two more riffles and 3 more guns were found at the set. And that was about it. There could be more evidence, but because there were so many people on set, most of the evidence was probably destroyed.
Now they all gathered around the body. David just arrived, so they could start processing around the body. The victim fell against a wall after he was shot.
“They’re all through and throughs,” David said. “The bullets will have to be in the wall.”
“Yeah, I have them here,” Warrick said. “If got five .45’s here.”
“But what’s the deal with the bullets all over there in the wall, where I collected two,” Nick said.
“Maybe we have another shooter,” Greg said.
“Could be,” Warrick replied. “We’ll have to come back with lasers to reconstruct the path of the bullets.”
Vartann just came walking up to the four men around the body.
“The victim, the lead actor, is James O’Hurley,” he said. “I’ve talked everything through with O’Riley and Vega. Most of the people said the same thing. Of course all of them didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but some people came up with a potential suspect. All came up with the same name: Joey Macintosh. The casting directors wanted O’Hurley for the role, but he wasn’t available, so they picked Joey. Then, all of a sudden, O’Hurley was available. They gave Joey a smaller part and hired O’Hurley. Macintosh is very pissed according to most people. Of course, he denies it. I’ve also contacted Judge Brenner; we just got warrants for everyone’s fingerprints and all video material of today.”
“Great,” Warrick commented.
“Let’s go print then,” Greg said.
“I’ll pick the video tapes up,” Nick said.
“No need,” Vartann answered. “I’ve already picked them up.
“I need to work with you more often,” Nick said with a very big smile.
After about half an hour they where done fingerprinting everyone. Of course, the occasional actor refused to take prints. Making them all the more suspicious. Everything was loaded into their car which took quite some time, seen the number of guns and riffles found at the set. After they had everything bagged and tagged in the Denali, they went all the way back from Area 51 to the Las Vegas Crime Lab.
3
New CSI, old connections
Grissom was walking down a hallway in the crime lab. He went to, what probably was the most quiet, dark place in the entire lab. He was heading to the morgue. There a fresh body was waiting for him. That of a woman painted in gold. He was hoping Albert Robbins had something good for him. They weren’t very lucky with evidence on the scene, maybe Doc Robbins gave them a little more.
When he came in, Albert just finished up with his autopsy.
“Hi, Gil,” he said. “What do you want to know?”
“Let’s start with time of death.”
“Liver temperature shows that TOD was between 11 pm and midnight last night.”
“Cause of death?”
“Asphyxia due to strangulation. Found ligature marks on her neck.”
“Anything else, weird conditions we don’t know of, was she on medication?”
“No, she was perfectly healthy. No medication, nothing.”
“Did you take a sample of the paint?”
“No, Sara already did at the scene.”
“Oh yeah, I remember.”
“Getting a bit confused sometimes,” Robbins said with a smile.”
“Always busy, sometimes hard to remember the little things.”
“I know what you mean.”
When Grissom entered his office a young man was standing in his office. He was blonde and had blue eyes. He was very well dressed in cream colored linen pants, which was a very good choice seen the heat wave, that seemed to go on forever. He had a brown shirt and wore a pair of brown/white pall mall shoes. It was leather and some kind of suede combined. That made Gil think about Catherine, she always dressed herself very well too. Always stylish.
“Hi, Mr. Grissom,” he said.
“You must be Chris,” he said. “And you can call me Gil, or how most of the people do here; Grissom.”
Then Catherine and Sara came in. They both said hello.
“Who is he?” Sara said with a little smile.
“Catherine, Sara. This is Chris Belinfante,” Grissom said. “He is Dutch, but moved to America when he went to college. He graduated in Biology at Harvard and is specialized in Ballistics. They sometimes call him “bullet guy” because he’s like the male Calleigh Duquesne.”
“Nice to meet you,” Chris said.
“Likewise,” Catherine and Sara responded.
“But why were you two here?” Grissom asked
“Both paint samples were identified by Hodges,” Sara started. “The golden paint is called Goldfinger #1. If you think this is good, it gets better. The silver paint scraps on the dumpster belong to an Austin Martin DB5.”
“Like the one used in the Bond movie ‘Goldfinger’, among other movies,” Catherine picked up. “The set of footprints all belong to a pair of Jekko’s, size 11. Some kind of make that makes older shoes.”
“Very good,” Grissom said. “Send out an APB on an Austin Martin DB5 and see who owns such a car.”
“We’ve already did that,” Sara said. “No one in Vegas owns such a car, but in Miami a car like that was reported stolen about a week ago. Which brings me to the origin of the paint; it’s only sold in Miami.”
“Ok, Catherine can contact the local CSI’s there, since she’s been there once.” Grissom said.
“I was about to call Horatio, they worked very well with us last time.” Catherine said. “There’s only one problem, at this time of the year it’s almost impossible the get a soon flight to Miami.”
“The Montecito has always co-operated with us, besides he wants to help,” Grissom said. “Although I don’t like that idea very much, you could ask them if they could fly with you there in their private plane.”
“Sara and I hoped you would say that,” Catherine said with a smile.
“Take Chris with you to Miami,” Grissom said. “It’s a very good opportunity for him to work with Calleigh.”
“Did Doc Robbins have anything?” Catherine asked.
“Yes, TOD was between 11 pm and midnight last night and COD was asphyxia due to strangulation,” Grissom answered.
“Nothing more?” Sara said surprised.
“No, that was all.”
After they left Grissom’s office, Catherine first called Horatio. Almost immediately he answered.
“Yes?” he said.
“Hi Horatio, this is Catherine.”
“Catherine, how are you doing?”
He cheered up a little bit.
“Good. And you?”
“Most of the time,” he said with a smile, Which Catherine could hear in his voice.
“I’ve got a connection on a case to Miami,” she said more seriously. “We’ve got a woman strangled and painted gold. The paint is called Goldfinger #1 and is only sold in Miami.”
“I don’t know the cause of death and the brand of paint yet, but I’m at the second scene in Miami where something similar happened. Also both victim’s painted gold,” he said, also with a serious tone in his voice.
“So we’ve got a serial killer on our hands?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“We’ll try to get as soon as possible to Miami. We’ll meet you there than.”
“I’m looking forward to co-operate with you again.”
“Me too.”
And that were the last words before the connection between Vegas and Miami was broken off.
When the three CSI’s – Catherine, Sara and Chris – arrived at the Montecito, Catherine asked: “do you think he’ll let us go on his plane?”
“I’m sure he does,” Chris said with a smile.
Catherine and Sara were both a bit confused at this moment.
“How would you know that?” Sara asked.
“I’m an old family friend,” Chris said. As a kid we sometimes went to America, when we were there I always was with Delinda and Nessa.”
“The new guy already comes in handy,” Sara said with a teasing smile.
When they walked inside Nessa already spotted Chris and came running to him.
“Wow, that’s been long,” she said.
“I know, but we’ve always kept in contact, didn’t we?”
“Yes, we did. It’s really great to see you.”
“Likewise, the best part coming here is that I could see you guys again. Just as beautiful as usual I see,” he said with a smile.
“I’m flattered, you’re something too,” Nessa answered with a kind of a shy smile.
Then Delinda came walking towards them.
“You’re never going to believe who’s here,” Nessa said.
When Delinda came closer by, she saw who was standing behind Nessa.
“Chris? I can’t believe you’re here, it’s so great to see you again. And wow, you’re hot these days.”
“Well, thanks,” he said with a shy smile, just like Nessa did when he had complimented her. “You’re just as good looking like Nessa.”
“So you’re a CSI in Vegas now?” Delinda said.
“Yeah, I didn’t say anything because I wanted to surprise you two.”
“You sure did,” Nessa said.
“I believe you haven’t met Catherine and Sara yet?” Chris said.
They all greeted each other and went to the bar, because the past five minutes, they were blocking the way.
“I guess you are here for Sam’s client then?” Nessa said.
“Yes we are,” Chris said. “Can we meet Ed.”
“Of course you can,” Delinda said. “I’ll walk you guys to him.”
“When I’m done on the case we’ll have to spend some time with each other again,” Chris said.
“We will,” Nessa replied.
When the three CSI’s and Delinda were at the surveillance room, Delinda went back downstairs.
Entering the room they saw Sam standing in it. She was looking at some tapes with Mike and Danny. Catherine introduced Chris and Sara to them and asked whether the facial recognition program came up with something.
“Nothing to make a positive ID,” Mike answered.
“He didn’t explore the place like we thought,” Danny said. “He was just being careful. Did it very good too. Only time we something of his face is the still you had already seen. Won’t hold up in court though.”
“Or,” Mike said, “he explored the place more than a month ago, which makes him even more insane than he is.”
“Is it usual other people come in the surveillance room?” Catherine asked referring to Sam.
“No, but I’m here to speak with Ed,” Sam said.
It was like Ed heard her, he came walking in the room just after Sam said those words.
“Hello Mr. Deline,” Chris said with a smile.
“Is that you,” he said. “It has been a while. Very good to see you.”
“Yes, I’m very glad to see you again,” Chris said.
“So you’re a CSI now?”
“Yes I am.”
“You are probably here on the Goldfinger case.”
“Didn’t know it was called that,” Sara said with a smile. “I’m sorry we haven’t met, Sara Sidle.”
“Nice to meet you,” Ed said. “I guess you guys want something.”
“We’d like to ask for a favor,” Chris said. “The case has a link to Miami. Two similar murders occurred there. Since air traffic is hard to get within hours this time a year, we wanted to ask if we could use the Montecito plane.”
“Of course you can. Danny will go with you.”
Then Sam interfered: “I want to go with too.”
“I don’t think it’s a very good idea Sam,” Ed said.
“You don’t understand, Julio wants me to be involved in the investigation. If not, he goes to an other casino. We can’t let that happen, he’s one of our biggest clients.”
“You’re right. What do you guys think?”
Sara and Catherine didn’t like the idea, but didn’t care that as much as Grissom.
“We’re ok,” Sara said. “On the condition that she stays away from the evidence.”
“Understood,” Sam said. “Eyes, no hands.”
About a mile away, at McCarren International Airport, the three CSI’s got on the Montecito plane with Danny and Sam. Mike stayed behind to work on the video material. He would contact Grissom if he would find anything useful.
“Wow,” Sara said.
“I know,” Sam said. “It’s a great plane. You’re wishing you could always fly like this, aren’t you?”
“You can read my mind. This is so comfortable.”
Once they were in the air, Sam asked them what they wanted to drink. She took some snacks out of a cupboard since it was a pretty long flight from Vegas to Miami, they had to fly about 2,500 miles.
“So I’ve heard you go way back with Ed, Delinda and Nessa,” she said.
“Yeah, I’m an old family friend.”
“So what were they like when Nessa and Delinda were young?” Danny asked.
“Just like most other kids, except the part that Ed was in the CIA. They were brighter than most kids though. I guess when you’re dad is in the CIA you’ll have to be. All those stories you have to make up.”
“No embarrassing moments?” Sam asked.
“I’m sorry, but that I’m not going to tell. I can’t do that to them.”
“Come on,” Danny said.
“No, I’m really not going to tell.”
“Too bad, “ Sam said.
After landing at Miami International Airport, they were in a Hummer of Miami Dade County. Horatio picked them up.
After introducing the others, Catherine said: “I’ve heard about Speedle, my condolences.”
“Thank you,” Horatio said with a sad tone in his voice.
“You said you were at a second crime scene when I called,” Catherine said to start a good conversation about the case.
“Yes, I picked you up at the way back to the crime lab. We made the link with the paint too. I’ll tell you all about the second case back at the lab.”
When they arrived at the lab, they first went to autopsy. Alexx Woods was busy on their newest victim, another young woman who was painted in gold. You could still see some golden paint that wasn’t washed away completely.
Danny and Sam were waiting in the break room. Bringing civilians with you in the lab or autopsy room could ruin a case. Defense would say the evidence found was tainted.
Chris and Sara went to Calleigh in the lab. That left Horatio and Catherine for autopsy.
“Catherine, nice to see you again,” Alexx said when they walked into the room.
“Nice to see you too. It has been 3 years since, long time,” Catherine answered.
Horatio’s phone rang. He stepped away from the two women to answer it.
“Yes?”
“Hi Horatio. It’s me, Mac.”
“Hey, how are you doing.”
“Good. You?”
“Most of the time,” Horatio said with a smile. “Something tells me this isn’t a social call,” H said, trying to find out what Mac called for.
“Too bad you’re right. We have a murder with a connection to Miami.”
“Let me guess; woman in her twenties, painted in gold?”
“Yes indeed. How did you know?”
“We’ve got two of them over here. And a half hour ago I picked some CSI’s from Vegas up from the airport. They got a case like that in Vegas too. They got the connection through the paint the victim was covered with.”
“Yeah, Goldfinger #1. It’s ironically the right name for it.”
“Too bad it is.”
“I’m going to send Stella and Aiden to Miami.”
“I’ll see they get picked up from the airport. Give them my number so they can call me. Nice to have spoken to you again.”
“Likewise.”
And that was the end of the connection between Miami and New York.
“That was New York,” Horatio said to Cath and Alexx. “They have a victim like ours.”
“The sick bastard goes all through the country,” Alexx replied.
“I see you just started with the second one,” Horatio said.
“Yes,” Alexx answered, “I’ll send you my findings asap after I’m done.”
“Our first victim then?” Horatio asked.
“Time of death was yesterday around 4 pm.”
“We’ve got more than one killer,” Catherine immediately replied. “Mrs. Proscia’s TOD was between eleven pm and midnight. With the time difference that would mean she was killed between 8 and 9 pm Miami time. This leaves about 4 hours to get to Las Vegas and kill someone.”
“You’re right,” Horatio said. “He could have never done it.”
“This means the murders are completely unrelated, or we have a serial killing duo.”
“I doubt that it’s unrelated. Three woman killed and painted gold,” Alexx said.
“What’s COD then?” Cath asked.
“Asphyxia due to strangulation,” she answered.
“Just like the Vegas case. I too doubt that there isn’t any connection,” Catherine replied.
“Anything out of the ordinary?” Horatio asked.
“She had a brain tumor. Wouldn’t have lived very long anyway.”
“Thanks, Alexx,” Horatio said.
“Anything to get this bastard behind bars, Horatio.
Elsewhere in the Miami crime lab Chris and Sara were with Calleigh. They were in the DNA lab.
“No match,” Valera said. “Your guy isn’t in the system.”
“Well, we have his DNA. That means we can always match it with an other sample,” Calleigh said, indicating on the blood she found on the piece of metal from the fire escape.
“The footprint database gave a hit,” Sara said. “A pair of Jekko’s. But this is strange, it’s a size 10. The ones in Vegas were size 11.”
“Does that mean we have two killers?” Chris said.
“I think so,” Calleigh said. They must be related though. I doubt the cases have nothing to do with each other.”
A paper came rolling out of the printer.
“The fabric is common white cotton. Nothing special there,” Valera said.
“Let’s get on the evidence of the second crime scene then,” Calleigh said. “Very similar evidence: one set of footprints and no fingerprints. Non that are useful that is, only smudges. And of course our paint.
“I already cross-referenced the paint sample with that of the first crime scene. It matches: Goldfinger #1,” Valera said.
“I’m running the fingerprints of the victim, Alexx took on the scene,” Chris said.
“The shoeprints are again a pair of Jekko’s, size 10,” Sara said.
“AFIS got a match,” Chris said. “Laura Solo, 27. She’s got priors for possession of drugs back in 2000. Her parents live in Jersey. She also does, not married.”
“So why doesn’t she carry an ID?” Sara wondered.
“I think the killer threw it away,” Calleigh said. “He didn’t do that with the first victim, because her ID was in a drawer. Ms. Solo’s ID probably was in her purse.”
Horatio and Catherine entered.
“We have multiple killers,” Horatio said.
“We know,” Sara said.
Then they exchanged their results. They did that in the break room, where Sam and Danny were.
In New York, Mac came walking into the morgue. “Hi, Hawkes,” he said.
“Hi, Mac,” Hawkes answered. “I’ve heard you’re sending Stella and Aiden to Miami. I gave them copies of the autopsy report already, so that they can read it in the plane.”
“Good thinking Hawkes, good thinking. So. What do you have for me.”
Hawkes started: “to begin with…..”
Elsewhere in New York, two beautiful women got on a plane. It was the plane that left from JFK and went to MIA.
“You know, we should have a private jet,” Aiden said. “You know, each state has a jet for situations like this.”
“That isn’t that bad an idea,” Stella replied. “Maybe Mac should recommend it to the major,” she said with a smile that showed it wasn’t meant.
“This time it went really hard with our luggage.”
“I guess it was a bit last minute.”
Meanwhile the plane had already taken off.
“Let’s go through the evidence,” Stella said.
“Okay, let me see. The victim was painted gold with a paint called Goldfinger #1, only sold in Miami. Our partial shoeprint belongs to a Jekko size 11 or a Burgi size 11.”
“What about the fingerprints?”
“No results yet, Mac will call us as soon as they’re in.”
“In Hawkes’s autopsy report it says the victim had petechial hemorrhaging, a blue tongue, broken hyoid bone and ligature marks on her neck: asphyxia due to strangulation. Time of death: approximately 11 pm.”
“Anything special with her, we should know?”
“No, nothing out of the ordinary.”
After Horatio picked the two women up at Miami International Airport, he drove to the lab. They went to the break room, where the others were. Horatio introduced them to the others, and introduced the others to them. After that they went through the evidence they all have.
“So seen you guys all have shoeprints that match to the type Jekko, it’s almost save to see that ours will be too,” Aiden said.
“I guess it’s save to say,” Sara replied.
“So it comes down to us, all having almost the same evidence in three different states. The worst thing is that nothing leads us to a suspect,” Catherine said.
“Well, we can say one thing for sure; we have at least two suspects,” Stella said.
“I have to disagree,” Chris said. We stated that the first Miami killing and the Vegas killing couldn’t be committed by the same person, but the New York one can’t be committed by both of them. The first victim in Miami was killed around 4 pm. The one in Vegas between 11 and midnight. That makes it around 8 pm Eastern time at the best, which we already thought of. But the New York killing took place around 11 pm. Now, the killer from Miami could have done it, but we’re forgetting about the shoe size. The guy from Miami had size 10. The one from Vegas and New York had size eleven’s. This means the Miami killer isn’t the same person as the New York killer, and the Vegas killer didn’t have enough time to get to New York to kill Mrs. Masterson.”
“You’re right,” Aiden said. “We’re looking for at least three killers.”
“But they probably still live in Miami,” Horatio said. “The paint’s only sold in Miami.”
“Wait,” Calleigh said. “We forgot about the Austin Martin that was stolen over here. How does that car get in Vegas, you can’t get such a car on a plane. This means the killer drove to Vegas, if he stole the car.”
“This means we could check recent flights back to Miami with travelers who didn’t go on a plane to Vegas,” Sara said.
“I’ll call Grissom,” Catherine said.
Cath walked outside the break room into the hallway.
“Grissom,” was the answer after a couple of seconds waiting until someone picked up.
“Hey, Gris,” Catherine answered. “Can you check something for me?”
“Of course, is the case busting out?”
“Not exactly, but we’re making progress. Could you check flight lists for people who went to Miami after the murder occurred and didn’t come to Vegas by plane. The killer had to come in his car to Vegas, but most likely will go back by plane.”
“Okay, I’ll check it out. You’re theory is most likely true. We just found the car, it was ditched somewhere in the desert.”
“That’s great, it may give us a suspect.”
“I’ll call you when I have results. Some collaborating evidence in New York or Miami?”
“No, about the same as we have. There’s one thing we can say for sure. We have at least three killers. The time frames between the Miami murder and Vegas murder and the one between the Vegas murder and New York murder are too small. And the Miami killer can’t be the New York killer because of his shoe size.”
“That’s a surprise. Well, I’ll keep in touch.”
And that were the last words exchanged between Catherine and Grissom.
“Grissom found the car,” Catherine said when she re-entered the break room.
“That’s a break,” Sara said. “It may lead us to a suspect.”
Now Horatio’s cell rang.
“Well, it seems we’re important today,” Horatio said with a smile.
He stepped outside, just like Catherine.
“Yes?” Horatio answered.
“Hi Horatio,” Yelina said. “We have a problem. Two new bodies.”
“That’s not good Yelina, he’s going faster and faster.”
“I know, we’ll have to stop him as soon as possible.”
“I’ll be there right away. What are the two addresses?”
“One at the Rose Garden hotel and one at the Figaro hotel.”
“Okay, I know those hotels. I’ll be at the Figaro as soon as possible.”
Horatio stepped in again: “we have two new crime scenes.”
“Two?” Calleigh said with disbelief in her voice.
“Yes. We need to put a stop to him, and fast,” Horatio replied. “Stella, Catherine and Danny; you go with me to the Figaro. Calleigh, Sara, Chris, Aiden and Sam; you go to the Rose Garden.”
4
Death of a killer
“Who are you?” she screamed.
“Shut up bitch!”
“Why are you doing this to me?” she asked while she was crying.
“Screaming doesn’t make any difference. No one can hear you. The only thing you do is annoy me with it, so shut up!”
“Why would I listen to you, you bastard?”
“Because I’m going to send proof of life by cutting of one of your fingers if you don’t!” he yelled.
“We were right,” Ryan said. “Only mom’s prints are on the note.
“The fingerprint on the door bell?” Delko asked.
“Running it through AFIS now.”
“The flowers are a bit wet on top,” Delko noticed.
“Probably fell in the water.”
“There was no water on the street, I think someone sneezed over them.”
Valera came walking into the lab.
“The hairs on the door frame were a match to those collected from a hairbrush of Rachel’s.”
“What about the blood?” Eric asked.
“It was a mixture. Some of it was Rachel, the other one came back unknown.”
Delko swabbed the flowers and gave it to Valera.
“Could you compare this to the unknown blood sample?”
“Of course,” she said.
“A match,” Ryan said. “The fingerprint on the door bell belongs to Benjamin Fuentes. He did time for possession of drugs.”
“The oil from the oil stain is common for a Ford,” Delko said.
“And the shoe prints?”
“Both the same.”
“I’ll run them through the computer.”
“We should talk with the security guard, those guys shouldn’t have come through the gate.”
“Tripp is talking to them right now.”
In the mean while the computer was done searching.
“No match,” Ryan said.
“It’s almost five,” Delko said. “We should go back to the house.”
The door bell rang, Ms. Crawford opened the door.
“Good that you are here, it’s almost five,” she said.
“Is the FBI guy for your phone already here?” Tripp asked.
“Yes, he arrived about an hour ago,” she said.
In the meanwhile they walked into the living room.
“Do you want something to drink?” she asked.
“No, thank you,” Delko answered.
“Did Joey already walk you through the procedure?” Tripp asked, referring to the Fed.
“Yes, he did,” Ms. Crawford answered.
Then the phone rang. Joey put his hand up, indicating the woman couldn’t pick up the phone yet.
Delko could see the woman was scared. He only didn’t know why. Because her daughter could be dead, or because she would be on the phone with her daughter’s captor.
Joey gave the sign she could pick up, so she did. From the second she picked up the phone, the call was being recorded and being traced.
“Yes? With Ms. Crawford,” she answered the phone.
“Bring 2 million dollar to the university of Miami. Put the money in a duffel bag in the trashcan on the corner. Do it before midnight or your daughter is dead.,” the man said with a deep grim voice.
“Wait, wait,” Ms. Crawford shouted. “Don’t hang up. Please let me hear my daughter’s voice.”
“Alright then,” the man said.
“Who are you?” Rachel screamed. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“The money, before midnight in the trashcan. Otherwise she’s dead,” the grim voice said.
Then the connection was broken off.
“He is at the corner of Collins and 170th,” Joey said.
“Tripp repeated it on the police radio and said that they had to go there right away if they were in the neighborhood.”
They were almost there. Frank was driving like he was possessed. Any faster than that wasn’t possible in Miami traffic, especially on Collins Avenue. That’s probably why the kidnapper called from there. Although Frank drove as fast as this, it wasn’t fast enough, because the last piece of road was Collins Avenue. And here you couldn’t go that fast.
When they arrived they saw the phone booth was taped off. But that wasn’t the only thing, the Feds were there.
“Where is the bastard?” Tripp shouted.
“He was gone before we were here,” Special Agent Sackheim said.
Special Agent Dennis Sackheim had worked with them before, most of the time without pleasure. His interests always contradicted with the ones of the Crime Lab. One time he had neglected to tell them about a serial killer, who killed couples. He also interfered with a murder committed, inside a witness protection program. His goal, only to maintain the witness’s cover.
“The bastard is playing with us,” Tripp shouted even harder. “He knew we couldn’t get here in time with all the traffic on Collins.”
“I know,” Dennis said. “But let’s focus on the most important thing, getting the model back home safe.”
“Don’t you think I’m focused on that,” Tripp shouted. “That’s the thing I’m trying to do.”
Agent Sackheim chose not to discuss this further and let things for what they were.
“I taped off the phone booth for you guys,” he said. “Maybe you can recover fingerprints.”
“I’ll take the outside,” Delko said.
“Guess I’ll have to take the inside then,” Ryan said.
“Do you know that guy?” Ryan asked while dusting for prints.
“Yeah,” Delko answered. “We worked with him several times. This is the first time we both have the same goals.”
About half an hour later they processed the phone booth and the area around it. The only thing they found were prints on the phone and prints on the door handle of the phone booth. They went to Frank, who just rounded up the interviews with Sackheim.
“Got anything?” Frank asked
“Lots of print on the phone and the door handle,” Ryan answered.
“And you guys?” Delko asked.
“Nobody saw anything, like usual,” Sackheim answered.
“We’ll go back to the lab,” Delko said. “Joey would send the tape to the lab for analysis.”
“I’ll talk to the guard of the community,” Tripp said. “I want to know how the kidnappers got through.”
Back at the lab, Ryan ran the fingerprints they collected through AFIS and Delko went to Tyler Jenson, their audio and video expert.
When Delko walked into the A/V-lab, Tyler just started the tape. Delko listened to the tape. After Tyler listened to it, Delko greeted him. He greeted back.
“The model’s voice sounds a bit strange,” Delko said.
“I noticed that too,” Tyler said. “I think I know what it is.”
Tyler played the section where Rachel talked one more time: “it’s a recording. You can hear the noise.”
“Can you get some sounds from outside?”
“I think I can, it will take a while though.”
“Okay. The ransom has to be paid at midnight.”
“I get you. I’ll work as fast as I can. This has priority.”
Now Delko walked into the print lab. He could see Ryan had a smile on his face when he came in. “Any hits?” Delko asked.
“Yes,” Ryan answered. “The same as on the door bell: Benjamin Fuentes.”
Then Valera came into the lab: “I’ve got some results,” she said with a smile. “The DNA from the blood on the door didn’t match the DND on the flowers, but I got a hit in CODIS for the DNA on the flowers: Benjamin Fuentes.”
“Something is not right here,” Delko said.
“Why is that?” Valera asked.
“Well, there’s too much evidence pointing at this Benjamin and no evidence that gives us the other guy’s identity.”
“And,” Ryan picked up, “there was nothing in the note that said that the cops had to be left out. On top of that, the guy didn’t say that there had to be no cops at the drop-off when he was on the phone.”
“That’s right,” Delko said with a smile. “Our Benjamin is being set up by the other kidnapper.”
In the state of Nevada, there also was lots of activity in the Vegas Crime Lab. Warrick was with the body in the coroner’s lab, Nick was with Bobby Dawson over at Ballistics and Greg was in the print lab.
“Well, cause of death isn’t a mystery,” Doc Robbins said. “Died because of exanguination. One bullet hit the carotid artery. An other bullet went through the liver, one through the left lung, one through the head and the last one through the right shoulder.”
“Nasty,’ Warrick commented. “Do you know what bullet was fired first?”
“No, the bullets were shot very close to each other.”
“Time of death?”
“No surprise there either, about an hour and a half before David arrived.”
“Anything special?”
“Yes,” the Doc said with a bit of a sordid, yet also a sad smile. “He had mees lines.”
“What? Heavy metal poisoning?”
“Yeah. Someone really hated your vic. I’ve already sent a blood sample to tox.”
“Thanks Doc. You’ve been very helpful.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Robbins said with a smile.
Warrick decided to go to Ballistics now. The prints would take a long time. Besides, comparing only 7 bullets wasn’t that much.
“The last bullet,” Bobby said.
“And?” Nick asked.
“Like I suspected after the other bullets,” he answered. “The five bullets from the wall are a match to each other. The other two bullets are also a match, but not to the others: to each other.”
“So we have two shooters,” Nick concluded. “One with a lousy shot and one with a good shot.”
“That’s not all we have,” Warrick said. “There’s also poison in the game. The vic had mees lines on his fingernails.”
“He wasn’t exactly loved,” Bobby remarked.
“That’s quite an understatement,” Nick said with a smile.
“You could say that again,” Bobby commented with a grin on his face. “Anyway, the rest is going to take quite some time. You brought me to guns for half a military.”
“You should be glad you’re not in Sander’s shoes,” Warrick said with a smile. “He has to compare all fingerprints that were on those guns.”
“Lucky me then,” Bobby replied.
In the DNA lab Mia Dickerson was working on the blood samples from the bullets.
“Hey, she said when Nick and Warrick came into the room. “On five of the seven bullets was blood evidence. All of them were collected from the wall behind the actor. All DNA belonged to the vic of course.”
“Well, just routine processing,” Nick said.
“Yeah,” Mia answered. “I hoped I could have helped you guys more.”
Now they both walked into the print lab. Greg was sitting behind the computer scanning prints.
“How are things here?” Nick asked.
“I just put the prints from the people on the set we took with the digital print taker into the computer in a temporary database. I’m about to scan all prints,” Greg said.
“It will take a while,” Warrick commented.
“Too bad you’re right,” Greg said. “What did Robbins and Bobby say?”
“I turns out we have two shooters,” Nick said. The bullets collected in the wall behind the vic belonged to one weapon. The two we found in the other wall belonged to an other weapon.”
“An it turns out we don’t only have two shooters,” Warrick went further. “O’Hurley had mees lines on his fingernails.”
“Wow, that guy was hated,” Greg commented. “What about the bullets that killed him?”
“Doc Robbins couldn’t say which one did the trick,” Warrick said. “One nicked the carotid artery, an other one penetrated the liver, one went through the left lung, one through the head, and the less of all evils went through his right shoulder.”
“Wrong day to get out of bed for this guy,” Greg commented.
Warrick and Nick’s last stop was at the trace lab. There Hodges probably could them something about the fibers Warrick collected from the sheriff’s window.
“Don’t kill the messenger,” Hodges said.
“Why is that?” Warrick asked.
“The fibers were one hundred percent cotton, blue cotton.”
“Just as the outfits in the movie,” Nick said.
“It’s not totally useless,” Warrick remarked. “Maybe the outfit of the killer is ripped somewhere.”
“Well, that would be the best of it,” Hodges answered.
Now the two of them were on the way to James O’Hurley’s house, hoping to find evidence of who was poisoning him. They took Sofia with them.
“What do we know about him?” Sofia asked.
“He’s 45 years old and has recently been divorced,” Nick answered. “His ex-wife was very pissed, because she didn’t get money out of it. She only got a car.”
“Could be motive,” Sofia commented.
“We’ll maybe find that in the house,” Warrick said.
The actor was a local who lived in an urban aria. He lived in a pretty big white house. His garden existed, just like most local’s gardens, out of pebbles and some bushes.
Warrick drove the car to the side of the road to park. At the same time Det. Vartann parked his Ford Taurus in front of their car.
“Guys,” Sofia said. “The front door is open.”
“Get your guns,” Vartann said.
Vartann ducked while running towards the front door. The others followed him. Vartann told Sofia and Nick to go around the back.
While they went to the back of the house, Vartann shouted: “Las Vegas Police Department, come out with your hands up!”
No answer, he and Warrick went in. At the back of the house there was another door opened. Nick and Sofia went in too.
Warrick and Vartann saw Sofia and Nick in the living room and said they were going to check upstairs. Warrick sneaked up the stairs while Vartann pointed his gun at the top of the stairs, in case someone came running from a room. Warrick was most vulnerable at the stairs. When Warrick was upstairs Vartann sneaked up the stairs. When Vartann was upstairs he saw that there were 5 doors. One directly to the right, one a bit to the left across from the stairs, two doors on the left and one door down the hall on the right.
Warrick stood with his back to the wall, Vartann walked in front of the door opening with his gun pointed into the room. It was the master bedroom: “clear!”
Warrick searched the room behind the door on the wall across the stairs, it was the bathroom: “clear!”
Vartann walk
Enjoy
1
Three murders, three cities
Again, a heat wave has struck Las Vegas. The heat was getting more unbearable by the minute. It was still early in the morning, but the temperature was already pretty high. This was going to be another very hot day, but like many other people Grissom, Catherine and Sara had to work. They were heading for a crime scene on the strip. Dispatch told them they had to be at the Montecito resort hotel and casino. This was one of the most famous casinos on the strip, ran by Big Ed Deline – President of Operations of the Montecito Groups. The former CIA operative who sometimes looked like a mob boss was into his sixties. The Montecito casino was one of the best casinos, mainly because Big Ed ran the place.
Grissom who never likes to drive going to or coming from a crime scene was sitting in the back seat. He wondered what was waiting for him, he’s always anxious to know what’s there for him at a crime scene. Catherine who was driving the GMC Yukon XL Denali was a little bit pissed. The shift was almost over and she could go home to her daughter, but once again she had to call Ms. Goodwin to take Lindsey to school. Normally Catherine wouldn’t even be with Grissom and Sara because of the recent shift-changes, but because Ecklie thought – for some vague reason – that Greg should work with Nick and Warrick for one time. Because of that, Catherine had to back-up with graveyard. Sara, who was sitting next to her, looked a bit distracted. Almost like she was day dreaming.
“Hey Sara,” Catherine said. “What are you thinking?”
“Oh nothing special,” Sara answered.
But Sara indeed was somewhere else with her thoughts. She was thinking about her mother, lately she thought more and more about her mother. Her mother killed her father when she was a child and was put away for it, for a long time. Her mother still hadn’t been released from the clinic she was put into. But Sara didn’t want to say that to Catherine.
Finally they arrived at the casino.
When they walked inside Ed Deline and Danny McCoy, head of security, already walked towards them. Danny was still pretty young, but he did his job very good. “Follow me,” Ed said, “We’ll have to be at the seventh floor, murder central.”
Murder Central was a phrase used by CSI’s to indicate the room closest to the emergency exit, so with only a room on one side. Big Ed also knew such a phrase because he used to be head of security and he used to be with the CIA.
When they stepped into the elevator Ed said: “This is going to remember you of the golden years, literally. 1964, to be specific.”
“What do you mean by that?” Catherine asked.
“Do you know the Bond movie ‘Goldfinger’?” Danny asked.
“No you’re kidding,” Sara reacted, “The victim is painted gold?”
“You bet ya,” Danny said.
Grissom asked: “so I assume you found the victim?”
“No Sam Marquez found her,” Ed answered, “She’s the casino host, the victim was a client of hers.”
“Where is she, we’re going to need to speak with her,” Grissom said.
“She’s down at the casino with Mary Connell, Special Events Director,” Danny answered.
Then the elevator stopped at the seventh floor. Grissom, Catherine and Sara stepped out. “We’re going downstairs again if you don’t need us,” Ed said.
“That’s alright,” Grissom answered.
“You’re not going to believe this,” Brass said when the three entered the room. Brass had his famous grin on his face.
“We’ve heard,” Grissom reacted.
“You believe it, like we’re back to the sixties,” Brass said.
Sara walked to the bed, where the victim was on and looked at the sheets. “The paint’s still wet. The killer was here not long ago,” she said, “But why would someone paint the vic gold?”
Grissom said: “You know what they say about him.”
“Huh?” Sara said a little confused.
“What?” Catherine reacted.
“He loves only gold.”
A few hours later Horatio Caine and Calleigh Duquesne also were on their way to a crime scene, but then in Miami. They were heading for the Conquistador, now owned by Daniel Boyle. Horatio had been there about two years ago on an other case. Catherine Willows from Vegas called him to arrest a man for murder. That man was Thomas Lessor; he was Daniel’s step father. He was kidnapped from the airport and then killed. It turned out that an artist, Maria Chacon, who played in the Conquistador let her uncle with his two friends kill him. After Maria fled to Vegas, Horatio called Catherine to arrest her. When he got to call her, Deborah Lessor, Thomas’s wife, had already killed her in their hotel in Vegas. She went to jail and Daniel became company president then.
Horatio was sitting behind the wheel of the Hummer; Calleigh was sitting next to him. The Southern blonde was also known as ‘bullet girl’, because of her outstanding knowledge about firearms, in which she’s specialized.
When the Hummer stopped in front of the Conquistador Calleigh and Horatio got out of the car and walked inside the hotel. There, behind the front desk, was Daniel Boyle, talking to the receptionist. Daniel Boyle was a thin man with short dark hair in his early thirties. He was dressed in an expensive Forrester Creation’s suit with as shoes a pair of Bruno Magli’s. When he saw Horatio he walked towards him. “Hello Mr. Caine,” he said very quietly, “Good to see you again. The victim is at the seventh floor, room 702.”
“Ok, thanks,” Horatio answered and went in the elevator with Calleigh. After a stop at the fifth floor they arrived at the seventh floor.
When they arrived at room 702 Calleigh said with a sarcastic tone: “what a surprise; murder central.”
“Well, you now what they say, closest to the exit, one room less next to you. Perfect for murder,” Horatio said.
When they crossed the tape they saw Yelina Salas standing over the bed. Yelina looked a little bit distracted. Horatio knew why. Her son Ray Jr. was going through a rough time. His father, Horatio’s brother, died a couple of years ago in an undercover drug operation. Ray Jr. got in fights more regularly lately, which worried Yelina sick. “Hey,” Yelina said, “maid found the vic when she wanted to clean the room. No ID in her purse, but no money gone. Add that she was painted gold, you definitely have a crime of passion.”
Calleigh was staring at the body and said: “Movie freak?”
Horatio answered: “That. Or he or she…just loves gold.”
A few hours later than the Miami action and around the same time as Grissom, Catherine and Sara were at their crime scene, in New York Stella and Mac also were heading for a crime scene. They were a few blocks away when a courier almost crashed into their car with his bike while Mac and Stella were waiting for a traffic light. “Damn those couriers,” Stella mumbled.
Mac didn’t go in on that one. “We’re here,” he said when he pulled up a parking lot.
He pulled up the parking lot of the Cosmopolitan, a hotel near Central Park.
When they walked inside Aiden caught them up. “Hey Aiden. Where’s Danny?” Mac asked.
“I don’t know,” she answered, “he saw something suspicious and chased someone. He shouted that I should go inside already.”
Once inside they walked to the front desk and asked for the manager. “I’ll page him,” the receptionist said. She was a blonde attractive girl with blue eyes, probably around the age of twenty. She was thin and wore a blue hotel outfit.
Moments later the manager showed up. A thin Latino man with black hair in a black suit. He probably almost reached his forties. The man said: “you will have to be at the seventh floor, room 701.”
Mac, Stella and Aiden went in the elevator and got out again on the seventh floor.
“Murder central,” Mac said when he arrived at room 701.
“That means the killer most likely took the fire escape,” Aiden said, and she went to the fire escape door. She began dusting for prints on the handles.
Detective Don Flack was already in the room. “The vic’s husband came in and found her like this,” Flack said, “he probably interrupted the killer because the bucket of paint is still here on the floor.”
“No windows open, so how did he get out of the room?” Stella said
“That’s something the evidence will clear for us later,” Mac replied.
Aiden came in and said: “a few prints from the fire escape door. All pretty much smudged though.”
Suddenly Danny came into the room.
“What happened to you?” Stella asked
“I just chased somebody. He came from this hotel and was in a hurry, had some blood on his suit. Too bad I couldn’t catch him. But you’ll never guess how he looks like,” Danny said, “A small, broad Asian man in a black suit with a bowler hat.”
Mac replied: “you’re kidding me.”
2
Actors and super models
Back at the Vegas crime scene the coroner’s assistant, David Phillips, had just arrived. He and Sara took a look at the body, but they couldn’t find any signs of what killed her.
“I’m going to take a little paint sample if it’s alright with you David,” Sara said with a smile.
“Of course that’s alright,” David replied with also a smile on his face. His smile seemed a little bit of a nervous smile though, but that was just David. He always seemed a little nervous.
“Catherine,” Grissom started, “you go downstairs with Brass to interview Sam Marquez, the woman who found the body. And Sara…you dust for prints. Also look for footprints. Take the fire escape as well, that’s most likely the way he got out.”
“Ok, Gris,” Sara replied.
Catherine was already on her way down with Brass.
When they arrived at the bar they looked for two women who could work here. Brass spotted two brunettes; one of them seemed a little shocked. “I think we need to speak to those two over there,” he said.
“Yeah, the left one seems a little bit shocked,” Catherine said.
“Sam Marquez and Mary Connell?” Brass asked.
The right one of the beautiful brunettes confirmed.
“I suppose you are Ms. Connell?”
“Yes. But please, call us Sam and Mary”
“Ok, we will. I’m Detective Jim Brass and this is Catherine Willows, Las Vegas Crime Lab. Sam, could you tell us how you found the body?”
“Right, I was with Jill’s husband,” Sam started. “That was her name: Jill Proscia. She married an Italian guy, Julio Proscia, who now lives in LA. He was here playing craps for a very long time. At first she was there too, but she had a headache and went to their hotel suit. About an hour ago he asked me to check up on her, see how she felt.”
“Is such a thing usual?” Catherine interrupted her.
“Well, he was a whale Ms. Willows. For people spending that amount of money, we do our best to keep them here.”
“I understand, and please, call me Catherine.”
“Anyway,” Brass said, “you went up to their suit. And then?”
“I knocked on the door a few times,” Sam proceeded, “after waiting about 20 seconds she still hadn’t opened. Mr. Proscia gave me their room key in case she didn’t answer, so I used it. When I entered I saw her on the bed like that. When I saw it I called Danny and a few seconds later he and Mr. Deline were at the room. When they arrived they told me to go to Mary and they stayed there until you guys got here.”
“Is that enough?” Mary asked
“Yes,” Brass answered, “for now it is.”
“One more question,” Catherine said.
“Could one of you call Mr. McCoy or Mr. Deline? We would like to get to the surveillance room.”
Moments later, after introducing them to Mike, Brass and Catherine were in the most high-tech surveillance room of all Vegas casinos. Danny and Mike already started on the video tapes that could have the killers face on it. Mike Cannon was just as young as Danny McCoy. But the young black man was also as good as Danny. They made the perfect team. Mike studied at MIT, so he knew all about technology. Danny on the other hand was more like the street smarts that were always needed on the case. That reminded Catherine of her and Grissom. She was pretty much street smarts and Grissom was pretty much book smarts.
“We’ve pulled everything up, but we didn’t find very much,” Mike said. “The killer new what he was doing, he probably explored the place before his big day.”
“The only time you can see something of his face is here,” Danny picked up. “Where running it through a facial recognition program”
“You know, you guys know what you are doing, it’s a busy day. I will come back later,” Catherine said.
“That’s ok with us,” Ed replied.
By the time Catherine and Brass were back at the hotel room, Sara and Grissom were almost done processing the scene.
Sara always felt to share if someone other on the case wasn’t familiar with the new evidence yet. A thing Catherine appreciated very much. That was one of the things that could ruin the case, people not getting the newest information fast enough and trails getting cold because of that. It was one of the things that put the Vegas crime lab on the map of best crime labs in the country. Everyone shared their information as fast as possible.
“Nothing here,” Sara said a bit angry. “Only one set of footprints at the fire escape, not even one decent fingerprint.”
“Not even a hair or something, the only clue in this room is the paint,” Grissom said. “We’ll take the sheets with us too, maybe something is on there.
“On our way up, we’ve been outside where the fire escape ends on the parking lot,” Catherine said. “We’ve found silver paint scraps on a dumpster next to it. Only thing out there. Could be enough though. The casino host, Sam Marquez, had nothing special for us. Her husband was a whale, he asked her to check up on his wife. She was upstairs because she had a headache. That’s when she found her.”
“Let’s go back to the lab then,” Grissom said.
In Miami there was also a coroner at the scene, Alexx Woods.
“Well, with all this paint I can’t say what the cause of death is yet,” she said. “I’ll take a paint sample and send it to the lab. The scene is all yours now Horatio.”
“Ok, I’ll meet you back at the morgue.”
“Have you already talked to the maid?” Horatio said
“Yes, nothing. Came in for cleaning found the vic instead. Saw nothing, heard nothing.”
Calleigh already went to the fire escape. She printed the door, but found nothing. Only thing upstairs near the fire escape were some footprints. When she was done, she opened the fire escape door and went down. Halfway down the stairs her eyes fell on a little piece of fabric, stuck on a piece of metal that stuck out. Thank God that piece of metal sprung, she thought. She collected it and cut of the piece of metal. She swabbed it and then put some phenolphthalein on the swab. It turned pink, which indicated there was blood on it. She put away the swab and collected the piece of metal. Downstairs she looked for evidence, but she didn’t find anything relevant to the case. The only thing she found was glass, but that was not even close to the fire escape. It belonged to a car. At the far end of the parking lot two cars got in an accident. So since she didn’t find anything, she went upstairs again.
Back at the scene Horatio was done at the hotel room.
“I know who she is,” he said
“Tell me,” Calleigh replied.
“Maria Capungo, age 25. I found her ID in the drawer of the night stand. That’s everything though. We’ll need to process the sheets at the lab, maybe that will give us something.”
“I think I have better news then. Found a set of footprints near the fire escape. No prints though, only smudges. Halfway down the stairs I hit the jackpot. A piece of fabric was stuck on a piece of metal that was sprung. But that’s not everything; There was blood on the metal.”
“That’s a very good beginning.”
In New York Mac, Stella and Aiden also went to work. Stella and Flack were interviewing the husband, while Aiden dusted for prints and Mac searched for other evidence.
“We’re lucky the guy was in a hurry and forgot the bucket of paint,” Aiden said. “Lots of prints on it, the fire escape door indicates he wiped the prints. But I’m thinking he wore gloves and that those prints were from some other persons. The prints on the bucket are probably from handling the paint at home.”
“Makes sense,” Mac replied.
“What I’m wondering is, when he’s so careful, why not a new bucket. Or also wear gloves at home.”
“He thought he could take the bucket back with him.”
“Yeah, but still. In case he would have got caught, like he did now.”
“The fact that he wore gloves doesn’t make him smart.”
“You’re right,” she said with a little smile on her face.
“Could you hit the lights, please?”
“Of course Mac.”
Mac grabbed a UV light and went over the sheets. Many fluids were revealed, but none of them were fresh enough to be part of the crime. After that he searched every inch of the hotel room, but nothing was found besides the fingerprints on the bucket, not even a hair. Then he figured the killer maybe hid behind the door when the husband came in. And yes, he found a partial shoeprint behind the door.
Stella was just rounding up the interview with the husband, when Mac and Aiden came out of the hotel room. The husband had been crying, but Aiden expected nothing less, since he found his wife dead, covered in golden paint.
“So once again, I’m very sorry for your loss sir. We’ll contact you if we would like to speak with you again,” Stella said.
“I hope you nail the guy,” he said.
“We sure do,” Flack replied.
And of the husband was.
“Hey,” Stella started, “the victim’s name is Sophia Masterson, age 28. She was here with her husband, Jonathan Masterson, they married a year ago. Celebrated their anniversary here.”
“We’ve found barely anything,” Aiden said. “Some prints on the bucket of paint and a partial shoe print, that’s everything.”
“You guys go to the parking lot the usual way,” Mac said. “I’ll take the fire escape down; see if our killer left us something there.”
Mac went down the fire escape and dusted for prints, just like Calleigh and Catherine had done. But the results were the same: nothing. Looking for other pieces of evidence than fingerprints, Mac also didn’t find anything. The killer was really careful, he thought.
Downstairs he looked for paint scraps near the fire escape. For blood, in case the killer nicked himself, but nothing.
When he arrived at his car, Stella, Aiden and Flack were already there.
“Nothing here,” Mac said. “Let’s go back to the lab.”
Back in Miami, Calleigh and Horatio weren’t the only CSI’s on a mission to reveal the truth. Eric Delko and Ryan Wolfe also were heading for a crime scene. As far as you could call it anyway.
Delko was sitting behind the wheel of the Hummer, heading for one of the most famous residences in Miami. Dispatch called in a kidnapping. The address they gave was the address of supermodel Rachel Crawford.
Ryan always had admired the beauty queen. He didn’t tell Eric though. First because he just wanted to act professional, although he could be professional even if he admired the victim. Second was that he didn’t want to give away his attitude of always being cool. He always wanted to seem the ‘cool guy’ if he was on a case.
Eric wasn’t that shallow, he was tough on most suspects, but he didn’t feel to be the ‘cool guy’.
When they arrived Detective Frank Tripp just got out of his car. Halfway down the path to the front door they caught him up.
When Frank rang the door bell, a woman who was in her fifties opened the door almost immediately. Delko thought it would be the model’s mom. She had black hair, although her natural color would probably be grey now. She wasn’t very tall in contrast with her daughter. She wore white linen pants with a green shirt on it and a pair of suede, green shoes.
“Thank God you are here,” she said in panic.
“I know it’s hard, but please try to be calm Miss,” Tripp said. “I’m Detective Frank Tripp and this is Eric Delko and Ryan Wolfe from the Miami Dade Crime Lab. How did the kidnapper contact you? Did he call, or did he leave a note?”
“They left a note at the coffee table. It said they would contact me at 5 pm. Oh I’m Rachel’s mother, Ellen Crawford.”
By the time Ellen was done talking she had walked to the coffee table.
“Did anyone touch the note besides you?” Delko asked.
“No, only me,” Ellen answered.
“I’ll dust for prints,” Ryan said
“I’ll search the house downstairs. After your done take the upstairs,” Delko said.
“I’ll talk a little more to Ms. Crawford,” Frank said.
First Delko searched the living room. Besides the note on the coffee table, there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Then Eric went to the kitchen. It seemed the killer didn’t even enter this room. After about a half hour search, he didn’t find anything there either. After searching the entire house downstairs, Delko only had one muddy footprint, which he found towards to the living room. The most likely he had saved for last, the main entry. Only by looking at it from a distance, he could see something he couldn’t see when he came in. He saw some blood with two hairs in it.
After printing the entire door he found no prints, except for the door bell. It was a partial, but definitely enough to match to something. Then he saw a shoe print in the soil right around the corner. You couldn’t see someone from the main entrance if someone was standing there. There also was an oil stain on the drive. He saw it when he first passed there, but waited with collecting it, before they had spoken to the victim’s mother. He took a sample. The oil was still wet, so there was a car not too long ago. A car with a leak. He searched around the house too. And right around the corner of the model’s property he saw a bouquet of flowers. That gave him a theory of how it probably went down.
The door bell rang. The victim, supermodel Rachel Crawford, first looked through the glass who was there, out of sight of the person standing in front of the door. She saw a man formally dressed with a bouquet of flowers in his hands. The victim didn’t have a security guard, because the main gate of the community was well guarded and no one could go through without a proper reason, so she opened the door. Suddenly a man with a gun jumped from behind the corner. She tried to close the door, but the other man pushed her away, causing her to hit the door and leaving a little wound on her head. In the meanwhile the other guy went into the living room, leaving a note that said: “We have Rachel, we’ll call you at 5 pm today.” Then they forced her into a car and drove away, throwing the bouquet of flowers out of the car window.
Upstairs Ryan was searching the house. The note had fingerprints on it, but only one set of them, probably the mother’s prints. After one and a half hour he was done and didn’t find anything. He guessed that Delko had more luck, since the kidnappers probably didn’t have a reason to go upstairs.
When he walked down the stairs, he already saw Delko coming towards him.
“Found anything?” Delko asked while walking in direction of the living room.
“No, the kidnappers probably didn’t need to go upstairs.”
“According to my theory they were barely in the house, besides the part were they put the note on the coffee table.”
Delko told him all about his theory and the evidence he found.
Entering the living room, Tripp had already rounded up the interview with the mother.
“Did she have something important to say?” Delko asked.
“No,” Frank answered, “she didn’t see anything suspicious. I asked her where Rachel’s father was, but apparently he died when Rachel was at the age of 16. Nothing useful on her account.”
It was another 5 hours before it was 5 pm, so the CSI’s went back to the lab.
“We’ll do anything to find your daughter Ms. Crawford. We’ll send some people who will tap into your phone and try to locate the kidnappers when the call. We’ll be here too. In the meantime don’t answer your phone.”
Ms. Crawford agreed with it, and Frank, Ryan and Delko were gone.
In Vegas there also was another team on a way to their crime scene. Nick, Warrick and Greg sat in a Yukon Denali. They could hardly see through the windows of the SUV though. They were driving through the desert heading to a movie set, and all the sand kept blowing up. Warrick was driving the car, Nick was sitting next to him and Greg sat on the back seat.
“Do you know what the movie was about?” Nick asked.
“You won’t believe it if I say it,” Warrick said
“Try me.”
“A movie about Vegas in western time. A strong group of people were supposed to be settled there, but they were killed by aliens who landed with there UFO. It’s was settled at Area 51.”
“Well, that’s crappy,” Nick said with a smile.
Behind them a Ford Taurus also was making its way through the desert. That car was driven by Detective Vartann, who also had to go to the scene.
When they were there, all four men got out of the cars and walked to the cop at the scene.
“What went on here?” Vartann asked.
“They did a shooting scene here. Supposed to be blanks, but the lead actor dropped dead after being shot.” Officer Metcalf said.
“Isn’t it a bit too much for you, interviewing all the actors and crew members?” Nick asked.
“I thought of that before I got in the car,” Vartann said with a smile. “I called O’Riley and Vega. They will assist me with the interviewing.”
“There they come,” Greg said.
About a minute later O’Riley and Vega joined them.
“Let’s start,” Vartann said.
“Yeah, we’ll process the scene,” Warrick said.
The director came to the three CSI’s and told them all guns were put against the left wall of the fort, a fake fort that is.
Greg fingerprinted all the guns and riffles and collected them to take back to the lab. Warrick and Nick examined the rest of the set.
Nick collected two bullets that were stuck in the wall of the set.
“I’ve got two .45’s,” he shouted.
After about an hour and a half they were done with processing the scene. Greg had tons of fingerprints, because gloves weren’t included in the movie costumes. It would be one hell of a job, matching all of the prints. Warrick had some fibers, they were from the window of the ‘sheriffs’ office. Nick had found two .45 bullets. Warrick also found seven shell casings. Besides that, two more riffles and 3 more guns were found at the set. And that was about it. There could be more evidence, but because there were so many people on set, most of the evidence was probably destroyed.
Now they all gathered around the body. David just arrived, so they could start processing around the body. The victim fell against a wall after he was shot.
“They’re all through and throughs,” David said. “The bullets will have to be in the wall.”
“Yeah, I have them here,” Warrick said. “If got five .45’s here.”
“But what’s the deal with the bullets all over there in the wall, where I collected two,” Nick said.
“Maybe we have another shooter,” Greg said.
“Could be,” Warrick replied. “We’ll have to come back with lasers to reconstruct the path of the bullets.”
Vartann just came walking up to the four men around the body.
“The victim, the lead actor, is James O’Hurley,” he said. “I’ve talked everything through with O’Riley and Vega. Most of the people said the same thing. Of course all of them didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but some people came up with a potential suspect. All came up with the same name: Joey Macintosh. The casting directors wanted O’Hurley for the role, but he wasn’t available, so they picked Joey. Then, all of a sudden, O’Hurley was available. They gave Joey a smaller part and hired O’Hurley. Macintosh is very pissed according to most people. Of course, he denies it. I’ve also contacted Judge Brenner; we just got warrants for everyone’s fingerprints and all video material of today.”
“Great,” Warrick commented.
“Let’s go print then,” Greg said.
“I’ll pick the video tapes up,” Nick said.
“No need,” Vartann answered. “I’ve already picked them up.
“I need to work with you more often,” Nick said with a very big smile.
After about half an hour they where done fingerprinting everyone. Of course, the occasional actor refused to take prints. Making them all the more suspicious. Everything was loaded into their car which took quite some time, seen the number of guns and riffles found at the set. After they had everything bagged and tagged in the Denali, they went all the way back from Area 51 to the Las Vegas Crime Lab.
3
New CSI, old connections
Grissom was walking down a hallway in the crime lab. He went to, what probably was the most quiet, dark place in the entire lab. He was heading to the morgue. There a fresh body was waiting for him. That of a woman painted in gold. He was hoping Albert Robbins had something good for him. They weren’t very lucky with evidence on the scene, maybe Doc Robbins gave them a little more.
When he came in, Albert just finished up with his autopsy.
“Hi, Gil,” he said. “What do you want to know?”
“Let’s start with time of death.”
“Liver temperature shows that TOD was between 11 pm and midnight last night.”
“Cause of death?”
“Asphyxia due to strangulation. Found ligature marks on her neck.”
“Anything else, weird conditions we don’t know of, was she on medication?”
“No, she was perfectly healthy. No medication, nothing.”
“Did you take a sample of the paint?”
“No, Sara already did at the scene.”
“Oh yeah, I remember.”
“Getting a bit confused sometimes,” Robbins said with a smile.”
“Always busy, sometimes hard to remember the little things.”
“I know what you mean.”
When Grissom entered his office a young man was standing in his office. He was blonde and had blue eyes. He was very well dressed in cream colored linen pants, which was a very good choice seen the heat wave, that seemed to go on forever. He had a brown shirt and wore a pair of brown/white pall mall shoes. It was leather and some kind of suede combined. That made Gil think about Catherine, she always dressed herself very well too. Always stylish.
“Hi, Mr. Grissom,” he said.
“You must be Chris,” he said. “And you can call me Gil, or how most of the people do here; Grissom.”
Then Catherine and Sara came in. They both said hello.
“Who is he?” Sara said with a little smile.
“Catherine, Sara. This is Chris Belinfante,” Grissom said. “He is Dutch, but moved to America when he went to college. He graduated in Biology at Harvard and is specialized in Ballistics. They sometimes call him “bullet guy” because he’s like the male Calleigh Duquesne.”
“Nice to meet you,” Chris said.
“Likewise,” Catherine and Sara responded.
“But why were you two here?” Grissom asked
“Both paint samples were identified by Hodges,” Sara started. “The golden paint is called Goldfinger #1. If you think this is good, it gets better. The silver paint scraps on the dumpster belong to an Austin Martin DB5.”
“Like the one used in the Bond movie ‘Goldfinger’, among other movies,” Catherine picked up. “The set of footprints all belong to a pair of Jekko’s, size 11. Some kind of make that makes older shoes.”
“Very good,” Grissom said. “Send out an APB on an Austin Martin DB5 and see who owns such a car.”
“We’ve already did that,” Sara said. “No one in Vegas owns such a car, but in Miami a car like that was reported stolen about a week ago. Which brings me to the origin of the paint; it’s only sold in Miami.”
“Ok, Catherine can contact the local CSI’s there, since she’s been there once.” Grissom said.
“I was about to call Horatio, they worked very well with us last time.” Catherine said. “There’s only one problem, at this time of the year it’s almost impossible the get a soon flight to Miami.”
“The Montecito has always co-operated with us, besides he wants to help,” Grissom said. “Although I don’t like that idea very much, you could ask them if they could fly with you there in their private plane.”
“Sara and I hoped you would say that,” Catherine said with a smile.
“Take Chris with you to Miami,” Grissom said. “It’s a very good opportunity for him to work with Calleigh.”
“Did Doc Robbins have anything?” Catherine asked.
“Yes, TOD was between 11 pm and midnight last night and COD was asphyxia due to strangulation,” Grissom answered.
“Nothing more?” Sara said surprised.
“No, that was all.”
After they left Grissom’s office, Catherine first called Horatio. Almost immediately he answered.
“Yes?” he said.
“Hi Horatio, this is Catherine.”
“Catherine, how are you doing?”
He cheered up a little bit.
“Good. And you?”
“Most of the time,” he said with a smile, Which Catherine could hear in his voice.
“I’ve got a connection on a case to Miami,” she said more seriously. “We’ve got a woman strangled and painted gold. The paint is called Goldfinger #1 and is only sold in Miami.”
“I don’t know the cause of death and the brand of paint yet, but I’m at the second scene in Miami where something similar happened. Also both victim’s painted gold,” he said, also with a serious tone in his voice.
“So we’ve got a serial killer on our hands?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“We’ll try to get as soon as possible to Miami. We’ll meet you there than.”
“I’m looking forward to co-operate with you again.”
“Me too.”
And that were the last words before the connection between Vegas and Miami was broken off.
When the three CSI’s – Catherine, Sara and Chris – arrived at the Montecito, Catherine asked: “do you think he’ll let us go on his plane?”
“I’m sure he does,” Chris said with a smile.
Catherine and Sara were both a bit confused at this moment.
“How would you know that?” Sara asked.
“I’m an old family friend,” Chris said. As a kid we sometimes went to America, when we were there I always was with Delinda and Nessa.”
“The new guy already comes in handy,” Sara said with a teasing smile.
When they walked inside Nessa already spotted Chris and came running to him.
“Wow, that’s been long,” she said.
“I know, but we’ve always kept in contact, didn’t we?”
“Yes, we did. It’s really great to see you.”
“Likewise, the best part coming here is that I could see you guys again. Just as beautiful as usual I see,” he said with a smile.
“I’m flattered, you’re something too,” Nessa answered with a kind of a shy smile.
Then Delinda came walking towards them.
“You’re never going to believe who’s here,” Nessa said.
When Delinda came closer by, she saw who was standing behind Nessa.
“Chris? I can’t believe you’re here, it’s so great to see you again. And wow, you’re hot these days.”
“Well, thanks,” he said with a shy smile, just like Nessa did when he had complimented her. “You’re just as good looking like Nessa.”
“So you’re a CSI in Vegas now?” Delinda said.
“Yeah, I didn’t say anything because I wanted to surprise you two.”
“You sure did,” Nessa said.
“I believe you haven’t met Catherine and Sara yet?” Chris said.
They all greeted each other and went to the bar, because the past five minutes, they were blocking the way.
“I guess you are here for Sam’s client then?” Nessa said.
“Yes we are,” Chris said. “Can we meet Ed.”
“Of course you can,” Delinda said. “I’ll walk you guys to him.”
“When I’m done on the case we’ll have to spend some time with each other again,” Chris said.
“We will,” Nessa replied.
When the three CSI’s and Delinda were at the surveillance room, Delinda went back downstairs.
Entering the room they saw Sam standing in it. She was looking at some tapes with Mike and Danny. Catherine introduced Chris and Sara to them and asked whether the facial recognition program came up with something.
“Nothing to make a positive ID,” Mike answered.
“He didn’t explore the place like we thought,” Danny said. “He was just being careful. Did it very good too. Only time we something of his face is the still you had already seen. Won’t hold up in court though.”
“Or,” Mike said, “he explored the place more than a month ago, which makes him even more insane than he is.”
“Is it usual other people come in the surveillance room?” Catherine asked referring to Sam.
“No, but I’m here to speak with Ed,” Sam said.
It was like Ed heard her, he came walking in the room just after Sam said those words.
“Hello Mr. Deline,” Chris said with a smile.
“Is that you,” he said. “It has been a while. Very good to see you.”
“Yes, I’m very glad to see you again,” Chris said.
“So you’re a CSI now?”
“Yes I am.”
“You are probably here on the Goldfinger case.”
“Didn’t know it was called that,” Sara said with a smile. “I’m sorry we haven’t met, Sara Sidle.”
“Nice to meet you,” Ed said. “I guess you guys want something.”
“We’d like to ask for a favor,” Chris said. “The case has a link to Miami. Two similar murders occurred there. Since air traffic is hard to get within hours this time a year, we wanted to ask if we could use the Montecito plane.”
“Of course you can. Danny will go with you.”
Then Sam interfered: “I want to go with too.”
“I don’t think it’s a very good idea Sam,” Ed said.
“You don’t understand, Julio wants me to be involved in the investigation. If not, he goes to an other casino. We can’t let that happen, he’s one of our biggest clients.”
“You’re right. What do you guys think?”
Sara and Catherine didn’t like the idea, but didn’t care that as much as Grissom.
“We’re ok,” Sara said. “On the condition that she stays away from the evidence.”
“Understood,” Sam said. “Eyes, no hands.”
About a mile away, at McCarren International Airport, the three CSI’s got on the Montecito plane with Danny and Sam. Mike stayed behind to work on the video material. He would contact Grissom if he would find anything useful.
“Wow,” Sara said.
“I know,” Sam said. “It’s a great plane. You’re wishing you could always fly like this, aren’t you?”
“You can read my mind. This is so comfortable.”
Once they were in the air, Sam asked them what they wanted to drink. She took some snacks out of a cupboard since it was a pretty long flight from Vegas to Miami, they had to fly about 2,500 miles.
“So I’ve heard you go way back with Ed, Delinda and Nessa,” she said.
“Yeah, I’m an old family friend.”
“So what were they like when Nessa and Delinda were young?” Danny asked.
“Just like most other kids, except the part that Ed was in the CIA. They were brighter than most kids though. I guess when you’re dad is in the CIA you’ll have to be. All those stories you have to make up.”
“No embarrassing moments?” Sam asked.
“I’m sorry, but that I’m not going to tell. I can’t do that to them.”
“Come on,” Danny said.
“No, I’m really not going to tell.”
“Too bad, “ Sam said.
After landing at Miami International Airport, they were in a Hummer of Miami Dade County. Horatio picked them up.
After introducing the others, Catherine said: “I’ve heard about Speedle, my condolences.”
“Thank you,” Horatio said with a sad tone in his voice.
“You said you were at a second crime scene when I called,” Catherine said to start a good conversation about the case.
“Yes, I picked you up at the way back to the crime lab. We made the link with the paint too. I’ll tell you all about the second case back at the lab.”
When they arrived at the lab, they first went to autopsy. Alexx Woods was busy on their newest victim, another young woman who was painted in gold. You could still see some golden paint that wasn’t washed away completely.
Danny and Sam were waiting in the break room. Bringing civilians with you in the lab or autopsy room could ruin a case. Defense would say the evidence found was tainted.
Chris and Sara went to Calleigh in the lab. That left Horatio and Catherine for autopsy.
“Catherine, nice to see you again,” Alexx said when they walked into the room.
“Nice to see you too. It has been 3 years since, long time,” Catherine answered.
Horatio’s phone rang. He stepped away from the two women to answer it.
“Yes?”
“Hi Horatio. It’s me, Mac.”
“Hey, how are you doing.”
“Good. You?”
“Most of the time,” Horatio said with a smile. “Something tells me this isn’t a social call,” H said, trying to find out what Mac called for.
“Too bad you’re right. We have a murder with a connection to Miami.”
“Let me guess; woman in her twenties, painted in gold?”
“Yes indeed. How did you know?”
“We’ve got two of them over here. And a half hour ago I picked some CSI’s from Vegas up from the airport. They got a case like that in Vegas too. They got the connection through the paint the victim was covered with.”
“Yeah, Goldfinger #1. It’s ironically the right name for it.”
“Too bad it is.”
“I’m going to send Stella and Aiden to Miami.”
“I’ll see they get picked up from the airport. Give them my number so they can call me. Nice to have spoken to you again.”
“Likewise.”
And that was the end of the connection between Miami and New York.
“That was New York,” Horatio said to Cath and Alexx. “They have a victim like ours.”
“The sick bastard goes all through the country,” Alexx replied.
“I see you just started with the second one,” Horatio said.
“Yes,” Alexx answered, “I’ll send you my findings asap after I’m done.”
“Our first victim then?” Horatio asked.
“Time of death was yesterday around 4 pm.”
“We’ve got more than one killer,” Catherine immediately replied. “Mrs. Proscia’s TOD was between eleven pm and midnight. With the time difference that would mean she was killed between 8 and 9 pm Miami time. This leaves about 4 hours to get to Las Vegas and kill someone.”
“You’re right,” Horatio said. “He could have never done it.”
“This means the murders are completely unrelated, or we have a serial killing duo.”
“I doubt that it’s unrelated. Three woman killed and painted gold,” Alexx said.
“What’s COD then?” Cath asked.
“Asphyxia due to strangulation,” she answered.
“Just like the Vegas case. I too doubt that there isn’t any connection,” Catherine replied.
“Anything out of the ordinary?” Horatio asked.
“She had a brain tumor. Wouldn’t have lived very long anyway.”
“Thanks, Alexx,” Horatio said.
“Anything to get this bastard behind bars, Horatio.
Elsewhere in the Miami crime lab Chris and Sara were with Calleigh. They were in the DNA lab.
“No match,” Valera said. “Your guy isn’t in the system.”
“Well, we have his DNA. That means we can always match it with an other sample,” Calleigh said, indicating on the blood she found on the piece of metal from the fire escape.
“The footprint database gave a hit,” Sara said. “A pair of Jekko’s. But this is strange, it’s a size 10. The ones in Vegas were size 11.”
“Does that mean we have two killers?” Chris said.
“I think so,” Calleigh said. They must be related though. I doubt the cases have nothing to do with each other.”
A paper came rolling out of the printer.
“The fabric is common white cotton. Nothing special there,” Valera said.
“Let’s get on the evidence of the second crime scene then,” Calleigh said. “Very similar evidence: one set of footprints and no fingerprints. Non that are useful that is, only smudges. And of course our paint.
“I already cross-referenced the paint sample with that of the first crime scene. It matches: Goldfinger #1,” Valera said.
“I’m running the fingerprints of the victim, Alexx took on the scene,” Chris said.
“The shoeprints are again a pair of Jekko’s, size 10,” Sara said.
“AFIS got a match,” Chris said. “Laura Solo, 27. She’s got priors for possession of drugs back in 2000. Her parents live in Jersey. She also does, not married.”
“So why doesn’t she carry an ID?” Sara wondered.
“I think the killer threw it away,” Calleigh said. “He didn’t do that with the first victim, because her ID was in a drawer. Ms. Solo’s ID probably was in her purse.”
Horatio and Catherine entered.
“We have multiple killers,” Horatio said.
“We know,” Sara said.
Then they exchanged their results. They did that in the break room, where Sam and Danny were.
In New York, Mac came walking into the morgue. “Hi, Hawkes,” he said.
“Hi, Mac,” Hawkes answered. “I’ve heard you’re sending Stella and Aiden to Miami. I gave them copies of the autopsy report already, so that they can read it in the plane.”
“Good thinking Hawkes, good thinking. So. What do you have for me.”
Hawkes started: “to begin with…..”
Elsewhere in New York, two beautiful women got on a plane. It was the plane that left from JFK and went to MIA.
“You know, we should have a private jet,” Aiden said. “You know, each state has a jet for situations like this.”
“That isn’t that bad an idea,” Stella replied. “Maybe Mac should recommend it to the major,” she said with a smile that showed it wasn’t meant.
“This time it went really hard with our luggage.”
“I guess it was a bit last minute.”
Meanwhile the plane had already taken off.
“Let’s go through the evidence,” Stella said.
“Okay, let me see. The victim was painted gold with a paint called Goldfinger #1, only sold in Miami. Our partial shoeprint belongs to a Jekko size 11 or a Burgi size 11.”
“What about the fingerprints?”
“No results yet, Mac will call us as soon as they’re in.”
“In Hawkes’s autopsy report it says the victim had petechial hemorrhaging, a blue tongue, broken hyoid bone and ligature marks on her neck: asphyxia due to strangulation. Time of death: approximately 11 pm.”
“Anything special with her, we should know?”
“No, nothing out of the ordinary.”
After Horatio picked the two women up at Miami International Airport, he drove to the lab. They went to the break room, where the others were. Horatio introduced them to the others, and introduced the others to them. After that they went through the evidence they all have.
“So seen you guys all have shoeprints that match to the type Jekko, it’s almost save to see that ours will be too,” Aiden said.
“I guess it’s save to say,” Sara replied.
“So it comes down to us, all having almost the same evidence in three different states. The worst thing is that nothing leads us to a suspect,” Catherine said.
“Well, we can say one thing for sure; we have at least two suspects,” Stella said.
“I have to disagree,” Chris said. We stated that the first Miami killing and the Vegas killing couldn’t be committed by the same person, but the New York one can’t be committed by both of them. The first victim in Miami was killed around 4 pm. The one in Vegas between 11 and midnight. That makes it around 8 pm Eastern time at the best, which we already thought of. But the New York killing took place around 11 pm. Now, the killer from Miami could have done it, but we’re forgetting about the shoe size. The guy from Miami had size 10. The one from Vegas and New York had size eleven’s. This means the Miami killer isn’t the same person as the New York killer, and the Vegas killer didn’t have enough time to get to New York to kill Mrs. Masterson.”
“You’re right,” Aiden said. “We’re looking for at least three killers.”
“But they probably still live in Miami,” Horatio said. “The paint’s only sold in Miami.”
“Wait,” Calleigh said. “We forgot about the Austin Martin that was stolen over here. How does that car get in Vegas, you can’t get such a car on a plane. This means the killer drove to Vegas, if he stole the car.”
“This means we could check recent flights back to Miami with travelers who didn’t go on a plane to Vegas,” Sara said.
“I’ll call Grissom,” Catherine said.
Cath walked outside the break room into the hallway.
“Grissom,” was the answer after a couple of seconds waiting until someone picked up.
“Hey, Gris,” Catherine answered. “Can you check something for me?”
“Of course, is the case busting out?”
“Not exactly, but we’re making progress. Could you check flight lists for people who went to Miami after the murder occurred and didn’t come to Vegas by plane. The killer had to come in his car to Vegas, but most likely will go back by plane.”
“Okay, I’ll check it out. You’re theory is most likely true. We just found the car, it was ditched somewhere in the desert.”
“That’s great, it may give us a suspect.”
“I’ll call you when I have results. Some collaborating evidence in New York or Miami?”
“No, about the same as we have. There’s one thing we can say for sure. We have at least three killers. The time frames between the Miami murder and Vegas murder and the one between the Vegas murder and New York murder are too small. And the Miami killer can’t be the New York killer because of his shoe size.”
“That’s a surprise. Well, I’ll keep in touch.”
And that were the last words exchanged between Catherine and Grissom.
“Grissom found the car,” Catherine said when she re-entered the break room.
“That’s a break,” Sara said. “It may lead us to a suspect.”
Now Horatio’s cell rang.
“Well, it seems we’re important today,” Horatio said with a smile.
He stepped outside, just like Catherine.
“Yes?” Horatio answered.
“Hi Horatio,” Yelina said. “We have a problem. Two new bodies.”
“That’s not good Yelina, he’s going faster and faster.”
“I know, we’ll have to stop him as soon as possible.”
“I’ll be there right away. What are the two addresses?”
“One at the Rose Garden hotel and one at the Figaro hotel.”
“Okay, I know those hotels. I’ll be at the Figaro as soon as possible.”
Horatio stepped in again: “we have two new crime scenes.”
“Two?” Calleigh said with disbelief in her voice.
“Yes. We need to put a stop to him, and fast,” Horatio replied. “Stella, Catherine and Danny; you go with me to the Figaro. Calleigh, Sara, Chris, Aiden and Sam; you go to the Rose Garden.”
4
Death of a killer
“Who are you?” she screamed.
“Shut up bitch!”
“Why are you doing this to me?” she asked while she was crying.
“Screaming doesn’t make any difference. No one can hear you. The only thing you do is annoy me with it, so shut up!”
“Why would I listen to you, you bastard?”
“Because I’m going to send proof of life by cutting of one of your fingers if you don’t!” he yelled.
“We were right,” Ryan said. “Only mom’s prints are on the note.
“The fingerprint on the door bell?” Delko asked.
“Running it through AFIS now.”
“The flowers are a bit wet on top,” Delko noticed.
“Probably fell in the water.”
“There was no water on the street, I think someone sneezed over them.”
Valera came walking into the lab.
“The hairs on the door frame were a match to those collected from a hairbrush of Rachel’s.”
“What about the blood?” Eric asked.
“It was a mixture. Some of it was Rachel, the other one came back unknown.”
Delko swabbed the flowers and gave it to Valera.
“Could you compare this to the unknown blood sample?”
“Of course,” she said.
“A match,” Ryan said. “The fingerprint on the door bell belongs to Benjamin Fuentes. He did time for possession of drugs.”
“The oil from the oil stain is common for a Ford,” Delko said.
“And the shoe prints?”
“Both the same.”
“I’ll run them through the computer.”
“We should talk with the security guard, those guys shouldn’t have come through the gate.”
“Tripp is talking to them right now.”
In the mean while the computer was done searching.
“No match,” Ryan said.
“It’s almost five,” Delko said. “We should go back to the house.”
The door bell rang, Ms. Crawford opened the door.
“Good that you are here, it’s almost five,” she said.
“Is the FBI guy for your phone already here?” Tripp asked.
“Yes, he arrived about an hour ago,” she said.
In the meanwhile they walked into the living room.
“Do you want something to drink?” she asked.
“No, thank you,” Delko answered.
“Did Joey already walk you through the procedure?” Tripp asked, referring to the Fed.
“Yes, he did,” Ms. Crawford answered.
Then the phone rang. Joey put his hand up, indicating the woman couldn’t pick up the phone yet.
Delko could see the woman was scared. He only didn’t know why. Because her daughter could be dead, or because she would be on the phone with her daughter’s captor.
Joey gave the sign she could pick up, so she did. From the second she picked up the phone, the call was being recorded and being traced.
“Yes? With Ms. Crawford,” she answered the phone.
“Bring 2 million dollar to the university of Miami. Put the money in a duffel bag in the trashcan on the corner. Do it before midnight or your daughter is dead.,” the man said with a deep grim voice.
“Wait, wait,” Ms. Crawford shouted. “Don’t hang up. Please let me hear my daughter’s voice.”
“Alright then,” the man said.
“Who are you?” Rachel screamed. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“The money, before midnight in the trashcan. Otherwise she’s dead,” the grim voice said.
Then the connection was broken off.
“He is at the corner of Collins and 170th,” Joey said.
“Tripp repeated it on the police radio and said that they had to go there right away if they were in the neighborhood.”
They were almost there. Frank was driving like he was possessed. Any faster than that wasn’t possible in Miami traffic, especially on Collins Avenue. That’s probably why the kidnapper called from there. Although Frank drove as fast as this, it wasn’t fast enough, because the last piece of road was Collins Avenue. And here you couldn’t go that fast.
When they arrived they saw the phone booth was taped off. But that wasn’t the only thing, the Feds were there.
“Where is the bastard?” Tripp shouted.
“He was gone before we were here,” Special Agent Sackheim said.
Special Agent Dennis Sackheim had worked with them before, most of the time without pleasure. His interests always contradicted with the ones of the Crime Lab. One time he had neglected to tell them about a serial killer, who killed couples. He also interfered with a murder committed, inside a witness protection program. His goal, only to maintain the witness’s cover.
“The bastard is playing with us,” Tripp shouted even harder. “He knew we couldn’t get here in time with all the traffic on Collins.”
“I know,” Dennis said. “But let’s focus on the most important thing, getting the model back home safe.”
“Don’t you think I’m focused on that,” Tripp shouted. “That’s the thing I’m trying to do.”
Agent Sackheim chose not to discuss this further and let things for what they were.
“I taped off the phone booth for you guys,” he said. “Maybe you can recover fingerprints.”
“I’ll take the outside,” Delko said.
“Guess I’ll have to take the inside then,” Ryan said.
“Do you know that guy?” Ryan asked while dusting for prints.
“Yeah,” Delko answered. “We worked with him several times. This is the first time we both have the same goals.”
About half an hour later they processed the phone booth and the area around it. The only thing they found were prints on the phone and prints on the door handle of the phone booth. They went to Frank, who just rounded up the interviews with Sackheim.
“Got anything?” Frank asked
“Lots of print on the phone and the door handle,” Ryan answered.
“And you guys?” Delko asked.
“Nobody saw anything, like usual,” Sackheim answered.
“We’ll go back to the lab,” Delko said. “Joey would send the tape to the lab for analysis.”
“I’ll talk to the guard of the community,” Tripp said. “I want to know how the kidnappers got through.”
Back at the lab, Ryan ran the fingerprints they collected through AFIS and Delko went to Tyler Jenson, their audio and video expert.
When Delko walked into the A/V-lab, Tyler just started the tape. Delko listened to the tape. After Tyler listened to it, Delko greeted him. He greeted back.
“The model’s voice sounds a bit strange,” Delko said.
“I noticed that too,” Tyler said. “I think I know what it is.”
Tyler played the section where Rachel talked one more time: “it’s a recording. You can hear the noise.”
“Can you get some sounds from outside?”
“I think I can, it will take a while though.”
“Okay. The ransom has to be paid at midnight.”
“I get you. I’ll work as fast as I can. This has priority.”
Now Delko walked into the print lab. He could see Ryan had a smile on his face when he came in. “Any hits?” Delko asked.
“Yes,” Ryan answered. “The same as on the door bell: Benjamin Fuentes.”
Then Valera came into the lab: “I’ve got some results,” she said with a smile. “The DNA from the blood on the door didn’t match the DND on the flowers, but I got a hit in CODIS for the DNA on the flowers: Benjamin Fuentes.”
“Something is not right here,” Delko said.
“Why is that?” Valera asked.
“Well, there’s too much evidence pointing at this Benjamin and no evidence that gives us the other guy’s identity.”
“And,” Ryan picked up, “there was nothing in the note that said that the cops had to be left out. On top of that, the guy didn’t say that there had to be no cops at the drop-off when he was on the phone.”
“That’s right,” Delko said with a smile. “Our Benjamin is being set up by the other kidnapper.”
In the state of Nevada, there also was lots of activity in the Vegas Crime Lab. Warrick was with the body in the coroner’s lab, Nick was with Bobby Dawson over at Ballistics and Greg was in the print lab.
“Well, cause of death isn’t a mystery,” Doc Robbins said. “Died because of exanguination. One bullet hit the carotid artery. An other bullet went through the liver, one through the left lung, one through the head and the last one through the right shoulder.”
“Nasty,’ Warrick commented. “Do you know what bullet was fired first?”
“No, the bullets were shot very close to each other.”
“Time of death?”
“No surprise there either, about an hour and a half before David arrived.”
“Anything special?”
“Yes,” the Doc said with a bit of a sordid, yet also a sad smile. “He had mees lines.”
“What? Heavy metal poisoning?”
“Yeah. Someone really hated your vic. I’ve already sent a blood sample to tox.”
“Thanks Doc. You’ve been very helpful.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Robbins said with a smile.
Warrick decided to go to Ballistics now. The prints would take a long time. Besides, comparing only 7 bullets wasn’t that much.
“The last bullet,” Bobby said.
“And?” Nick asked.
“Like I suspected after the other bullets,” he answered. “The five bullets from the wall are a match to each other. The other two bullets are also a match, but not to the others: to each other.”
“So we have two shooters,” Nick concluded. “One with a lousy shot and one with a good shot.”
“That’s not all we have,” Warrick said. “There’s also poison in the game. The vic had mees lines on his fingernails.”
“He wasn’t exactly loved,” Bobby remarked.
“That’s quite an understatement,” Nick said with a smile.
“You could say that again,” Bobby commented with a grin on his face. “Anyway, the rest is going to take quite some time. You brought me to guns for half a military.”
“You should be glad you’re not in Sander’s shoes,” Warrick said with a smile. “He has to compare all fingerprints that were on those guns.”
“Lucky me then,” Bobby replied.
In the DNA lab Mia Dickerson was working on the blood samples from the bullets.
“Hey, she said when Nick and Warrick came into the room. “On five of the seven bullets was blood evidence. All of them were collected from the wall behind the actor. All DNA belonged to the vic of course.”
“Well, just routine processing,” Nick said.
“Yeah,” Mia answered. “I hoped I could have helped you guys more.”
Now they both walked into the print lab. Greg was sitting behind the computer scanning prints.
“How are things here?” Nick asked.
“I just put the prints from the people on the set we took with the digital print taker into the computer in a temporary database. I’m about to scan all prints,” Greg said.
“It will take a while,” Warrick commented.
“Too bad you’re right,” Greg said. “What did Robbins and Bobby say?”
“I turns out we have two shooters,” Nick said. The bullets collected in the wall behind the vic belonged to one weapon. The two we found in the other wall belonged to an other weapon.”
“An it turns out we don’t only have two shooters,” Warrick went further. “O’Hurley had mees lines on his fingernails.”
“Wow, that guy was hated,” Greg commented. “What about the bullets that killed him?”
“Doc Robbins couldn’t say which one did the trick,” Warrick said. “One nicked the carotid artery, an other one penetrated the liver, one went through the left lung, one through the head, and the less of all evils went through his right shoulder.”
“Wrong day to get out of bed for this guy,” Greg commented.
Warrick and Nick’s last stop was at the trace lab. There Hodges probably could them something about the fibers Warrick collected from the sheriff’s window.
“Don’t kill the messenger,” Hodges said.
“Why is that?” Warrick asked.
“The fibers were one hundred percent cotton, blue cotton.”
“Just as the outfits in the movie,” Nick said.
“It’s not totally useless,” Warrick remarked. “Maybe the outfit of the killer is ripped somewhere.”
“Well, that would be the best of it,” Hodges answered.
Now the two of them were on the way to James O’Hurley’s house, hoping to find evidence of who was poisoning him. They took Sofia with them.
“What do we know about him?” Sofia asked.
“He’s 45 years old and has recently been divorced,” Nick answered. “His ex-wife was very pissed, because she didn’t get money out of it. She only got a car.”
“Could be motive,” Sofia commented.
“We’ll maybe find that in the house,” Warrick said.
The actor was a local who lived in an urban aria. He lived in a pretty big white house. His garden existed, just like most local’s gardens, out of pebbles and some bushes.
Warrick drove the car to the side of the road to park. At the same time Det. Vartann parked his Ford Taurus in front of their car.
“Guys,” Sofia said. “The front door is open.”
“Get your guns,” Vartann said.
Vartann ducked while running towards the front door. The others followed him. Vartann told Sofia and Nick to go around the back.
While they went to the back of the house, Vartann shouted: “Las Vegas Police Department, come out with your hands up!”
No answer, he and Warrick went in. At the back of the house there was another door opened. Nick and Sofia went in too.
Warrick and Vartann saw Sofia and Nick in the living room and said they were going to check upstairs. Warrick sneaked up the stairs while Vartann pointed his gun at the top of the stairs, in case someone came running from a room. Warrick was most vulnerable at the stairs. When Warrick was upstairs Vartann sneaked up the stairs. When Vartann was upstairs he saw that there were 5 doors. One directly to the right, one a bit to the left across from the stairs, two doors on the left and one door down the hall on the right.
Warrick stood with his back to the wall, Vartann walked in front of the door opening with his gun pointed into the room. It was the master bedroom: “clear!”
Warrick searched the room behind the door on the wall across the stairs, it was the bathroom: “clear!”
Vartann walk