She opened the lid and sprayed the contents of the bottle on Jackson's hands.
"What is it?" he asked.
"It's what we in the crime lab call 'soap.' Good old-fashioned soap-you can wash up and no one will know what happened in here."
His expression was grim. "You…you think my co-workers are going to suspect me, don't you?"
Catherine shook her head. "They have no reason to; and by the time people find out what we're investigating, we're hoping to have the guilty party in custody."
As the big man aggressively dried his hands, Nick approached him. "May we have your discretion in this matter, Mr. Jackson?"
"You've got it…. Can I get out of here?"
"You can," Catherine said.
Nick offered his hand and the two ex-jocks shook. "Thank you for your cooperation, Ben."
"No problem," the big man said. "Just do me a favor and catch the guy."
"Our pleasure," Catherine said.
Not long after Jackson left them, O'Riley finally found his way to the break room, but he was not alone-an African American with a shaved head followed him in. O'Riley gestured to their new guest.
"This is Jermaine Allred," the detective said. "Mr. Allred, this is Catherine Willows and Nick Stokes, CSI."
Allred, whose manner was self-confident, gave them a guardedly friendly nod. Like Jackson, Allred was dressed casually, a white business shirt untucked over faded jeans, the top few buttons ignored.
"So you're the crime lab," he said, and stuck out his hand toward Nick who shook it; then Allred shook hands with Catherine too. "I always watch those forensics shows on Learning Channel, cable, you know. Fascinating stuff."
"I'm going to see if the other guy's here yet," O'Riley said.
"All right, Sarge," Nick said, and O'Riley went out. Nick continued: "Mr. Allred, we're not the crime lab, but we are criminalists with the crime lab. And it is fascinating work."
"Hey, havin' a cool job is…cool. Very cool indeed."
Catherine, already bored with this, started right in: "Well, you missed your work yesterday."
Allred smiled, shrugged. "They call in the cops over that now?"
Catherine smiled back. "I was hoping for an answer, not a flip question."
"Hey, sorry, no disrespect meant."
Allred helped himself to a chair at one of the tables. The CSIs remained standing.
"I had the flu," he explained with an elaborate sosue-me shrug. "Started gett in' sick on Friday, laid up in bed, whole damn weekend. Still had it yesterday, so I stayed home."
"Doctor's excuse?" Nick asked.
"No."
"Anyone see you?"
"My wife saw me. My two kids saw me."
"That's a good start. Anybody else? Anybody not family?"
Allred thought about that. "No. I mean, I don't socialize when I'm sick. When I wasn't in bed I was, you know-either sittin' on, or bendin' over, the throne."
"I've been there. But think. No one stopped by?"
Allred shook his head, but then his eyes widened. "Saturday afternoon, my wife took the kids to a movie…. They get noisy, and she wanted me to get some sleep. While they were gone, the doorbell rang, and it just kept ringing…kind of insistent, y'know? I managed to haul my sorry ass to the door. It was Patty's Avon lady dropping off a bag. She normally wouldn't do it on a weekend, she said, but she was in the neighborhood so she stopped by. She can tell you I was home."
"Good," Catherine said, standing by the fingerprint station she'd set up on the nearby table. "That's a nice solid alibi, Mr. Allred. You know what would really put you in the clear with us?"
Allred nodded, smirking humorlessly. "All right, let's do it." He held out his hands. "Get it over with."
As Catherine took Allred's prints, Nick kept talking to the man. "How long have you been with the agency?"
"Twelve years."
Catherine did his left hand.
"What do you do here, Mr. Allred?"
"Call me Jermaine. I'm an artist."
"You work with clients?"
"Sometimes. It depends."
She did his right hand.
Nick asked, "You know the name of that Avon lady?"
Allred shook his head. "I should, but I don't remember. Patty'll know."
When they were finished, they gave Allred the same speech about discretion, then sent him on his way.
Interviewing Ruben Gold and Roxanne Scott would have to wait until the two came back next week, but that didn't bother Nick. They would get to them and, in the meantime, there was only one more name to go on yesterday's M.I.A. list. And soon O'Riley was parading in the last of the three employees they had missed yesterday-Gary Randle.
Randle was sneaking up on forty, with short, curly dark hair sliding back on a roundish head with evenly spaced features, brown eyes that laughed a little and an easy, expansive white smile. Like Allred, Randle wore faded jeans but his shirt was a black Polo and tucked in. He wore loafers and no socks.
After the introductions, O'Riley and Nick sat at the table with the man while Catherine lurked near the field kit.
Nick said, "I understand you were on a sales call yesterday."
Randle's grin seemed shy and self-effacing. "Yeah-stretched into a long one, and I had to let the client beat me at golf before he'd give in."
"Tough job," Catherine said lightly.
Shrugging, Randle said, "Actually, sometimes it is. I had to let him win, and yet make it look like I wasn't throwing the match."
Catherine was still shaking her head at that answer when Nick asked the next question. "So-when did you get back to the office?"
Another shrug. "I didn't. I went straight home from the golf course. It was late, and why should I?"
"How do you mean?"
"I mean, hell-I had a hundred-thousand-dollar sale in my hip pocket."
O'Riley asked, "Were you in the office over the weekend?"
"Why?"
Nick said, "I'm sure you've heard about our investigation. It has to do with that."
"Yeah, but I haven't heard what the investigation's about."
"That's because we're trying to keep that confidential."
"Well, then, why don't I keep my whereabouts this weekend confidential."
O'Riley glared at Randle. "We can do without the smart mouth."
Randle laughed. "You're kidding, right? You come in here, start asking me questions about…something…but you won't tell me what that something is…and you expect me to answer?"
"If you're innocent-"
"Go to hell." He stood; the affability had been replaced with cold anger. "This has nothing to do with innocence-this has to do with your goddamned gestapo tactics."
O'Riley stood. "You want to take it down a notch, sir?"
"No," Randle said, and got right in O'Riley's face. "I don't. Am I supposed to be scared of you, or that hair-cut?" He took a step away from the big cop and directed his next demand to Nick: "Either tell me what the hell this is about, or I walk."
Nick didn't know what to say, and glanced at Catherine, who said to Randle, "We need to get your fingerprints."
"Let's see…. How about: no."
"We can get a court order."
"Go for it. In the meantime, I'm outa here." Without another word, he bolted out.
O'Riley, seething, turned to Nick and Catherine.
But both of the CSIs were smiling.
"What are you guys grinnin' about?"
Catherine already had her cell phone out and was punching buttons. "I'll get the court order and be at his front door before the end of the day," she said.
Nick put a hand on O'Riley's shoulder. "Lighten up, Sarge. We've finally got a real suspect."
6
SARA SIDLE TOOK ANOTHER BITE OF HER SANDWICH-turkey on whole wheat with lettuce and sprouts-and chased it with a swig from her bottle of kiwi-strawberry Snapple. She was sitting in the break room eating her lunch, or anyway what she thought of as her lunch: funny way to
describe her three a.m. meal; but in the middle of shift, what else was there to call it?
Doc Robbins appeared in the doorway, leaning on his metal crutch; an arched eyebrow sent Sara a signal that something, besides just that eyebrow, was up.
"Care to hear the report on Candace Lewis?"
She looked down at the remnants of her sandwich. "Should I finish my sandwich first?"
"Depends on whether you want these results on a full stomach or not. Would you round up Grissom and Warrick, and meet me in the morgue?"
Sara said, "We'll be right there," and stuffed the stub of the sandwich in her mouth. She was not by nature squeamish.
On the other hand, Robbins was well aware of that fact….
The coroner disappeared and Sara chugged the last of her drink. She sat, for a few moments, just taking that midshift moment to recharge, before bounding off to find the other two CSIs on the Lewis case.
And in less than ten minutes, the three criminalists and the Chief Coroner stood in a loose circle around Candace Lewis's sheet-draped body displayed on the cold metal surface of the table.
"Let's start with the cause of death," Robbins said.
"Ligature strangulation," Warrick said.
"Right." Robbins looked at the CSI. "Care to take a guess at the ligature?"
With a quick sideways look at Grissom, Warrick said, "Uh, we don't do 'guesses,' Doc."
Grissom twitched the tiniest smile as he exchanged a glance with the coroner, who said, "Make an educated guess, Warrick, just for me-you're my guest, after all."
Sara watched as Warrick pulled back the sheet revealing Candace's face and neck.
Warrick leaned closer to the body. The flesh of Candace's throat showed bloody gouges as well as massive bruising and something else…
…a pattern that wasn't quite discernible.
Sara wondered what Warrick-and for that matter, Grissom-would make of that.
"Some kind of chain, maybe?" Warrick offered.
Robbins turned to her. "Sara?"
She glanced at Grissom, who nodded his permission; then she shrugged. "Seems about right-don't know what else it might be."
"Gil?"
Grissom bent over the body, his Mini-MagLite materializing to light the dead woman's throat. He studied the brutalized flesh for several long moments, touched a portion of the wound, looked at his finger, then rubbed it against his thumb.
"A chain," the CSI supervisor said. "An oiled bicycle chain."
"And we have a winner," Robbins said dryly.
Sara leaned in to study the woman's throat more closely. Her colleagues were right: the design bruised into Candace's neck did resemble the markings of a chain, and a bicycle chain at that.
"Weird choice for a weapon," she said, with a quick facial shrug.
"Not a studied choice," Grissom said. "Probably a weapon of opportunity-her assailant kidnapped her, and probably meant to keep her alive…that's why there was never any ransom demand."
Eyes narrow, nodding just a little, Warrick said, "But something went wrong."
Grissom nodded back, curtly. "Something went wrong. She angered him…or tried to escape, or call for help…and the only thing he could do was kill her with the first thing he could lay his hands on."
Gesturing, Robbins added, "If you look at her hands, you can see evidence she fought back-tore her nails, lacerated two fingers."
Glancing down, Sara could see the tattered nails and the dried blood around the gashes in her fingers.
Then she felt Grissom's eyes on her.
Gently, Grissom asked, "Can you see it, Sara?"
"Yes…. Yes, I think I can…."
Candace is scared.
She's in a darkened room and all she can see is shadows. She starts to run, hoping to escape and crashes into something…
…and finds herself in the arms of her kidnapper!
Screaming, kicking out, she strikes him in the groin and he releases his grip on her. As she turns to run in the opposite direction, he fumbles around and picks up a bicycle chain, looping it over her head and pulling it tight around her throat.
Candace tries to get her fingers under the chain but her nails break off and the metal bites into the flesh of her fingers. She feels herself getting weaker, the pressure intense on her neck, the pain nearly blinding as her lungs scream for oxygen. Bursting stars appear at the corners of her vision and, as she closes her eyes, little colorful fireworks explode behind her lids.
Slowly, blessedly, the pain eases, the burning in her chest lessens, and her vision blurs, the colorful little explosions blinking, winking, on and off now. It's like trying to watch fireflies on a foggy night, but the tiny lights get lost in a mist that grows, turning ever darker until all she can see is peaceful blackness.
"That's how she might have experienced it," Sara said.
"What about him?" Grissom asked. "What about our kidnapper, our killer?"
"Well…" Sara began.
He has slipped up, his prize nearly escaping….
When she kicks him, the world seems to implode for a moment; but he can't let the pain consume him, he must prevail. She is his-he's worked so hard to obtain her, to possess her, he simply has to hold onto her now.
He gropes around on the nearby toolbench in the pitch-dark room; his fingers touch the cold steel of the bicycle chain. He knows what it is instantly-he'd been working on the bike when he finally nabbed his "guest." He snatches up the chain, manages to get it over her head and around her neck.
She struggles at first, struggles hard-gotta hand it to her, she's a fighter…that's part of what drew him to her in the first place. No ordinary girl for him….
Slowly his strength wins out, and her weight falls against him as she sags backward, taking him to the floor with her, the chain still taut around her neck. He realizes at once that something's wrong.
He didn't mean to kill her-merely to subdue her; but now she wasn't fighting, in fact…she didn't seem to be breathing.
He loosens the chain, puts a hand to her throat-no pulse.
He had hoped to keep her alive. Alive, she could come to finally feel the love for him that he felt for her. But even though she was dead, she would be his now, all his, compliant at last. Cooperative. Behaving herself.
Now, she's his forever.
"Good," Grissom said to Sara. "Good…. What else have you got, Doc?"
Robbins sighed, gathering his thoughts. "Preliminary tox screen is negative, but we're still waiting for the final report. As we posited, there's evidence of necrophilia. The jaws were broken post-mortem, to allow for easier entry."
"The tearing around her vagina?" Sara asked. "Is that the same…?"
"Also post-mortem-though I'm sure he assaulted her before her death. There's bruising that could only have occurred when she was alive. SART exam had nothing."
Warrick asked, "Why'd he get rid of her now?"
"Take a whiff, Warrick," Grissom said. "That's not springtime."
"Gil's right," Robbins said. "To put this as delicately as possible, Ms. Lewis was becoming a touch too…ripe."
Sara frowned. "Would a man obsessed in this fashion even be aware or concerned about that?"
"Within his obsession," Robbins said, "possibly not. But psychotics are exceptionally good at compartmentalizing, and often able to function and blend into normal society, with relative ease."
Still frowning, Sara said, "I don't get your point, Doc."
But it was Grissom who provided the answer: "The stench may not have bothered our man, but the neighbors, the postman, the meterman, most certainly might be expected to notice. He's cognizant enough of the realities of day-to-day life in the real world to be aware of such things."
Robbins picked up the thread. "She'd ripened past keeping her in the house or apartment or garage he was holding her in. He had to get rid of her, so he did what he could think of."
Sara nodded. "Left her by the side of the road."
Grissom asked Robbins, "Any
idea how long she's been dead?"
"He tried to preserve her, but he wasn't very successful," Robbins said. "Rigor has come and gone and there's some post-mortem lividity."
Rigor mortis started as little as two hours after death, Sara knew, and was generally gone within forty-eight to sixty hours; post-mortem lividity meant that the blood had begun to pool after the heart stopped pumping.
She asked, "You figure he kept her lying on her back?"
The coroner shook his head. "The lividity is concentrated more in the buttocks and lower back. She was reclined at least slightly, and since the killer tried to preserve her, I'm going to say he probably kept her in a bathtub or perhaps a trough of some kind. There's also some marbling."
Marbling was a part of the putrefaction process; the veins took on a purple or bluish pigment under the skin, due to the decomposing blood.
Robbins asked a question: "How long has she been missing?"
Grissom said, "Three weeks-give or take a day or two."
"She's probably been dead half that time, anyway."
That was all Robbins had for them, for the moment.
"As the tests start coming back," the coroner said, "I'll have more for you."
"Don't by shy about staying in touch, Doc," Grissom said. "The politics of this smell worse than your patient."
"Not like you, Gil," Robbins said, "getting involved in politics."
"I'm not involved in politics." The CSI supervisor lowered his gaze upon the dead woman; with the science out of the way, his guard was down, and Sara could see the pity in his eyes. "Unfortunately, Ms. Lewis here was."
Then Grissom began issuing orders to his team members: "All right, let's split up. Warrick, find out what you can about the piece of taillight."
"All over it, Gris."
"Sara, get that missing persons file and go over it like a crime scene."
"Ecklie's shift drew that case, you know."
"I know. I just don't care. Go over that file, make sure we know all we can, and meanwhile, I'll check with the labs. End of shift, my office."
When Sara arrived at Grissom's office some three hours later, the door was open, but neither her boss nor Warrick were there; for a fleeting instant, she had the feeling that the meeting had been moved and no one had bothered to tell her. A little kneejerk paranoia was starting to kick in when Warrick ambled up from his tiny office.
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