Fandom: CSI

Pairing: I'm a G/S nut, what can I say?

Spoilers: General fifth season timeline. References to Strip Strangler.

Rating: PG-13 for content

Disclaimer: If they were mine, there would have been a musical episode by now. So, clearly, they're not.

Summary: A clever rapist is leaving clues for the CSI team, and the danger may be closer than they think.

A/N: I would like to extend my apologies to the moderators, and to all of those who read two chapters of this fic and were left hanging for a week. I accidentally rated the story "G" when I posted it last week, and I used the word "rapist" in the summary. These were both accidental, but I was banned for a week before I could correct them.

So, my apologies, and a huge "thank you" to everyone who read and reviewed my fic the first time around. I'll be more careful this time, and I'm grateful for the second chance. And thanks to addicted2CSI for your observation; I acknowledged the Strip Strangler similarities in this draft. I actually started writing this before I saw SS, and most of the similarities are just in the first chapter.

Like I said, it's my first fic, so feel free to correct any OOC dialogue, continuity problems, what have you. I wanted to write it as an omniscient narrator, but I just stuck with straight narration to make it feel more like an episode. Future fics will probably get into the characters' heads a bit more. I'll let you read it now, before the author's notes exceed the length of the chapter.

OOO

Part One

Gil Grissom sighed and looked over at Greg, who was circling the woman's bedroom like a lost puppy.

"Greg," he said with a combination of frustration and curiosity. "What are you looking for?"

Greg looked around the room despondently, his eyes finally resting on the dead woman. Her wrists were each cuffed to opposite bedposts, and her naked body seemed normal, apart from the red marks on her neck.

"I don't know," he finally replied. "Anything?"

Grissom slumped his shoulders slightly. "I know you're new at sexual abuse cases, Greg, and I have to tell you, this is one of the more difficult ones I've seen. We don't have much evidence, and the few clues we do have seem contradictory."

Greg tape-lifted hairs or fibers from the victim's body. "This is pointless. I've tried tape-lifting twice already. There's nothing here. Where's Sara?"

"She took the blanket back to do a full analysis. Murder weapons that big are hard to process on site."

"What did you mean by contradictory?"

Grissom walked over to the window and tried to push it upwards. It didn't budge. He turned to look at Greg. "You tell me. What do you see?"

Standing up straight and surveying the scene once more, Greg stepped back and began to think out loud. "Marilyn Keller. Single woman, apartment, reasonably late at night. No forced entry or sign of struggle, which probably means the assailant was someone she knew and trusted. Handcuffs were put on before the attack to prevent the victim from fighting back, and then left at the scene. No blood, no hairs, no fibers, no prints. You said this was contradictory?"

Grissom nodded. "Think about it, Greg. A woman just lets someone into her house late at night, and given the lack of defensive wounds, may have been cuffed to the bed without protest, and then strangled with a blanket. Like you said, this was someone she trusted, but this doesn't seem like a crime of passion. This was methodical. Planned. Crimes of passion are not this neat." He paused to pull out his phone as he felt it vibrate against his chest. "Grissom."

"Hey," came Sara's voice on the other end. "Rape kit came up positive for assault, but negative for semen. He probably used a condom and took it with him when he was done. Grissom, we may have another Strip Strangler on our hands."

"I hope not, Sara. Prints?"

Sara sighed. "Nothing. No prints on the blanket, and the prints on the handcuffs match the vic's. It looks like she put them on herself, and those were the only prints. This guy had latex in more places than one."

"All right. Thanks, Sara." Grissom hung up and turned to Greg. "No DNA and no prints, positive for rape, and she put the cuffs on herself."

"So…she let him in the house, cuffed herself to the bed, and was raped and murdered by a complete stranger?"

"Well, let's not assume anything yet. There's not much else we can do here. Once they move the body out, I need you to bag that sheet and bring it in for handwriting analysis."

Greg tilted his head downward to once again examine the words written on the light blue fitted sheet in black permanent market.

DNA is arsenal.

"What's the definition of irony, Greg?"

Greg crossed to the other side of the room as the paramedics wheeled in the gurney. "Leaving the words 'DNA is arsenal' at a crime scene where there's no DNA?"

Grissom nodded. "Exactly."

OOO

Sara, Grissom, and Greg stood around the blanket, which was hanging up in the DNA lab.

Sara sighed. "I've used every chemical there is. All we have is a bit of Marilyn's saliva."

"Maybe this wasn't the blanket she was strangled with," Greg offered. "Maybe the killer took that blanket with him and left this one to trick us."

Grissom raised an eyebrow. "Good thinking. But for the time being, this is all we have. What did the tox screen say?"

"Nothing," Sara answered. "Not even cold medicine."

"Phone records?"

"Only call all night was outgoing, to her mother in Reno at 10:00. They talked for about ten minutes. What was the time of death?"

Grissom set his jaw and looked back up at the sheet. "Around midnight."

Sara looked down at the police statements. "Brass talked to Marilyn's neighbors, and nobody saw or heard anything. The building doesn't have a doorman, so I don't see how anyone could have gotten in. I'm thinking the killer might live in the building. Do you think we can get a warrant for an entire apartment complex?"

Grissom nodded. "We at least need to go back and talk to everyone."

Greg's eyes lit up for a moment. "Oh! Ronnie analyzed that message written on the sheet." He presented the photo of the cryptic message with a flourish.

"And?"

"Well, it didn't take very long. The message was written by a left-handed person, and the writing itself is quite feminine. We found Marilyn's datebook in her apartment, and it's a match. She wrote it, but this is much more shaky and abrupt than her usual handwriting."

Grissom took the picture from Greg's hands and looked it over closely. "You'd be shaky too, Greg, if you were writing your last words on your deathbed."

OOO

Grissom and Sara stood in front of the apartment entrance; Grissom investigating the lock on the front door, and Sara dusting the intercom call button.

"I got nothing," said Brass despondently. "'Shady Haven' seems to cater to female residents. Out of the 20 apartments in this building, 17 are inhabited by single women."

"Sixteen," Sara corrected. Grissom shot her a knowing glance. He then swung the door further open, allowing Brass to walk out onto the steps. "What about the other three?"

Brass looked down at his statements. "Mr. Frank Watson lives on the second floor, and I sincerely doubt he was capable of sexually assaulting our vic."

Grissom stood up straight and removed his glasses. "Why do you say that?"

"He's 74 years old." Grissom nodded his agreement as Brass continued. "David Herkner lives on the third floor, and I know I'm not a scientist, but the guy's a drunk and his apartment looks like the aftermath of a hurricane. If he had been in Marilyn's place, you probably would have noticed the odor when you went in. Our perp has at least some knowledge of forensics. This guy couldn't string a coherent sentence together."

"We shouldn't rule anyone out," Sara interjected.

"Well, if that's the case, should we bring the third guy down to the station? Because when I went to talk to him, he was having dinner with his boyfriend."

"Appearances can be deceiving, Jim," Grissom responded. Did anyone see people entering or leaving the building last night?"

Brass shook his head. "These people all claimed to have been in bed last night; most of them work first shift. The security camera was unplugged from behind around 11:30 pm, and was never plugged back in."

Grissom pointed at the lock. "This lock hasn't been tampered with, and Marilyn's windows are old and wedged into the windowsills. Whoever entered her apartment was buzzed in."

"But not necessarily by Marilyn," Sara suggested. "We contacted her mother, and she said Marilyn called her every week. They talked about everything, and she never mentioned a boyfriend." She sighed and turned back toward the intercom panel. "There have got to be a hundred different prints on this thing."

"What did Marilyn do for a living?" Grissom asked.

"She co-managed a restaurant on the strip with her sister."

"We talked to her," Brass continued. "She said that Marilyn was definitely single, and if she had any men in her life, she didn't tell anyone. No workplace romance or amorous customers as far as the sister could tell, and it seems that all Marilyn did was work."

Sara raised an eyebrow and turned back to the door panel silently.

Grissom removed his glasses. "So the only thing we know so far is that at least one person in this case has a secret."

"Fantastic," Brass muttered as he walked back up the steps into the building.

OOO

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