title: My Soul to Take
author: Wren Arnold
disclaimer: me no own CSI. box? clowns? yes.
rating: PG-13
spoilers: season three
summary: A burglary keeps the CSI team working hard to decipher the bewildering clues left behind.
Am I my brother's keeper?
Genesis 4,9
*
chapter one: It Came Through the TV
*
10:32 PM
The McClanahan Residence
Saturday, June 14, 2003
Moisture was thick in the air, creeping through the night like an assassin.
It was a small room as viewed from the south window. Along the north wall one could spy bookshelves with thick volumes upon it, red and green and blue. The shelves reached the ceiling nearly, so tall were they, and were filled with, aside from books, various photos in frames, nick-knacks, and other such trinkets. Cluttered, but not distastefully so, the structure dominated the far side of the room.
To the left one saw an entertainment center, lined with DVDs and VHS tapes on those shelves that were apparent, and the side of a television. The television set glared with comfort, the colors throwing themselves out upon objects with no thought at all. The entertainment center, white, changed color minutely with the scenes and actors that the set showed. The lights were off, including the lamp near the edge of the windowsill, tall and ornate, and that cast a bluish glow upon the whole of the room not affected by the muted colors of the television.
If the colors were muted, the sound certainly was not. It boomed through the room from several places, screaming out wordlessly, its meaning warped and garbled in its path. Screeching its message across, the desperate noises clawed endlessly at the ears, waiting. For what they were lingering could not be discerned.
There was a giant of a figure in the middle of the room, towards the right and east of the window. Drooped across the dark red, overstuffed couch with a lazy air, it snored with contentment, the uneven, choking breath cutting across the smooth tones of the television with ease. A remote lay fallen from the thick, sausage fingers on one of the lumpy, faded cushions, quite plain that it was dropped as slumber overtook the viewer. A flat-topped chest served as a sort of wooden bench next to the couch.
With care, a thin hand slithered through the window, opened for coolness in the face of the storm, and soon the heavy glass lamp two inches from the sill came crashing to the floor, the ringing of the breaking pieces echoing softly, one after another. The figure jerked awake, the body snapping up like a jackknife.
"Who's there?" inquired a rough, masculine voice drowsy with sleep. He paused; cleared his throat; continued . "Who's there?" He turned the television off with a clatter, the darkness shocking to the senses. From the surround sound speakers the television continued to blast . He groped his way off of the sofa, standing tall and straight. The man may have been large on the couch, but he was truly gargantuan when erect, with a shoulder span that any professional player of football would have envied.
Fingers appeared on the ledge, five of them, and a shadow was thrown up and on to the top of the sill. Standing, balancing, the shadow was no taller than the man as he stood. Nimbly leaping over the mess of glass shards, the shadow took a tentative step forward.
"Oh," said the man with a dismissive tone. "It's only you."
It began to rain.
The shadow became more bold, lifting its arms together. In its hands there was an object very much like an irregular piece of wood. Taking care, the shadow moved a thumb. Something clicked. The eyes of the man grew large and he stumbled backwards.
"What'd'ya think you're doin'?" he cried, passion coloring his voice.
A finger twitched. Thunder clapped. The man lurched, bending over, silent. His mouth moved, made words, but he was voiceless. He clutched his breast, his breath sloshing in his chest. His hands came to his face stained cherry, and they left bright streaks where he wiped them on his cheeks.
Another roar of thunder and he stopped, falling on his knees, clutching the top of his chest for a moment before his grip slipped. He moved unnaturally, in a puppet-like fashion. He plummeted forward, onto his face, and on his back in the white of his shirt there was a torn and stained hole. The other in the room stared for a long while, not breathing more than the shallowest of breaths. The idea of shock lay densely in the room.
Slowly, efficiently, the shadow went to the nearest shelf and began gathering up an armful of objects: the movies stocked neatly in their place, a few ornaments and baubles. Walking ten steps, the shadow traveled back to the spot where the first thunder sounded and dropped them. They crashed and tumbled to the floor.
The shadow turned and barreled out of the window, the tiny person making heavy indentations in the soft mud outside. Hurriedly rubbing its hand over the ledge with the cloth pulled over its wrists, the shadow turned. There were trees, shrubs, and flowers after a short clearing, and the shadow leapt those. Rose bushes catching on cloth, the shadow broke loose, met the hard concrete road, and ran down it to the west.
The footsteps sounded loudly in the dark.
2:08 AM
The McClanahan Residence
Sunday, June 15, 2003
"Happy Father's Day," Catherine Willows muttered to herself as she stepped cautiously onto the wet and slippery gravel drive of a quiet suburban neighborhood. Two story, upper-middle class houses were stationed up and down the street in neat rows, with perfectly manicured lawns and appropriate bushes lining the walls under the windows and next to side of the separate garages.
Or, rather, it would have been quiet if it weren't for the high-pitched wailing that seemed to be coming from the very house which she was about to enter. She was in no mood for whatever seemed to be making the noise, having been assured that not only were her plans to meet a friend for a schedule brunch were null and void only forty minutes earlier by her boss, Gil Grissom, but that she would get thoroughly soaked on first look out her window. Clouds had been hanging low on the horizon and the pale paths of the moon did nothing to calm her fears of downpour.
Now she was trudging up a long drive, clouds ominously hiding the full moon from her, though not a drop fell from the sky as of yet. She held her umbrella over her as a sort of precaution in any case, not wishing to tempt the gods.
Her dark jacket buttoned loosely, Catherine's hair was swept back in a slapdash fashion that betrayed a quick 'do. Boots dangerously high in the heel, she traversed the gravel with the grace born of her years of dance; there was nothing to boots and wet rocks once one learned to dance in stilettos.
The mahogany door of the house wide open, Catherine stepped under the police barrier tape and immediately discovered the source of the shrieks as she folded her umbrella with a clang. A young dark-haired girl lay clutching what Catherine only assumed was her most important piece of evidence in the crime scene before her -- the body.
The room was filled with pictures from Catherine's vintage point. The requisite school pictures aside, there were dozens of candid shots on the tables and shelves. Smiling down from the three inch border that extended out from the wall all across the room were even more, of smiling children of all ages. So many children, in fact, that it was nearly impossible to decipher the inhabitants of the home by merely the photos. The family that lived in the house was indiscriminate with its photo-decorating.
"Oh, brother," grumbled she. "It's going to be one of those days."
Brass stepped forward, motioning to Catherine's left. "Vic's name is Damien McClanahan. Mother is over there with two of the three siblings, father is deceased. Mrs. McClanahan came down the stairs after she checked on the kids and found out the youngest girl wasn't in her bed. She wandered down, saw the scene, called nine-one-one, and promptly 'freaked the hell out' as her oldest daughter put it. Sounds like the girl; she started screeching as soon as she caught sight of her mother. We can't get the kid to let go of the body."
"Right," Catherine replied, "and do we have any idea as too how long she's been contaminating my scene?"
"Hey, your guess is as good as mine. She won't let anybody through to get a liver temp, and we can't talk to her to figure out how long she's been down here." Brass shrugged off the inconvenience. "It's only been about twenty minutes since the Medical Examiners got here, though. It generally takes them this long to get set up."
"Hmm," agreed the female CSI. "And I thought today was my day off." It didn't look as if Catherine would be using this day any time soon. "What's with all the trees?"
"Development area," Brass told her. "They have a wooded lot a couple of miles down the road -- I'd say, nine or so. Pretty nice place."
"Catherine," called out Nick Stokes from behind her. The woman turned and saw the man shaking his rain gear off in the foyer. Nothing fell off his dry, crinkling material. "What's making that racket?"
"A Furby," Catherine replied dryly. Nick seemed to think this was a true and acceptable answer from Catherine, unfortunately, and Catherine wondered how many hours he had spent in front of the Discovery Channel on his television to perfect that surprised, wide-eyed look. Off of Nick's naive belief, and trying to stave off a round of questions, she elaborated. "The sister of our vic. Seems she found him earlier and hasn't stopped --"
"--contaminating our crime scene," Nick interrupted. Clearly, he was as peeved as Catherine was that the girl was allowed to be in the area and ruin it so effectively. "She got her hair in the blood! Blood with hair in it, Catherine."
"Stop whining," Catherine admonished, though that was exactly how she was going to finish her thought. The girl did have her hair all over the blood, and it was a great annoyance. "We're not going to let one teenager ruin a scene. We'll improvise." A crack of lightning lit the room immediately followed by a clamor of thunder. Catherine jumped. "God damn it!"
"It was a dark and gloomy night," Nick cackled, rubbing his hands together. "Oh, come on, Cath, it was only a bit of thunder."
"Cut the Poe, Shakespeare, and let's go get a time of death for the M.E.'s office before they worry themselves into a frenzy as to how to disengage the child from the body."
"What, we're just gonna --" sputtered Nick.
"Yeah," Catherine told him, "and then she might leave."
She meant, of course, exactly what he thought she meant: Catherine was prepared to take a liver temperature if they were only able to move the girl away from a good enough area so that they could actually insert the instrument and then make certain that she didn't jar it. Though, Nick did not see what another, less staid person, might have seen: that Catherine was merely joking.
"I don't think that's advisable," Nick informed her with a very solemn look. "We should probably try to get her away first."
Catherine sighed in mock disappointment, raising her brows and following the cracks in the ceiling with her eyes.
"Okay then. You talk to the parents, I'll take the teen."
"Hey, why do you get to take the teen?" cried Nick, defensive with immediacy at the head. He was wary of whatever Catherine was up to, though he wasn't certain what was happening. "Why don't you take the family?"
"Because, Nick, I've got a daughter. I think I might have a little more experience with this ." Catherine saw her logic, and showed it very plainly to Nick. She refrained from adding, And I'm the senior CSI here.
"You suggested taking the guy's temperature while the sister was on it. You were going to stick something into him while she watched."
"At least it isn't an anal thermometer. Those things are totally useless when it comes down to accuracy."
Smiling once she turned, Catherine walked with strong strides across the living room and to the scene of commotion, where several detectives were trying to persuade a girl of about fourteen or fifteen off of the body of a young Caucasian male with bullet wounds in the left chest and blood pooled all about his body.
"Why hasn't anybody given this girl tranquilizers?" she called out imperiously.
"We don't have any with us," replied one of the police officers. "We're waitin' for someone to bring 'em. Trust me, I've been here half an hour, and I really wish we'd brought 'em with us. This girl has some lungs."
"Excuse me," Catherine said, "but do you have her name?"
The officer looked down at the clipboard he was holding. "Um, McClanahan," he said uncertainly. Then he brightened, "Mary McClanahan."
Catherine appeared not to be impressed with his less than stellar ability to remember the girl's name. He was, after all, working with her. Had he not called out to her using her first name, trying to coax her away from her brother? It just went to show you how well trained in sensitivity the police officers were.
The officer glanced away, then backed up. Catherine leaned down over the girl, her tough features melting into a much kinder face.
"Hey, Mary," Catherine said to the sobbing teen. "Mary, Mary, look at me."
But the dark brown hair, matted with blood, continued to be the only thing she saw of Mary McClanahan. Catherine had a half-moment's thought that she could perhaps get a good look at the victim with the girl on him. Examining the body around the frame of the girl proved to be almost impossible, though; she was writhing upon the body, wiping her hands all over her dress and hair as soon as she touched anything. Catherine sighed.
"Mary, my name is Catherine. Mary, now, look up at me, okay. I need to see your face when I talk to you, okay?"
Something more uniformly muffled than the broken sobs came drifting upward.
"That's good," Catherine muttered. "It means you're talking to me. Now can you lift you heard and repeat that?"
Slowly, a streaked, blood-crusted face with red-rimmed eyes revealed itself beneath its mass of brunette hair.
"He's dead," Mary McClanahan declared in a quivering voice.
5:15 AM
Las Vegas Crime Lab
Sunday, June 15, 2003
"Oh, God," Nick cried for the fifteenth time. "Oh, God. This is going to be a mess."
"Now, Nick," Gil Grissom reproved from behind the contents scattered on his desk, "I know today is Sunday but could you please try to keep it down?"
"Very funny, Grissom," Nick retorted, "but I can't believe that we have to go through this all in such a state. Mary McClanahan was all over this stuff. Look, here are bloody fingerprints far too small to be our vic's all over these CDs. It's like she went around touching everything. There wasn't even a lot of blood!"
"She may have been trying to deny what had just happened. We won't know until we put all this together."
"I should have gone to the scene," Nick grumbled. "Now Sara's over there with the good stuff."
"If I recall you offered to sort out and catalogue these items. You said it would be more of a challenge," Grissom reminded him.
Nick managed to grin. "If I had known how much of a challenge I would have stayed at the scene, let Warrick take this."
"Warrick wouldn't have taken it," replied Grissom. "He's not on the case. I assigned him to an elementary school break-in that happened last night. Probably some pranksters that felt like goofing off before summer classes begin. I thought I'd get that out of the way before anything else."
"Why's Warrick on a vandalism case?" Nick asked.
"I have my reasons," Grissom stated enigmantically.
"Oh," Nick said, effectively shattering a silence before it happened. "So it's just you, me, Sara, and Cath, right?"
"Exactly," Grissom answered. "Now, let's get started."
5:29 AM
The McClanahan Residence
Sunday, June 15, 2003
Sara Sidle pushed back her damp bangs and looked up at the sky.
"Is it ever gonna rain?" she asked of no one in particular. If Las Vegas decided that it was a perfect time to uncharacteristically storm up in the middle of June so be it -- but could the damn city at least make clean with its promise of water to the thirsty?
"Are you kidding?" exclaimed one of the photographers. "And ruin all this prime evidence? Yeah, right! This, this is all perfect. Perfect, perfect! It only drizzled for about ten minutes, and that was either right before or during the time the perp was makin' his move. Look at these footprints. Heavy, man."
Sara placed a ruler down next a print and clicked a picture. "About a size eight. Eight and a half maybe?" She peered into the thick imprint with a question on her face. "Something seems off." She put the ruler in the print and measured its depth, electronic noises declaring that another picture had been taken.
"Hmm?" the photographer asked. Sara pointed to the print. The photographer got down on his hands and knees in the mud and examined the deep impression closely. "Oh, you're right."
"Well, they aren't paying me for my looks," Sara retorted, amused.
"Don't be so sure," muttered a passing police officer. Sara whirled around, but wasn't able to figure out who had said it.
"Let's look for a gun people," Brass called out to everyone as he walked. "Side of the road, bushes, come on!"
"Oh," the photographer murmured. "Oh," again.
"What?" Sara cried. "What? What did I find?"
"There aren't any shoe marks."
"Huh?"
Without further thought -- much to her later chagrin; they were new pants -- Sara kneeled down in the sticky mud next to where the photographer was bent and looked anxiously into the hole. He was right -- where there should have been ridges and lesser indentations indicating the make of the shoe there was only a smooth, blank spot.
"With the firmness of the mud and the level to which the shoe sank this person had to have been at least one hundred thirty pounds," Sara muttered. "It isn't like they tip-toed out of here. The pattern indicates that they left in a hurry, from that window to the road. So why didn't their shoe leave ridges?"
"Well, this burglary-turned-homicide certainly just got interesting," Brass said from behind Sara.
"I knew something was off," Sara said with relish. The photographer looked at her askance.
*
Next, chapter two -- My Date with Surly