CSI: Miami
Broken-Redo
By: Victoria N Dalton
CSI: Miami
Season 1 episode 6
Summary: A five year-old girl is murdered at a restaurant/play land catering to parents and children. Horatio, Calleigh and the team feel it is personal when the victim looks exactly like Belle Caine.
Preface:
Zany Town a wonderland for children to come and have fun, playing games to win prized and eat junk food a little kid's dream. Unfortunately Zany Town is also a perfect place for the lowest of the lows to come and spread their evil.
Another hot August day for the city of Miami, which meant a packed house for the employs of Zany Town, children were everywhere, playing games, running around with friends, a child's dream, a mothers nightmare. A young blonde mother locked on at her five year old daughter, Ruthie, playing in the ball pit. Ruthie had just jumped in the pit doing a cannonball, as she asked her mother, who was sitting at the food court. "Mommy, did you see?"
"Yeah I saw you," Ruthie's mother, Lily said laughing at her hyper active child. Ruthie ran up to the food court and came up to her mother, laughing with a grin on her face as she told her mother. "Mommy, I'm hot." Lily smiled as she saw how tired her daughter was getting. 'She's gonna sleep so well tonight.) She thought to herself. "Okay, okay." She said as she took the child's pink jacket off revealing a beautiful pink and white flower sun dress underneath. "You having a good time?"
"Yeah!" Ruthie said as she turned away from her mother and ran back to the ball pit. Lily only smiled and watched as her daughter made her way to the pit. "Stay where I can see you." Lily told her, noticing how many people where near the ball pit. "Okay." Ruthie said her smile of happiness never leaving her face.
"Oh my truck, my truck," a child called as Lily felt said truck run into her foot she looked down for a moment, smiled and sent the truck back to the child with a "thank you miss." Then she turned her attention back to the ball pit. She hadn't even looked away for more than five seconds but Ruthie was gone!
Chapter 1
Horatio solemnly walked into Zany Town, a place he knew well thanks to his own five year old Belle. "Ruthie Criten, five years old, paramedics just pronounced." Horatio sighed, this was not going to be easy. "She was found by an employ in the handicapped bathroom." Horatio nodded and said to Mark, "Nobody leaves," Mark nodded, and continued filling Horatio in, "Mother lost her here," he pointed at the ball pit. "To get to the bathroom the guy had to go past the arcade, the food court, and pas who knows how many people." Mark finished with a sigh.
Horatio started getting angry at how someone could hurt an innocent child. "This place is a buffet for these creeps." Mark nodded in agreement. "Where is she?" Horatio asked the detective who motioned for Horatio to follow him. "Back."
Horatio slowly walked to the doorway of the Handicapped bathroom and stopped, Ruthie was laying on the floor and old brown shirt two sizes to big over her with pants around her ankles, thankfully her dress was still on, but her hair was cut. This was not the only reason Horatio had to stop, as he took in the little girl he immediately realized the similarity between the child before him and his own precious baby girl at home, they were practically identical.
They had the same facial features, small button nose, and strawberry blond hair. The only different being Belle's beautiful eye, her left green and right blue. He had to get his barring back before he could start with the crime scene the girl in front of him was not his Princess she was safe at home, Kyle was watching her and he knew nothing would hurt has as long as her big brother was around.
A few minutes later Mark found Horatio watched the people in the food court waiting on his team to come so they could process Zany Town. "Fifty Witnesses." Mark stated, while Horatio only shook his head, "No, fifty suspects."
Chapter 2
The entrance to Zany Town was a mad house, police cars and the media were already swarming the area as the team arrived. Calleigh was driving the CSI van when it hit her where she was, Zany Town. Her daughter's favorite place to go. Calleigh had to shake herself out of that train of thought, Horatio had already called to warn her that not only did this involve, a child, but a five year old girl who looked remarkably similar to Belle. However he failed to mention exactly where this horrible murder took place. One thing was for sure though; Belle would never be coming back here ever again.
Horatio was waiting by the entrance of Zany Town as he team walked in. "Welcome to the next 48 hours of your life ladies and gentleman." Horatio told them all, before getting straight to business. "Eric first I want you to expand the inter-perimeter from the playground, to the rear bathroom, Speed photograph everything please. Calleigh let's check in the surveillance system."
"When and where, was the victim last seen?" Calleigh stated making sure that was what her husband wanted her to do. "Exactly right, also live scan every finger including Children and let's look at their video tape, lets trace the victims path maybe the killer took the same one."
Calleigh nodded and walked away, she could feel Horatio's eyes following her as she did, she knew he didn't want her to see the poor little girl, in person anyway, whom apparently looked just like their Belle, but didn't want to admit it out loud. She also knew she wanted to see Belle as much as her husband did, just to make sure everything was alright.
Horatio's thoughts were the same as his wife's as he finally tore his eyes from her retreating form to look at Megan. "Ready?" He asked, "Right behind you." She told him determined to get this creature off the streets. "Let's go." Horatio said leading the way.
_
Horatio and Megan were doing an overview for their crime sketch. Horatio was shinning his flashlight all around making sure he didn't miss anything. "We have what appears to be glitter in the north west quad." Horatio said, Megan wrote it on the clipboard she was holding as she asked, "Path cleared?"
"Door to the body, right there." Horatio said using his flashlight as a visual aid. Horatio slowly looked over the body as Megan commented, "Cut hair boys clothes,"
"It looks like he was trying to smuggle her out." Horatio commented. "That means he didn't plan to kill her here doesn't it." Horatio continued as Megan took pictures of the scene. "He was gonna take her wit him." Megan answered.
"Something stopped the plan didn't it," Horatio said, thinking out loud. "Maybe she was screaming?" As Megan continued taking pictures, "Maybe the alarm system here in the store,"
Megan looked up at this comment as she meet the eyes of Horatio who was still having to tell himself this was not his Belle. "If it was the alarms we could have a fish in the net." Megan finished his thought for him.
He turned away in anger rising to the surface for a split second as he said, "Not a fish a shark."
Speed after taking all the photos of the inside of Zany Town decided to walk the perimeter to see if he could find anything useful in their investigation. He found a warehouse door with a pass key needed to gain entry. "This locks solid?" Speed asked, "Yeah leads into a storage room."
"Does this lead into Zany Town?" Speed asked the officer accompanying him. "No, no public access." Speed nodded but continued taking pictures.
Calleigh after having the manager pull the security videos from all the camera was walking out to the CSI Van with him doing an interview along the way. "You have gates so you must have protocol?" Calleigh asked the friend manager, who was having a hard time speaking due to his nervous stutter. "Ah, ah, each em… em…."
"Employee." Calleigh said for him, "Employee, checks a different section of the store." He told her. "I noticed stamps on people's hands." Calleigh asked as she wrote something in her notebook. "My own kids come here." The manager said his voice shaking. Calleigh placed her hand on his shoulder comfortingly. "So do mine, but I'm going to need you to calm down because I need your help. Can you tell me about the stamps?" She asked calmingly. He nodded and said, "K-k-k-k-k…"
"K-stamp," Calleigh offered he nodded, "K-stamp, you match the stamp on each child's hand to the stamp on the accompany adult?" The manager nodded, her smiled. "Okay, that's great."
Speed and Eric after finishing their primacy task moved on to the food court where they nodded to figure print everyone. Unfortunately for them it was a mad house, with both kids and parents scared. "I don't even know how we're going to start this." Eric told Speed.
"Alright, people," Speed yelled over the noise, everyone seemed to pause a moment as he continued. "Listen up, we're crime scene investigators. This is a very serious situation. We're going to need your full cooperation, Tim explained. "I need everybody to stay with their families. Please watch your children," his emphasized. "This if officer Delko." Speed announced as Eric put his hand in the air, visually showing everyone who he was. "He's going to take your fingerprints. I know you're all frightened and we're going to try to get you home as fast as we can, okay?" Speed said his voice softening a bit. "Thank you for your cooperation." He finished turning the floor over to Eric who stated, "Okay, I need everyone to just go ahead and get behind me form a single-file line. So, kids, please stay with you parents. Parents, please, keep an eye on your children.
Megan turned to Horatio and said, "North east quad is cleared I'm going to dust." Horatio nodded and said, "Glitter is locard… but not from her clothes." Horatio thought for a moment before he noticed Tim standing by the door, he noticed Speed took one look at the little girl and snapped his eyes away. "What'd you get?" Horatio asked, noting how uncomfortable Speed seemed in the room. "Uh, automatic lock-up system. Windows barred, doors gated. Storage united on a keyed alarm. It's your basic kid playground turned into a high security prison."
"What about a crime kid?" Horatio asked. "I've been overtly searching the crowd, subtly checking it out, and I didn't see any abandoned bags or backpacks." Speed said. "Well, maybe he stashed it. Nity-nine percent of all violent pedophiles are male." He said rattling off the fact like it was nothing. "Speed, also add glitter transfer." Horatio said as an almost after thought. "Okay?"
"Yeah," Speed confirmed gratefully to be leaving the bathroom of horrors. Horatio stood up and surveyed the scene once more as he said to Megan, "This guys a pro. Prior planning, no witnesses. He brought everything he needed."
"But he didn't get everything he wanted." Megan said a bitter sweet look on her face. "So he's probably very frustrated right now." Horatio continued her thought, "Means he'd got to look for another victim." Megan said looking through her kit. "Unless we get there first." Horatio vowed in his own way.
Megan let out a breath, and handed Horatio the orange glass that allowed them to see blood without luminal. "The clothes… they've been worn. Where did he get them? From his own family? Or more likely, he already had them."
"You ready?" Horatio asked Megan, she nodded and he flipped off the lights so their crime light could do its work. "Here we go." She scanned the shirt and sighed, "Affirmative on blood."
"Recycled from his last victim." Horatio said, his anger bubbling over the top he needed to take a minute and collect his thoughts.
Horatio went into the hall by the bathroom and pulled out his phone. He smiled at his screen saver a picture of his family, Calleigh, Kyle, and Belle all together smiling on their vacation to Disney world just a month ago. He couldn't resist he had to call Kyle and Belle, it rang once, twice, thre… "Dad?" Kyle answered. "Hey son," silence for a moment Horatio thought he could hear the waves from the ocean in the background. "Dad, is everything okay? Are you or mom hurt?" Kyle asked worried, granted Calleigh wasn't his biological mom but she was sure as hell more of a mother to him then his real mom was, besides his father never called him when he was working unless it was important, life or death, or an extremely tuff case. "Umm, actually can I talk to your sister for a moment, nothing's wrong promise, just a ruff day." Horatio answered his son.
Even though he knew he couldn't see, Kyle nodded in understanding, it must have been a dues' for him to be calling. "Yeah, Dad just a sec…" Kyle said into the phone. Horatio heard Kyle call for his sister, telling her Daddy was on the phone and wanted to talk with her. He heard Belle squealing with glee at being able to talk with her father. He smiled as he heard Kyle ask Belle if she remembered how to hold the phone to her ear and her telling her brother she was old enough to do things by herself and didn't need him telling her what to do.
"Daddy, Daddy! Hi, Daddy!" He smiled got even bigger as he heard the hyperactive child on the other end of the phone. "Hello princess, how are you?" He asked, he knew it was a loaded question and she would want to talk his ear off for about an hour but he wanted to hear it right now, no, check that he needed to hear it. "Daddy guess what?" Belle said into the phone once she finished telling him about her day in record time. She understood her parents didn't talk long on the phone and had made a deal with herself to cut her stories short until she saw them again. "What, Belle?" He asked playing along with her phone games. "I'm real happy cause I just talked to Mommy and she told me, when you and mommy come home we're to go on the boat." Horatio raised his eyebrows he didn't expect Calleigh to call Belle but then again he didn't do it much when they were working either. "Anyway I love you Daddy! Please be careful!" Horatio felt tears spring to his eyes. "I will baby girl, don't you worry. I love you too. Now put Kyle back on the phone so I can say bye-bye to him." Horatio told his daughter. "Okay Daddy!"
There was a moment of silence before Kyle's voice hit Horatio's ear, "Dad, I'm gonna let you get back to work alright." Horatio nodded. "Yeah, thanks son." This put a smile on Kyle's face. "No problem Dad. I'm also going to assume no TV." Horatio had to chuckle. "You guessed correct. I love you Kyle."
"I love you too, Dad. Tell Mom I love her and to stay safe." Horatio smiled, "I will son. Good-bye." Whit that Horatio snapped his phone closed and headed back to the scene, a new peace in his heart that both his children were safe.
Eric and Speed were going through and finger printing everyone, it was taking forever, but it must be done. "Hi, step up, please." Eric asked and the main in line gave him his hand so he could be finger prints. "I think you're the last one here." Eric said relieve they were hopefully done. "Okay, you're clear." Eric told the man as he put his prints into the computer.
"Excuse me." An African American man stepped up he looked slightly pissed but so didn't Speed most of the time. "Yeah, can I help you?" Eric asked the man. "Look I'm a third-year law student from U of M," He told Eric. "Congratulations." Speed said hating when people made their jobs difficult. "And I know it's illegal for you guys to keep us here." The man continued. "You know what you're right, actually. But as a human being, I think you have an obligation to cooperate like everyone else." Eric said, trying not to let this jerk screw with his temper. "So why don't you get back in line for me, okay?" Eric finished. "Thank you." And with a shack of his head the man stepped back.
"Hey, is that true? Can I go?" A white man, with blond hair, and a glittery Acapulco T-Shirt asked Speed. "No. No, you can't." Tim said getting irritated as he placed evidence collecting tape on the man's glittery shit. "You know why? Because now you're a suspect. Go ahead and get, comfortable, legally." An officer led the man away as Erik smirked at Speed when he turned back around. Speed muttered, "Jackass," under his breath.
Megan was collecting the hair that was cut off Ruthie, as Horatio walked back in. "Hey you okay?" She asked, she wasn't blind she could see the resemblance between Belle and Ruthie. Horatio only nodded before he got back to work. His first thing to do was check the door handle it just didn't seem right to him. He jiggled it and found the lock was broken. "This lock is broken, so how did he keep people out? There's nothing… wait a minute." Horatio said before he noticed an 'out of order' cone knocked over in front of the door. "Look at this. 'Out of Order.' This is how he secured his privacy. So how… did a grown man steal a five-year old girl from a public place and nobody noticed?"
"Maybe someone she trusted." Megan offered. "Could be."
Horatio slowly made his way into the back room where Mrs. Creighton, Ruthie's mother, was waiting. She looked horrible, her face was blotchy and tear stained and she was biting her nails down to numbs. He could only imagine the pain she much be going through at the moment, "Mrs. Creighton," He said softly not waiting to startled her. "Did you guys, um… did you guy know anybody here? Somebody she would have trusted?"
"No," she told him shaking her head, "She was too good for this earth. Like an angle from Heaven." She took in a shaky breath as she said, "Maybe that's not even her in that room. How can you be so sure? Maybe she got out." Horatio did something he never did he quietly told the woman who had just lost her child, "I'm sorry." Before walking out of the backroom, back to poor little Ruthie.
When he returned Alex had arrived and was looking over the child carefully, as she always did with children. "Facial edema and petechial hemorrhages indicate raised venous pressure concurrent with asphyxia." Horatio nodded. "The blue around her lips is so turquoise, Alexx." He commented.
"A little deoxygenated hemoglobin is usually more purple blue," she said as she looked in the child's mouth. "Cyanosis coloring is really subject. And, I mean, who knows under these lights." Alexx said she sounded flustered like she didn't want to be there, the case reminding Alexx of her two small children at home, Horatio completely understood. "Why no bruises?" Horatio asked his mind getting back on subject.
"Ecchymosis can take up to 24 hours to fully develop, but, yeah, we should see at least minimal erthema if she was strangled, or ruptured capillaries around her mouth if she was smothered. And I see neither." There was a moment of silence before Horatio asked, "So how did he kill her?" Alexx just sighed and shook her head, as the Detective came in the room. "Don't shoot the messaner, Horatio, but the bass is leaning. Helicopters are starting to hover and reporters are starting too…" All the while Alexx was pulling a swab out to see if this monster had assaulted her sexually or not. "Okay, give me a minute, please." Horatio told him cutting him off.
"Horatio…" Alexx said, "Yeah?"
"Your killer took a souvenir," She said her voice shaking. Horatio shifted his weight and placed his hands on his hips a nervous tick from high school. "How do you mean?" He asked her, dreading the answer. She looked him straight in the eye as she said, "Her underwear."
After Ruthie's body was packed up and placed on the gurney, Horatio and Alex walked out to the ME's van. They were greeted by the mob of reporters outside Zany town.
"Lieutenant Caine…what information have you learned so far?"
"Have you detained a suspect?"
"Can we get some questions over here?"
"Lieutenant Caine, is it true she was rapped?"
"Is there any indication that the killer will strike again soon?"
"I'm not going to comment on evidence, but what I will say is that this animal has provided us with a mountain of evidence and we will not sleep till we've been all the way through it because we know, beneath that mountain lays his grave. Thank you very much." Horatio said as he turned and walked away.
Alex was back in the morgue she was on her phone, her son had just called, "Honey, I don't want you giving Tiger anymore potato chips. There not good for kitties, okay? And have Daddy read you a story tonight. No TV. Yeah. I love you, too, baby." With that she ended the call and got back to work.
She carefully started taking off Ruthie's sneakers when Megan walked in. "Hey, Alexx."
"Hey."
"I got the results from the blue tinge on her lips – diglucose and propylene glycol, a.k.a good old fashion candy." She finished with a sigh.
"Could be how he lured her. Not very inventive, but effective and sticky as hell." Once Ruthie's shoes where off Alexx looked over her face and noticed something odd on her neck. She carefully turned Ruthie's head to get a better look. "Whoa." She was moving Ruthie's hair out of the way. "Whoa. What's that?" Alexx asked Megan. "A fingerprint?" Alexx and Megan looked at each other and thanked the lord for candy being sticky as hell.
Calleigh meanwhile was in the crime van looking over the security tape from that day. It really was a shock to see Ruthie Criten. She looked so much like her Belle it was funny. She sighed as she spoke to Horatio through their headsets. "She's talking to someone but whoever it is stayed off camera. He must have shriveled the place. He knew how to stay out of sight. It makes my skin crawl to know we could have walked right past the guy before with Belle." She said her voice slightly shaken.
"I know beautiful but we have to catch this guy so we won't have to worry about Belle," Even through she knew he couldn't see she nodded, taking comfort in her husbands words. She took in a breath before she said, "Where are you?" Looking at the live feed she was getting.
"I'm walking toward the bathroom." He told her, she looked at the screen, "Okay, I don't see you… I don't see you…" She smiled, "Hello, handsome. I see your hand."
"I am passing the bowling pin display where the toys are mounted on the wall. How far was she from the shelf?"
"About three feet." Calleigh answered.
"You couldn't see me. This is exactly the route he took. It's perfect." He said looking up into the camera. "Leads straight to the bathroom."
Twenty minutes later found Calleigh and Horatio in the hallway lifting prints from the floor. "In order to avoid the camera he had to stay off the beaten path." Horatio commented.
"It's worse to be seen." Calleigh told him. "Yes, but the better to see his footprint." Horatio told her. She nodded and handed him a lifter. "That's out last lifter." He nodded and said to her. "There's some more in the van."
As he pulled the lifter up Calleigh said, "Oh, that's juicy." For there was load of unique dirt from the killers shoes left behind. "Yes, it is. Mm, that's a beauty." H said as he got a real good look at it.
Meanwhile back at the lab Megan and Rick, an intern, were going over some DNA while the fingerprint was going through Aphis. When it beeped telling the two labrats the info was back on their print. Unfortunately the big red and white, 'No Match' was blinking on said screen.
"No match?" Rick said as he and Megan walked over to the computer, "You're kidding," Megan asked him. "I thought for sure this guyed be a repeat. No wonder; this prints all screwed up."
"Yeah, your right. There's not central pocket loop." Rick confirmed.
"Well, human skin is an elastic surface. Maybe the print got stretched when we moved her." Megan reasoned.
"Maybe we're not looking at one finger." Rick theorized.
"Maybe we're looking at a cross-section of a couple different fingers."
Night had finally fallen on Miami and Eric was releasing people once their print results came back. "Get some rest. You guys get home safely. Thank you." He told a father who was carrying his sleeping son out of his car. "Gary, thanks, buddy." Eric said to the uniform that was patrolling the outside.
"Print results came back." Eric said to Calleigh as she came walking up to the front with her shoe print boxes in her hands. "Not on prior." He said, as Calleigh stopped to listen. "Not even a traffic ticket, except for four people."
"Records?" She asked, almost hopeful, that it might just be that easy and she could stop worrying about her kids.
"No, they just refused to give prints." Eric told her with a sigh. "What about that guy in the Acapulco T-shirt?" Calleigh asked as she noticed the man from earlier. "Did he, um, give prints?"
"No, but you think we could arrest him based on the fact that it's a little too creep to be in one of these places without a kid?" Eric asked her. Calleigh almost smirked as she said to him, "If it was up to me, yes!" Eric chuckled, he knew this was his god-daughter's favorite place to come and play other than the beach, so he knew Calleigh and Horatio's concerns when the girl was found here. In their opinion it was too close to home.
"Will you hold my lifters?" Calleigh asked and Eric took them from her hand. "Do you have and ridge builder lotion?"
"Yeah, in my kit." He told her as she walked over to his kit on the table next to the food court. She took the decretive chop stick from her hair which uncurled and lay flowing down her back as she took the location out and rubbed some on her right hand.
Eric gave a dry chuckle as he realized what she was doing, while Calleigh only smirked, took her clipboard and walked up the stairs to the food court where, Mr. Acapulco was waiting. "Hi, I'm Calleigh Caine." She said in her most cheerful southern hospitality attitude she could muster.
"Hi, Brad Repkin." As he shook her hand she dropped the clipboard on 'accident.' Repkin was being the 'nice' guy picked it up for her. As he handed it back to her she said, "Your last name is Repkin."
"Yeah, Repkin." And with that Calleigh turned and walked back to Eric, with a triuphiant smile on her face.
Eric slapped for her as she handed him the clipboard with the suspects print on it with a, "Here you go."
"Very nice." He told her. "Do you mind taking my footprints back to the lab, while you're at it?" She asked him.
"No I don't." He told her.
In the back of the playground area Horatio and Detective… where doing another walk through to make sure they didn't miss anything. When something caught Horatio's eye. "That door is open."
"A service entrance." Cortez told him.
"It looks, unbarred, too." H commented.
"Yeah, you need a code to get through it." Cortez explained.
"Mm, who had access to the code?" Horatio asked him suspicious.
"According to the manager himself and six other employees." Cortez told him secptatly. "Two that were on shift and four we had to pull in. We looked at 'em real hard and they all checked out."
Horatio nodded and told him. "I'm sure they did."
At the lab Megan went to do see Alexx had been paged and hoped it was something worth wiled to catch this guy.
"You paged me?" Megan asked as she walked through the double doors to the morgue.
"Yeah. Got broken ribs," Alex told her. "Five and six on the right, consistent with the blood in her mouth." Alexx explained. "Hemothorx?" Megan asked. "Yeah." Alexx confirmed.
"Cracked rib punctured her lungs, her lungs filled with blood." Alexx said sadly. "She was probably fighting him." Megan assumed. "So the monster got on top of her."
"Crushing her chest." Alexx finished Megan's tonight. "Cause of death: Positional Asphyxiation." Megan shook her head no, and said. "No. Intentional Evil."
As she said this Sarah Jenkins a lab technician walked into the morgue. "What you got?" Alexx asked her.
"I wasn't expecting anything unusual, but…" Sarah explained.
"Butalbital." Alexx read off the sheet. "He gave her barbiturates with her candy." Megan said disgusted. "Butalbital's a fast-acting sedative. Wouldn't take a lot to knock a child out almost immediately. But what about the signs of a struggle?"
"Found something else." Sarah said flipping the page.
"Antihistamine?" Megan read. "Poor baby had a cold." Alexx said softly. "She wasn't struggling. She was convulsing." Megan said mournfully.
"Antihistamine is contra-indicated with Butalbital." Alexx explained.
"She went into anaphylactic shock." Megan said. Alexx just shook her head and said. "Oh, god." Once she realized what Megan was saying. "This means he wasn't trying to restrain her."
"He was trying to revive her." Megan finished.
Alexx nodded and rattled off the information she knew like the back of her hand, "CPR, when applied with too much force, can crack ribs."
Megan shook her head and closed her eyes in disgust. "He wanted his time with her." Before walking out of the morgue to find this son of a…
Back at Zany Town Horatio and Calleigh had moved to the playground to see if they could find any evidence. Calleigh found a small kid sized silver and pink plastic ring under an arcade game. Horatio a red straw, they both found a half eaten blue cotton candy stick, which Calleigh bagged.
"Hey, H, we got someone looking pretty sweet over there." Speed said, as he came up to Calleigh and Horatio. "Mr. Acapulco?" Calleigh asked. "Yeah, real hard to get out of here. He's got glitter on his shirt, no I.D. and refused to give up prints." Speed said listing all the non-consistencies he found with the guy.
"I got 'em anyway." Calleigh told her husband.
"Delko just called from the print lab. This guy's a registered sex offender." Horatio and Calleigh shared a look as Calleigh wiped her hand on her pant suddenly feeling like she needed to go and wash her hands. Horatio mean while was trying real hard to keep his anger in check. "Mm…okay. Get Bernstein." He told Calleigh as he asked Speed, "Where is he?" Speed pointed over his shoulder. "He's right there."
_
"Brad Repkin?" Bernstein asked, "Yeah?" He asked, as he was surrounded by Horatio, Calleigh and Bernstein. "Hands out of your pockets, behind your back." Bernstein told him.
"You got a car, Brad?" Horatio asked. "Yeah." He told Horatio nervously. "Outside."
"Let's go take a look." Horatio said, as they walked outside Calleigh slipped off to finish collecting evidence from the playground.
_
"Which one is it?" Horatio asked Brad. "It's a green Cadillac." He told Horatio reluctantly. "Right here?" Horatio asked pointing in front of him. "Yeah." Brad answered.
"This green Caddy?" He said making sure. "Yeah."
"You can't search it, can you?" Brad asked getting defensive the closer they got to the car. "I mean, I got rights, don't I?"
"Just shut up, Brad. You violated your parole when you came within a hundred yards of a child. You know the rules, so shut up." Horatio said his told on his anger slowly slipping the longer Brad kept talking.
Horatio had Brad's key's in his hand and opened the truck of the car, he scanned the interior when his eyes landed on something completely out of the ordinary. A pink and purple child's size suit case, and from the weight of the thing filled with clothes. "This better not be hers." Horatio warned Repkin.
Based on their evidence they brought Brad to one of the interrogation rooms in the lab. Horatio was questioning him, while Calleigh looked for evidence to see if this guy was their murderer.
"I understand that you did quite a bit of time in solitary on your first conviction." Horatio said. "That was a bogus charge. My bitch ex-wife, she ruined my life." Repkin defended.
"But your daughter made a statement that you touched her during a swimming lesson." Horatio said disgusted with the man sitting in front of him. Who could do something like that to their own child was far beyond Horatio. "That's not true." Repkin said. "I would never hurt her."
"See, I think on this conviction, the cons are going to get you before the chair does. Did you know that they kill the child molesters in prison before the rapists, before the serial killers? Did you know that?" Horatio asked trying to instill some fear into his man.
"Look, you don't have anything on me." Repkin said trying but failing to keep his cool. "I've got footprints, I've got glitter, I've got your record, and I'm about to match a fingerprint." Horatio knew he had him when Repkin started shifting around in the chair clearly nervous and agitated.
"I was going to take my daughter, okay? That's it. It's my visiting day." Repkin defended.
"But instead, you picked up a substitute, didn't you?" Horatio asked. All Repkin could so was hang his head.
_
Calleigh mean while was in the video room going over the surveillance camera once again. She sighed as she said to the screen. "Where are you, you perv?"
Unfortunately for him she found him, playing with himself. She could only close her eyes in disgust.
_
"Sit tight." Horatio said as he walked out of the interview room, and found Calleigh waiting for him.
"Horatio?" She said sounding flustered. "Yeah?" He asked, as he lead her into the observation room next to the interview room and looked at Repkin through the one way mirror.
"He was playing pocket pool just before the alarms went full blast. On Camera the whole time." She told him sounding pissed the longer she thought about it.
"On camera the whole time." Horatio repeated. "But he still violated parole. He is still going back to prison." Calleigh said much to her relief.
"He is not our guy, then." Horatio said, happy this sicko was getting taken off the street but their monster was still out there, somewhere. "Do you know how many children a pedophile molest during a lifetime, on average?" HE asked her, she shook her head, no.
"A recent study says 150. One hundred and fifty." Horatio said, both Calleigh and himself could only think about Belle, being one of those children. "What is they're caught?" Calleigh asked.
Horatio took a breath as he said, "Down to 65."
"Then we can still save 85 Belle's!" Calleigh told her husband. He looked at her and nodded, "Let's work for that," He gave her a quick kiss before he walked off.
Eric and Megan where in the print lab seeing if they could pull any prints from the cotton candy stick. "Okay, here comes the magic." Eric told her as he sprayed a chemical on to the stick, hoping he would be able to see purple finger prints all over it. To his delight there was nothing put purple on the stick.
"Yeah, got broken ridges running in all directions. Just like…"
"The Cotton Candy Fingerprint." Megan finished for him.
"Exactly." Megan photographed the stick so she could up load it onto the computer later.
"That makes three fingers out of five." Megan told Eric.
"Let's hope he left the rest here." Eric said as he placed another kind of chemical on the 'out of order' cone from Zany Town.
_
Speed mean while was in his lab listening to music while working on scraping off glitter from a zany town uniform vest.
"… baby mama, I don't know you name, but I said, Baby, oh, sugar, I can play your game, every night when we leave the hall, baby, I see you hanging' round you wanna ride in my big black car, baby, wanna go uptown, yeah, I know who are, baby, and I know what they call you, girl, never put you down, baby, I'm just like you, baby, I'm on the hunt, oh, and every night, I'm hunting'…"
_
Back in Megan and Eric's lab they were looking at all the finger prints they had collected on the computer screen. "Look at this middle finger. I mean, there's no arches, no whirls, no loops." Eric rattled off.
"It's all dots and bifurcations." Megan confirmed for him.
"But the index has three radial loops on it." Eric said clearly confused. "Malcolm X held the previous record, with two radial loops on one hand." Megan told him.
"Well, it isn't a bunch of cuts because those would just break up otherwise fluid ridges."
"It's not a chemical burn. The ridges would be worn evenly on the hand."
"Well, it can't be a scar, because the skin would heal back into the print."
"It looks scarred. It looks like dozens of scars."
"It looks like he fell into a blender."
"I don't know."
The sun was finally rising on Miami and after a long day and night of working straight all members of Horatio's team were exsated. However as Horatio walked into Calleigh's lab he found something he thought he'd never see, Calleigh slumped over her desk fast asleep; he smiled he knew she needed her sleep but he also knew they needed to work, if they wanted to get this waste of space off the streets, so he'd have to wake her.
He knelled down next to her and shook her shoulder gently as he said, "Calleigh?" She opened her eyes and gasped. "Oh, my god." She said as she sat up and looked at her husband. "I'm so sorry. I close my eyes just for a second."
"Don't worry beautiful. You're a morning person anyway." He said as he stood up and placed a kiss on her forehead. "Are you okay?" He asked she nodded but her face said otherwise, she looked positively pale and her head felt warm maybe she was coming down with something. Horatio thought to himself. "I'm fine," She said, "…promise." He nodded and let it go for now as they turned their attention back to the reason he came to her lab in the first place.
"Do me a favor, beautiful, and take a look at subject B and tell me if you see anything peculiar about it."
"His weight's all in the back." She said confirming his theory. "Mm-hmm, see, normally, when someone takes a step, it's heal, ball, toe. Correct?"
"Mm-hmm." Calleigh agreed, still trying to wake up fully.
"But, in this case, there's pressure on the arch and not on the toe."
"Are you thinking his shoes are too big for his feet?"
"When someone takes the time to put on a pair of shoes that are three sizes too large it can mean that they're trying to hide their identity."
"Just like he did with the cameras. You know, subject B's steps peter out near the storage room."
"Hmm. Okay, and we have trace soil on the fourth print, don't we?"
"Mm-hmm."
"Good. What would you like in your coffee?" Horatio asked his wife, she couldn't help but smile as she said, "Sugar."
_
"How he got in!" Speed yelled to Horatio as he saw him walking by his lab.
"What?"
"The glitter found on Ruthie, is a match to the glitter found on the Zany Town vest. He must have stolen one. That's how he got in."
"Probably how he got out, too. Okay, let's get Bernstein. This guy probably knows an employee there."
Megan and Eric were talking in a mini lab used to mix chemicals about their disfuncationing print.
"Okay, so you're a completely pro. You know exactly what you're doing." Eric said.
"Cause you've done it before." Megan added. "You've got a record, you've been to jail." She said.
"That's right. So, to escape Megan's Law, no pun intended and avoid having the neighborhood know where the local pedophile lives, you decide to take someone else's prints and cover your own with them. But that wouldn't work, thought, because they'd fall off."
"Frankenstein. He Frankenstein's himself. He took his own skin off and put them on different fingers."
"But we could still match that to something."
"Not if he sliced them, into small pieces first, and then grafted them back on."
"There are 2,500 never receptors in the finger per centimeter. That must have hurt like a bitch."
"Yeah, that's how badly he wants these kids."
"So, he refigured his fingerprints, thinking that he could avoid his previous crimes."
"He was almost right. AFIS didn't find it, but if we cut up his prints, and figure out where the pieces actually go…"
"Like a human jigsaw puzzle."
"Um-mm, let's go."
_
"Did you know the glitter found on Ruthie's body came from Zany Town?" Horatio asked the manager from Zany Town he was being questioned to see if he knew anything.
"It couldn't have been an employee." He said.
"The killer had the code to your storage room. Explain that, please." Horatio was losing patience with this man.
"I don't know." The manager defended.
"Where do you keep it?" Horatio said.
"On my desk." He told Horatio like it was completely insignificant.
"On your desk?" Horatio had to hold back on the urge to pick the man up and shack him around how could you be that stupid. "In plain view, for everyone to see?"
The manger realized what he had done and said. "Oh, my god!"
"That's using your head."
"I am so sorry."
"Mmm."
Megan and Eric were working on reconstructing the killers print. They cut up parts were scattered all over the table some had been matched. Others hadn't.
"Alright, I need a bifurcation with dots."
"Okay, uh… bifurcation with dots. Here, try this." Eric said handing Megan a piece.
"Not it." She said with a sigh handing him the piece back.
"Okay… alright. Try that one." Eric handed her a different one. "That has some whorls in it." He told her. It slid easily into place. "Mm-hmm."
"Okay."
"How about an ulnar loop?" Megan asked.
"Right here, Yeah… yeah… yeah, that's it."
"Yes it is." Megan said both proud of themselves for finding it.
"You were waiting for that, huh?"
"Beautiful."
_
"Papilio aristodemus poneanus and torchwood, translation: The dirt that you found on subject B's shoes was full of swallowtail eggs." Speed told Horatio and Calleigh.
"The book says swallow tails are a really rare butterfly. Only three have been seen in Biscayne National Park in the last four years."
"I need a map." Horatio said.
In one of the extra labs Horatio was looking at a map for Miami-Dade County. When he heard Megan call him.
"Horatio?"
"Yeah?"
"Got a print match and a name."
He snapped his head to look at her. "Steward Otis. Registered pedophile, long record, starting at age 12."
"All we need is an address." Horatio said, hoping this would finally lead them to the right man.
Megan and Horatio were looking up an address for Steward Otis in Miami-Dade County. But came up short.
"Damn it. No Stewart Otis." Megan cursed.
"Right but if he changed his prints. There's a chance he changed his name. So, Bob, let's do a property search for the name Otis. Anything in or around Biscayne National Park."
They searched again and found what they were looking for an address. "Look at this. We have a match. William and Margaret Otis. 2430 Black Creek Road. That's quarter mile from the park. Let's go."
Multiple cop cars, CSI:Vans/Hummers, and even a SWAT team were driving like hell had broken loss to get to this psychos address. They were all pushing their vehicles to the max with sirens blaring. As they pulled up to the old dirt stained white house.
As Horatio, Calleigh, and Megan pulled up in H's hummer an officer came up to H and told him, "There's no one inside, sir."
"Okay, the house is clear! Let's glove up!" Horatio yelled to his team over the wind and sirens. "Kits and gloves! Let's go!"
Once inside the team all split up to search different parts of the house. Calleigh and Horatio took the 'living room.' On the coffee table were childish drawing of different things with crayons and markers scattered around said pictures. A sofa lay next to the table.
In the mantel were stuffed animals, dolls and children's sneakers and dress up shoes. Calleigh was horrified to be in this house, where all she could picture were horrible thought about Belle being someplace like this. However she kept her calm on the outside at least and continued photographing everything.
Against a large window, all the windows were covered with a sheet or blinds, was a mattress with sheets all rumbled up like someone had been sleeping there. On the shelves were disgusting videos. Horatio knew this was a place both he and Calleigh would never be able to unseen.
"Well, he's not shy about his video's." Horatio commented.
Calleigh took a picture of the wall closest to the mattress there were pictures of little girls mostly smiling and posing for pictures like you'd find in a photo gallery, instead of a psycho's home.
Speed came in at this point caring a large box filled with video's just like the ones on the shelves. "This is just the tip of the iceberg." Speed told Horatio. "Wow." Was all Horatio could say. Horatio picked up a plastic toy and noticed the amount of dust on it.
"And he doesn't live here." Horatio realized with a sigh.
"He plays here." Megan said disgusted. She then took her can of luminal and started spraying down the 'living room'; if you could call it that. Unfortunately there were large amounts of blood on the arm of the sofa and the floor nest to it.
_
While Megan was doing that Horatio went looking around the house when he stumbled apone a closet full of, what else, but uniforms of kids hang outs.
There were uniforms from 'Zoo az rama, Zany Town, and many others. He looked down and saw multiple pairs of shoes. He flipped them over and saw the wear was on the ball of the shoe not at the toes. "Got ya." He said to himself.
Eric was in the kitchen looking around not thinking he was going to find many clues. That was until he looked at the window silve on it were six milk cartons with 'Missing Children' on them. Horatio entered the kitchen then asked him, "What do you got here?"
"I don't know. These cartons-he much, uh… he must keep them like some sick kind of trading cards."
Horatio looked out the window and saw a patch of dirt which looked like it was disturbed and nothing was growing around it. He sighed as he realized what this monster was doing. "They're not trading cards, their head stones."
Later that night they had dug up some of the body's and made a temporary forensic lab in a tent by the graves.
"That makes four and one partial." Megan said, over the high winds.
"I'll call the office and get an autopsy room prepared for the remains." Alexx told Megan. "At this point, closure's the only thing we can give these families."
"Until we catch this guy." Megan proclaimed.
Horatio was looking at a doll they found while excavating the graves. When he took his glove off and felt the soil. "Alexx!" He called, but she couldn't hear him over the winds. "Hey, Alexx!" He called almost having to scream. She looked up and went over to him.
"What do you think?" He asked her.
"Sandy Soil minimizes decomposition. There's marbling… but very little skin slip."
"The soil's cool."
"Well, I'd say she been here, maybe three, four weeks."
"So he'd not even waiting a month between kills, is he?"
"Well, don't serial killers accelerate as they progress?" Alexx said.
"Yes, they do, and that's when they make mistakes."
"Maybe you can tell us some of them angle." Alexx said as she looked at the little girl's marbled face.
That was a long hard night, for the CSI's. The only good to come out of this is when they finally catch this guy, he's going away forever.
That morning Speed and Horatio were in the DNA lab, and Speed was pulling out a pair of panties from an evidence bag from the psycho house.
"This is from the little girl we dug up at the house." Horatio told Speed.
"Is that blood?" Speed asked.
"Yep."
"This freak… plays with them like toys." Speed said shaking his head.
Horatio nodded, his eyes closed till he said. "Until they break. Keep me posted." Horatio told him as he walked out of the room.
A couple hours later Horatio came back, Speed had paged him.
"Speed… what do you got?" Horatio asked.
"Carbon, Oxygen, and Hydrogen combo, propylene glycol, sugar and blue dye number one." Speed read from the paper in his hands.
"Well, there's our cotton candy."
"How did it get on her underwear?" Speed asked confused. "I thought he just used it to lure and drug them."
"Well, this no presents of Butalbital maybe he had another used for it."
Speed swapped a sample from the underwear, placed it on a slid, and slid said slide under his microscope. "These crystals aren't elongated." Speed told H. "They're square not fibrous."
"Meaning?" Horatio asked.
"Meaning they haven't been exposed to heat."
"Like a cotton candy machine."
"Exactly. This is unprocessed cotton candy."
"So he makes the stuff. Let's find out where he delivers today." Horatio said a new vigor in his determination to catch this guy.
They found out he was delivering to 'Sir gold a lot's. They found the cotton candy vender and Megan went and purchases one for evidence.
"Thank you." She said as she paired the vender a big guy, with thinning hair and a big bushing gray mustache.
Horatio was standing behind them. "Hey, Stewart." Horatio called and the man turned to look at who called that name. "Yeah." A small man in a cache uniform with soft features and thick brown hair answered standing up. "How's the cotton candy business?" Horatio asked him.
Steward started to back away as the officer and Horatio went for their guns. "You move, he's going to put one right through you."
"Hands up." An officer called. He did as he was told and Horatio saw Steward 's fingers for the very first time. "Those must've been painful." Horatio commented knowing they got the right guy.
Horatio looked down and in a brown paper bag he found a 'Sir gold a lot's T-shirt. "What do we have here? Stolen uniform. Sir Golf A lot. You on to your next victim, Stewart?"
Steward was frozen for a second before he said. "That's not mine."
"Really?" Horatio said, getting more pissed the longer he looked at this scum. "Whose, is it, mine? Take him."
"Let's go." The uniform said.
Otis was taken to an interview/holding cell he sat in a hard metal chair and looked around as he waited for Horatio to say something. Horatio mean while was trying his hardest not to beat the living shit out of this son-of-a-…
Once he felt he was calm enough he started. "We, um… we located… your stash of videos, Stewart. And, uh, I've got to tell you that's pretty sick stuff!"
"Video's!?"
"Mm-Hmm." Horatio said nodding. "It's my guess that you couldn't come by the real thing, so you put on your phony uniform and went trolling for a little girl."
"She was flirting with me." Stewart said coming out of his flash back. "She ruined it."
"It's called anaphylactic shock. Your sedative mixed with her cold medicine."
"I never even got to play with her." This was the comment that sent Horatio reeling to remain in control.
"She was a five year old girl Stewart. A grown human being should never do something so horrific to a little girl."
Steward smiled a sadistic smile. "You have a little girl don't you Detective?" Horatio stopped, and looked him dead in the eye. "If you so much as think about coming near my child I will.." Steward cut him off.
"You'll what detective? Put me in jail? Were I can just serve my time and get parole."
Horatio's face became dark as he looked this sicko straight in the eyes and said, "Put you six feet under!"
This caused Steward to stop talking before Horatio followed through on his threat early. With that said Horatio stormed out of the room, he needed to calm down before he did something he regret. Well he wouldn't regret hurting or even killing Steward but he didn't want Calleigh or the kids to have to deal with the after math of something like that.
Horatio and Calleigh drove home that evening, both had thoughts running rapint about what the last 42 hours held. And all they wanted to do was see their kids. As Horatio pulled the hummer into the drive way he turned the car off and looked at Calleigh she just looked at her hands lost in thought. He slowly grabbed her left hand and squeezed it to get her attention.
"You okay?" Horatio asked his wife.
She looked up at him, tears in her eyes and said, "Does it make me a bad person if I was thankful it wasn't Belle, when I saw the resempalence?" Horatio sighed. "No sweetheart, it makes you a mother. Who would do anything to make sure her children were safe. And I was thankful too."
She took in a shack breath and whipped the tears from her eyes. "Come on Handsome, let's go see the kids." Calleigh said, with a watery smile. Horatio smiled back and kissed her before letting her out of the hummer.
Once inside, the house was quiet which was something new for the Caine household. The lights were off and the only sound was coming from the fan's in the house. Horatio and Calleigh walked around the house calling for Kyle and Bell to no avail they checked the kids room, the play room, the living room, game room, back yard, everywhere but still couldn't find the kids. They were both officially terrified and were about to call the cops when they heard a loud snore coming from their room.
Slowly Horatio opened their bedroom door, Calleigh right behind him, and where greeted by the sight of Kyle and Belle snuggled up in their bed. Kyle in jeans and a t-shirt, while Belle was in her yellow princess pajamas. Narnia was laying on Kyle's chest opened to the middle of the book. Calleigh and Horatio could only watch as happy tears streamed down both their faces. Their babies were fine and they knew they would have a long happy life together.
So they carefully kissed their kids good night and slid into bed, on Calleigh's side seeing as how the kids where hogging Horatio's, and went to sleep basically as soon as their heads hit the pillows. And their minds were finally at peace.