Title: Framed
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not my characters, blah, blah, so forth. Thanks to HG for naming Breeze and to Marianne for a quick consultation on which dog breed Speed reminds us most of.
Series to Date: Fearful Symmetry, Can't Fight This Feeling, Gold Medals, Surprises, Honeymoon, Blackout, the Hopes and Fears, Anniversary. All archived at Lonely Road.
Preview of Coming Attractions: I'll give you a preview at the end of this one. I don't want you trying to work out the next story instead of focusing on Framed. This one is serious angst, next one is serious angst, and the one after that is light and fluffy to give you a chance to catch your breath.
A/N: Okay, so the title gives it away, and everyone knows where I'm going. Enjoy the journey anyway, will you? This story keys from Fearful Symmetry and Anniversary. Even if you haven't read the rest of the series, you must read those two first to make any sense of this one. And remember while reading this one (and the next one, for that matter), I absolutely, unequivocally state that I will NEVER write a story that does not have a happy ending. Life has enough unhappy endings; I refuse to add to the total. I just don't promise that getting there will be easy. Hope you enjoy Framed. Cliffhanger warnings apply.
***
"Whose grave's this?" . . . "One that was a woman, sir; but rest her soul, she's dead."
William Shakespeare, Hamlet
***
They pounded up the hill on even terms. Calleigh put every ounce of determination into the effort, but she still couldn't shake him. He ran by her side as fluidly as a gazelle. As always, the fact that he wouldn't charge on ahead made her think for a minute that he was at the limit, but every time she found more, so did he. She started laughing finally, the race dissolving in the face of her humor. He stopped instantly when she did, smiling at her. She did at least have the satisfaction of seeing that he was sweating. "One of these days, Horatio Caine," she panted, "I'm going to beat you up that hill."
"I look forward to it," he said and ducked as she swung at him.
"How much faster could you do it? I know you're holding back for me."
"Oh, we're getting close to the limit." He pulled out his water bottle and offered it to her first, ever the gentleman. She sucked the cool liquid in eagerly as they started walking back toward home.
"Yeah, right," she protested when she finally came up for air. "You have an unfair advantage over me in running, you know. If my legs were as long as yours, I'd beat you." She returned the water bottle, and he took a drink himself.
"If it makes you feel any better, Cal, I promise to get thoroughly humiliated by you at something else." He took another swallow of the water. "We really were pushing it today, though. I'm getting too old to take a week off." This Sunday run was the first time in a week that either of them had even been out of the house. They had spent the last two days sleeping, both slowly recharging from a hellish week that had drained them completely but that Horatio had called the best it had been in 29 years. She still cringed thinking of what he must be comparing it to.
"Horatio, you aren't old. We're growing young together, remember?" He grinned at her and tucked her arm under his lightly as they walked on.
"Thank you again for staying with me this week. It made a big difference. I'm almost glad you've got this conference, though."
"Trying to get rid of me?"
"Not on your life. I just think you need a break after babysitting me for a week."
She squeezed his arm. "Some of our activities would have gotten any babysitter arrested." He gave her his quirky smile. "And it isn't babysitting, Horatio. It's called marriage. Sharing life together, no matter what. It's worth it. You're worth it." She hadn't realized until this last week that he had had someone in his life tell him he wasn't worth it, that no one would ever think he was worth it. The idea of his ex-wife dropping that load on Horatio, who already had been through more than ten people should have to face, still raised her blood pressure.
"I keep telling you, Calleigh, Marcella wasn't a bad person. It just wasn't love. This is." He squeezed her in turn.
"Horatio, I think you're a mind reader."
"No, you should see your eyes when you get mad. You can almost hear the bullets dropping into the chambers. Totally lethal. Impossible to miss."
She laughed, shaken out of the mood. "You should see yours. If mine are guns, yours are lasers." They walked on a way. "Are you sure you'll be okay tonight?"
"Positive. I always sleep like a baby these nights. Reaction to the last week, I guess."
She still was slightly uneasy. She was leaving this afternoon, driving to a two-day weapons conference upstate that started tomorrow morning. Calleigh had been invited to give a talk on ballistics techniques on Tuesday morning, her first ever speaking invitation, and Horatio had insisted she take it, saying that a conference on April 10th and 11th would be well past the point when he would have any problems. She studied him surreptitiously as they walked. His eyes were clear, the granite lines of his face relaxed. He did indeed seem fine now, just still a little tired. And he ought to know, after so many years. Still . . . "I wish you were coming with me."
"So do I. I'd love to hear you Tuesday. I'll be thinking of you, whatever I'm doing then." His eyes rested on her with a love and pride that warmed her clear to her toes. Not lasers at all right now but blue suns. She could almost feel her soul stretching like a flower to meet them, drawing sustenance from him.
"It's only for two nights, at least. The conference ends early enough that I can drive back Tuesday night. Might get home late, though." Surely he would be all right alone for just two days. He would have the rest of the team to talk to and work to bury himself in. Not much could happen between now and Tuesday night, she told herself.
"I'll wait up for you. Got to welcome you home. Look at it this way, Cal. This is the first time one of us has been to a conference that I'll get to kiss you goodbye."
She rested her own eyes on him, sizing up his lean, vibrant form. "I had something more extensive in mind." Not pistols at all now, he thought, but kaleidoscopes of warm invitation that pulled his soul in.
"Why are we walking so slowly, then?" He picked up an easy jog, and she fell into step beside him, heading for home. Her home. His home. Their home. In spite of the last week, Calleigh had never in her life felt so loved and secure. Nothing could overcome them there, not even their demons of the past. She sped up, eager to get back, and he increased his pace as well, matching her stride exactly, never running on ahead.
***
Horatio entered CSI Monday morning eager to get back into harness. Speed was talking to Alexx in the hallway as he came in, and he headed that way, glad to see his friends again, even though it had only been a week.
"So there's this girl . . .Hey, H. How was vacation?"
"Even better than I'd hoped for," he said truthfully. He was trying to sound casual, but Alexx shot him an odd look. Speed didn't notice anything behind the remark, focused on his own point.
"Anyway, Alexx, I met this woman back just before Christmas. That night I went out with Eric to a club. She was great, and we really hit it off. She rides a bike, even." Eric wandered out of the break room, coffee in hand, and joined them.
"So what's the problem you wanted my advice on?" asked Alexx.
"Well, turns out, she was just visiting relatives here. She lived in Vermont. So we never even got a chance to go out. We gave each other our numbers, though, and we've talked a few times and written e-mails and stuff."
"You wrote a woman for five months?" Eric couldn't believe it.
"Sounds serious," said Horatio with a smile.
"She wrote more than I did," Speed admitted. "Then I got a call this weekend from her. She's got a job down in Miami, and she's moved down here. So I asked her out for tomorrow night."
"Still don't see a problem," said Alexx.
"The thing is, what do we do?"
Eric snorted. "You've been on dates before."
"Yeah, but I don't want to screw up on this one. She's really nice. So do I take her out to a nice restaurant? Not so nice restaurant? Or maybe I should cook something at my place. Only my cooking isn't great. Maybe we could order pizza. I mean, how much of a date should I consider it? We've never even been out. Maybe she just wants to get away from unpacking." Speed was so sincere that Horatio felt like laughing at his expression, but he stifled the urge. Speed did need a good, steady girlfriend, and if he'd actually written to this one for the last five months, she seemed like a promising candidate.
Alexx assumed her motherly advice expression. "If you've been in touch with her since December, and given that she called you, I think you can safely call it a date. More than just welcome to Miami. On what to do, just think of what you'd like to do. How would you want to spend an evening?"
"Pizza, beer, and movies," said Speed. "But what if she's expecting something else?"
"If she's expecting something else, you can just agree to be friends. That's worth a lot right there. But don't put on an act for her. That's no way to start things off. Let her see who you are, then let her decide whether to go on with it."
"Maybe I should clean up the apartment a bit, though," Speed wondered.
"Man, you really -are- serious," said Eric. Joking aside, he was thrilled for his friend.
"Cleaning up the apartment a bit wouldn't hurt," offered Horatio. "Just draw the line at wearing a formal tux for her. The letdown later would be too much." The idea of Speed in a formal tux cracked them all up, Speed included.
"You mean that brunette at the club at Christmas, right? Breeze?"
Speed was impressed. "How'd you remember her name? You can't remember who you went out with a month ago."
"I thought you two looked cute together."
Speed punched his friend lightly on the arm. "I don't -want- to look cute, Delko. If she wants cute, she can get a kitten."
Horatio intervened. "Her name is Breeze?"
"Actually, it's Dana Silver. Breeze is a biking joke. She said she'd outraced all the guys in her home town."
"Well, we all wish you luck," said Alexx sincerely.
Horatio's cell phone rang, and he snapped it open. "Horatio. Where? We're on it." He closed the phone and looked at his team, all of them suddenly serious and professional. "We've got a DB found in a field outside Miami. Woman in an open grave. Let's go."
***
The team exited the Hummer at the edge of a field, and Tripp ducked under the crime scene tape to meet them. "We've got a really sick perp here," he warned. "He poured acid or something on her face. Totally destroyed it."
They followed him to the grave. It was about a foot deep, long enough to lay the body in full length, but there had been no attempt to cover it at all. The sight shook all of them for a minute, even as seasoned as they were. Blood covered the woman's chest, probably from a gunshot wound to the heart, Horatio decided. Her hair had been completely shaved off, and acid had been poured over the features until the face was totally disintegrated. No one would be identifying this body from a photo. In fact, Horatio hoped that her relatives would never have to see her.
"Just the face," he said with quiet respect. "Hopefully she was dead first, at least."
Delko was snapping pictures. "Maybe her fingerprints are on file. Hands look pretty intact."
"Too intact," said Horatio. "See the plastic?" The long clear sheet of plastic was under the body with flaps resting on the edges of the grave. "That was over her completely, wasn't it, Tripp?"
"Right. Tucked in around the edges, too. The man who found her opened it up, to see if she was alive."
"Bet he has nightmares tonight," said Speed. He thought he might have them himself.
"And the plastic protected the body from flies and insects. It slowed down decomp." Horatio tilted his head slightly, studying the whole scene. He had the oddest sense of familiarity here, like he had run into a case similar to this one before. For once, though, his file cabinet memory failed him. He looked around further. "The perp came into the field from that direction, but he raked over all of his footprints and tire tracks. Not a hope of casts."
"This guy thinks of everything," said Speed.
"They never think of everything," corrected Horatio. He knelt at the edge of the grave, inspecting her more closely, leaning over the face without touching it. "We need to be careful handling this one. Whatever kind of acid he's used, we don't want it on our hands. It might eat through normal gloves, so everybody take extra precautions." The team nodded. Alexx knelt on the other side of the grave, probing the chest wound, not the face.
"Bullet to the heart. At least you never felt the rest of it, did you, angel?"
Horatio was fishing in her pockets. No ID, but he did pull out a folded typed note. It was dated at the top, April 4th, but started without a name. He read it out loud. "Meet me at 10:00 tonight at the truck stop. You know which one. Good news. Karen."
"A woman perp?" Eric couldn't imagine a woman doing this. On the other hand, it was hard to imagine anyone doing this.
"I don't think so," said Horatio, thinking it through. "Probably just a decoy, to get her there. We'll try to find Karen after we get an ID, though. The big question is, why leave the note on the body? What does it tell us?"
"The name," Speed suggested. "The perp wants to frame Karen."
"Could be," said Horatio, "but I think the important part is the date. April 4th. He's telling us when she died. And in an open grave, he wanted her found. But why?" He stood up and looked around again. The grave was far enough off the road for privacy, especially in the dark, but not so far that it wouldn't be found within a week or so. The road was fairly busy. "How was she found, Tripp?"
"Truck driver. He stopped and went into the field to take a leak."
"I want his shoes, to compare to these footprints. They have to be his, though. You can see this whole area has been raked. Hopefully there's more on the body to talk to us." He studied the grave again and shook his head slightly.
"H?" Speed was puzzled.
"I keep feeling like I've run into something like this before. Some case I read about, maybe, not one I worked on. I can't quite capture it, though."
"We can run details through the databases," said Eric. "Open graves, acid. See if we can match the perp's signature."
"One thing I do remember," said Horatio. "I was at a conference about two years ago, and an FBI profiler gave a talk on criminals. He said that when the face is obliterated beyond anything needed for death, it's usually a relative or someone close to the vic. Someone with a personal vendetta. It's an attempt to depersonalize her, rub out her identity. Shaving off all her hair does the same thing. So, the first thing is to get an ID, then check out her relatives and friends. Maybe there's more trace evidence on the body. And let's check the plastic for fingerprints, too, although anyone smart enough to rake out the tire tracks probably wore gloves. Also, Speed, measure the raked area. He wouldn't have done more than he had to, not in the dark. It at least gives us width of the vehicle." The team stepped back, and the ME's people, wearing heavy duty gloves, started carefully removing the body from the grave. What a start to the week, Horatio thought. Whoever you are, you didn't think of everything. You will pay for this. He turned and headed for the Hummer.
***
Horatio entered the autopsy room and carefully pulled on a set of heavy duty gloves. Alexx was already wearing hers. "What can you tell me, Alexx?"
"I'm just getting started. We took samples of the face, to try to identify the acid. Maybe it's hard to get hold of."
"Good idea. The boys can try to track it down."
"The body has been very carefully handled, but I also did recover one hair from the face tissue. I sent it up to trace. We also took her fingerprints. Eric's going to run them. I'm just trying to recover the bullet, now." She probed in the wound. "Ah, there you are." She pulled out the piece of metal, and Horatio provided a container to put it in.
"We'll get that down to Ballistics. I wish Calleigh was here." He smiled, thinking of her, and Alexx grinned back at him across the body.
"There are other ballistics staff."
"Not like her."
"Nobody's quite like her," Alexx agreed. Alexx started gingerly removing the clothes from the body to send them for analysis. Horatio helped her, rolling the woman gently from side to side. Alexx dropped the shirt in one of their paper sacks, then went to the feet, removing the shoes and socks. "Poor baby, we'll get who did this to you. What do we have here?" She had stopped with the left sock halfway off. "A birthmark. That's an odd looking one."
Horatio came around beside her, looking over her shoulder. The woman had an irregular brown splotch on the inside of her left ankle, about two inches across, shaped like a flower with some of the petals missing. Horatio abruptly felt dizzy and caught the edge of the table for support.
"Horatio! Are you okay?" Alexx hesitated halfway to grabbing his arm, not wanting to get the acid on her gloves on him.
His voice was tight, distant. "We can forget the fingerprints, Alexx. I can identify her. This is my ex-wife."
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not my characters, blah, blah, so forth. Thanks to HG for naming Breeze and to Marianne for a quick consultation on which dog breed Speed reminds us most of.
Series to Date: Fearful Symmetry, Can't Fight This Feeling, Gold Medals, Surprises, Honeymoon, Blackout, the Hopes and Fears, Anniversary. All archived at Lonely Road.
Preview of Coming Attractions: I'll give you a preview at the end of this one. I don't want you trying to work out the next story instead of focusing on Framed. This one is serious angst, next one is serious angst, and the one after that is light and fluffy to give you a chance to catch your breath.
A/N: Okay, so the title gives it away, and everyone knows where I'm going. Enjoy the journey anyway, will you? This story keys from Fearful Symmetry and Anniversary. Even if you haven't read the rest of the series, you must read those two first to make any sense of this one. And remember while reading this one (and the next one, for that matter), I absolutely, unequivocally state that I will NEVER write a story that does not have a happy ending. Life has enough unhappy endings; I refuse to add to the total. I just don't promise that getting there will be easy. Hope you enjoy Framed. Cliffhanger warnings apply.
***
"Whose grave's this?" . . . "One that was a woman, sir; but rest her soul, she's dead."
William Shakespeare, Hamlet
***
They pounded up the hill on even terms. Calleigh put every ounce of determination into the effort, but she still couldn't shake him. He ran by her side as fluidly as a gazelle. As always, the fact that he wouldn't charge on ahead made her think for a minute that he was at the limit, but every time she found more, so did he. She started laughing finally, the race dissolving in the face of her humor. He stopped instantly when she did, smiling at her. She did at least have the satisfaction of seeing that he was sweating. "One of these days, Horatio Caine," she panted, "I'm going to beat you up that hill."
"I look forward to it," he said and ducked as she swung at him.
"How much faster could you do it? I know you're holding back for me."
"Oh, we're getting close to the limit." He pulled out his water bottle and offered it to her first, ever the gentleman. She sucked the cool liquid in eagerly as they started walking back toward home.
"Yeah, right," she protested when she finally came up for air. "You have an unfair advantage over me in running, you know. If my legs were as long as yours, I'd beat you." She returned the water bottle, and he took a drink himself.
"If it makes you feel any better, Cal, I promise to get thoroughly humiliated by you at something else." He took another swallow of the water. "We really were pushing it today, though. I'm getting too old to take a week off." This Sunday run was the first time in a week that either of them had even been out of the house. They had spent the last two days sleeping, both slowly recharging from a hellish week that had drained them completely but that Horatio had called the best it had been in 29 years. She still cringed thinking of what he must be comparing it to.
"Horatio, you aren't old. We're growing young together, remember?" He grinned at her and tucked her arm under his lightly as they walked on.
"Thank you again for staying with me this week. It made a big difference. I'm almost glad you've got this conference, though."
"Trying to get rid of me?"
"Not on your life. I just think you need a break after babysitting me for a week."
She squeezed his arm. "Some of our activities would have gotten any babysitter arrested." He gave her his quirky smile. "And it isn't babysitting, Horatio. It's called marriage. Sharing life together, no matter what. It's worth it. You're worth it." She hadn't realized until this last week that he had had someone in his life tell him he wasn't worth it, that no one would ever think he was worth it. The idea of his ex-wife dropping that load on Horatio, who already had been through more than ten people should have to face, still raised her blood pressure.
"I keep telling you, Calleigh, Marcella wasn't a bad person. It just wasn't love. This is." He squeezed her in turn.
"Horatio, I think you're a mind reader."
"No, you should see your eyes when you get mad. You can almost hear the bullets dropping into the chambers. Totally lethal. Impossible to miss."
She laughed, shaken out of the mood. "You should see yours. If mine are guns, yours are lasers." They walked on a way. "Are you sure you'll be okay tonight?"
"Positive. I always sleep like a baby these nights. Reaction to the last week, I guess."
She still was slightly uneasy. She was leaving this afternoon, driving to a two-day weapons conference upstate that started tomorrow morning. Calleigh had been invited to give a talk on ballistics techniques on Tuesday morning, her first ever speaking invitation, and Horatio had insisted she take it, saying that a conference on April 10th and 11th would be well past the point when he would have any problems. She studied him surreptitiously as they walked. His eyes were clear, the granite lines of his face relaxed. He did indeed seem fine now, just still a little tired. And he ought to know, after so many years. Still . . . "I wish you were coming with me."
"So do I. I'd love to hear you Tuesday. I'll be thinking of you, whatever I'm doing then." His eyes rested on her with a love and pride that warmed her clear to her toes. Not lasers at all right now but blue suns. She could almost feel her soul stretching like a flower to meet them, drawing sustenance from him.
"It's only for two nights, at least. The conference ends early enough that I can drive back Tuesday night. Might get home late, though." Surely he would be all right alone for just two days. He would have the rest of the team to talk to and work to bury himself in. Not much could happen between now and Tuesday night, she told herself.
"I'll wait up for you. Got to welcome you home. Look at it this way, Cal. This is the first time one of us has been to a conference that I'll get to kiss you goodbye."
She rested her own eyes on him, sizing up his lean, vibrant form. "I had something more extensive in mind." Not pistols at all now, he thought, but kaleidoscopes of warm invitation that pulled his soul in.
"Why are we walking so slowly, then?" He picked up an easy jog, and she fell into step beside him, heading for home. Her home. His home. Their home. In spite of the last week, Calleigh had never in her life felt so loved and secure. Nothing could overcome them there, not even their demons of the past. She sped up, eager to get back, and he increased his pace as well, matching her stride exactly, never running on ahead.
***
Horatio entered CSI Monday morning eager to get back into harness. Speed was talking to Alexx in the hallway as he came in, and he headed that way, glad to see his friends again, even though it had only been a week.
"So there's this girl . . .Hey, H. How was vacation?"
"Even better than I'd hoped for," he said truthfully. He was trying to sound casual, but Alexx shot him an odd look. Speed didn't notice anything behind the remark, focused on his own point.
"Anyway, Alexx, I met this woman back just before Christmas. That night I went out with Eric to a club. She was great, and we really hit it off. She rides a bike, even." Eric wandered out of the break room, coffee in hand, and joined them.
"So what's the problem you wanted my advice on?" asked Alexx.
"Well, turns out, she was just visiting relatives here. She lived in Vermont. So we never even got a chance to go out. We gave each other our numbers, though, and we've talked a few times and written e-mails and stuff."
"You wrote a woman for five months?" Eric couldn't believe it.
"Sounds serious," said Horatio with a smile.
"She wrote more than I did," Speed admitted. "Then I got a call this weekend from her. She's got a job down in Miami, and she's moved down here. So I asked her out for tomorrow night."
"Still don't see a problem," said Alexx.
"The thing is, what do we do?"
Eric snorted. "You've been on dates before."
"Yeah, but I don't want to screw up on this one. She's really nice. So do I take her out to a nice restaurant? Not so nice restaurant? Or maybe I should cook something at my place. Only my cooking isn't great. Maybe we could order pizza. I mean, how much of a date should I consider it? We've never even been out. Maybe she just wants to get away from unpacking." Speed was so sincere that Horatio felt like laughing at his expression, but he stifled the urge. Speed did need a good, steady girlfriend, and if he'd actually written to this one for the last five months, she seemed like a promising candidate.
Alexx assumed her motherly advice expression. "If you've been in touch with her since December, and given that she called you, I think you can safely call it a date. More than just welcome to Miami. On what to do, just think of what you'd like to do. How would you want to spend an evening?"
"Pizza, beer, and movies," said Speed. "But what if she's expecting something else?"
"If she's expecting something else, you can just agree to be friends. That's worth a lot right there. But don't put on an act for her. That's no way to start things off. Let her see who you are, then let her decide whether to go on with it."
"Maybe I should clean up the apartment a bit, though," Speed wondered.
"Man, you really -are- serious," said Eric. Joking aside, he was thrilled for his friend.
"Cleaning up the apartment a bit wouldn't hurt," offered Horatio. "Just draw the line at wearing a formal tux for her. The letdown later would be too much." The idea of Speed in a formal tux cracked them all up, Speed included.
"You mean that brunette at the club at Christmas, right? Breeze?"
Speed was impressed. "How'd you remember her name? You can't remember who you went out with a month ago."
"I thought you two looked cute together."
Speed punched his friend lightly on the arm. "I don't -want- to look cute, Delko. If she wants cute, she can get a kitten."
Horatio intervened. "Her name is Breeze?"
"Actually, it's Dana Silver. Breeze is a biking joke. She said she'd outraced all the guys in her home town."
"Well, we all wish you luck," said Alexx sincerely.
Horatio's cell phone rang, and he snapped it open. "Horatio. Where? We're on it." He closed the phone and looked at his team, all of them suddenly serious and professional. "We've got a DB found in a field outside Miami. Woman in an open grave. Let's go."
***
The team exited the Hummer at the edge of a field, and Tripp ducked under the crime scene tape to meet them. "We've got a really sick perp here," he warned. "He poured acid or something on her face. Totally destroyed it."
They followed him to the grave. It was about a foot deep, long enough to lay the body in full length, but there had been no attempt to cover it at all. The sight shook all of them for a minute, even as seasoned as they were. Blood covered the woman's chest, probably from a gunshot wound to the heart, Horatio decided. Her hair had been completely shaved off, and acid had been poured over the features until the face was totally disintegrated. No one would be identifying this body from a photo. In fact, Horatio hoped that her relatives would never have to see her.
"Just the face," he said with quiet respect. "Hopefully she was dead first, at least."
Delko was snapping pictures. "Maybe her fingerprints are on file. Hands look pretty intact."
"Too intact," said Horatio. "See the plastic?" The long clear sheet of plastic was under the body with flaps resting on the edges of the grave. "That was over her completely, wasn't it, Tripp?"
"Right. Tucked in around the edges, too. The man who found her opened it up, to see if she was alive."
"Bet he has nightmares tonight," said Speed. He thought he might have them himself.
"And the plastic protected the body from flies and insects. It slowed down decomp." Horatio tilted his head slightly, studying the whole scene. He had the oddest sense of familiarity here, like he had run into a case similar to this one before. For once, though, his file cabinet memory failed him. He looked around further. "The perp came into the field from that direction, but he raked over all of his footprints and tire tracks. Not a hope of casts."
"This guy thinks of everything," said Speed.
"They never think of everything," corrected Horatio. He knelt at the edge of the grave, inspecting her more closely, leaning over the face without touching it. "We need to be careful handling this one. Whatever kind of acid he's used, we don't want it on our hands. It might eat through normal gloves, so everybody take extra precautions." The team nodded. Alexx knelt on the other side of the grave, probing the chest wound, not the face.
"Bullet to the heart. At least you never felt the rest of it, did you, angel?"
Horatio was fishing in her pockets. No ID, but he did pull out a folded typed note. It was dated at the top, April 4th, but started without a name. He read it out loud. "Meet me at 10:00 tonight at the truck stop. You know which one. Good news. Karen."
"A woman perp?" Eric couldn't imagine a woman doing this. On the other hand, it was hard to imagine anyone doing this.
"I don't think so," said Horatio, thinking it through. "Probably just a decoy, to get her there. We'll try to find Karen after we get an ID, though. The big question is, why leave the note on the body? What does it tell us?"
"The name," Speed suggested. "The perp wants to frame Karen."
"Could be," said Horatio, "but I think the important part is the date. April 4th. He's telling us when she died. And in an open grave, he wanted her found. But why?" He stood up and looked around again. The grave was far enough off the road for privacy, especially in the dark, but not so far that it wouldn't be found within a week or so. The road was fairly busy. "How was she found, Tripp?"
"Truck driver. He stopped and went into the field to take a leak."
"I want his shoes, to compare to these footprints. They have to be his, though. You can see this whole area has been raked. Hopefully there's more on the body to talk to us." He studied the grave again and shook his head slightly.
"H?" Speed was puzzled.
"I keep feeling like I've run into something like this before. Some case I read about, maybe, not one I worked on. I can't quite capture it, though."
"We can run details through the databases," said Eric. "Open graves, acid. See if we can match the perp's signature."
"One thing I do remember," said Horatio. "I was at a conference about two years ago, and an FBI profiler gave a talk on criminals. He said that when the face is obliterated beyond anything needed for death, it's usually a relative or someone close to the vic. Someone with a personal vendetta. It's an attempt to depersonalize her, rub out her identity. Shaving off all her hair does the same thing. So, the first thing is to get an ID, then check out her relatives and friends. Maybe there's more trace evidence on the body. And let's check the plastic for fingerprints, too, although anyone smart enough to rake out the tire tracks probably wore gloves. Also, Speed, measure the raked area. He wouldn't have done more than he had to, not in the dark. It at least gives us width of the vehicle." The team stepped back, and the ME's people, wearing heavy duty gloves, started carefully removing the body from the grave. What a start to the week, Horatio thought. Whoever you are, you didn't think of everything. You will pay for this. He turned and headed for the Hummer.
***
Horatio entered the autopsy room and carefully pulled on a set of heavy duty gloves. Alexx was already wearing hers. "What can you tell me, Alexx?"
"I'm just getting started. We took samples of the face, to try to identify the acid. Maybe it's hard to get hold of."
"Good idea. The boys can try to track it down."
"The body has been very carefully handled, but I also did recover one hair from the face tissue. I sent it up to trace. We also took her fingerprints. Eric's going to run them. I'm just trying to recover the bullet, now." She probed in the wound. "Ah, there you are." She pulled out the piece of metal, and Horatio provided a container to put it in.
"We'll get that down to Ballistics. I wish Calleigh was here." He smiled, thinking of her, and Alexx grinned back at him across the body.
"There are other ballistics staff."
"Not like her."
"Nobody's quite like her," Alexx agreed. Alexx started gingerly removing the clothes from the body to send them for analysis. Horatio helped her, rolling the woman gently from side to side. Alexx dropped the shirt in one of their paper sacks, then went to the feet, removing the shoes and socks. "Poor baby, we'll get who did this to you. What do we have here?" She had stopped with the left sock halfway off. "A birthmark. That's an odd looking one."
Horatio came around beside her, looking over her shoulder. The woman had an irregular brown splotch on the inside of her left ankle, about two inches across, shaped like a flower with some of the petals missing. Horatio abruptly felt dizzy and caught the edge of the table for support.
"Horatio! Are you okay?" Alexx hesitated halfway to grabbing his arm, not wanting to get the acid on her gloves on him.
His voice was tight, distant. "We can forget the fingerprints, Alexx. I can identify her. This is my ex-wife."