Can't Wipe It Off
PART 1
She groaned loudly, trying to kick as hard as she could to get him to back off. Her legs stung with effort and the taste of salty tears fell dripped to her lips in a constant stream.
"Please… I'm sorry, just please stop." She tried to speak but her voice barely rose above a whisper as the man overtook her and everything went black.
§
"Mother was found in the closet, her body was raped and mutilated with some sort of knife." Calleigh looked up from the bloodstain on the carpet to make eye contact with Horatio. "There is a husband and a daughter. He's in New York on a business trip, and the girl is missing."
She stood up and looked around the room. Retracing the bloody footsteps to the bed, Calleigh found she felt nauseated and disgusted. Blood spatter was everywhere: the windows and walls. A woman so unsuspecting was now lying dead in the closet, a rope wrapped around her neck and wrists.
"So, we have a kidnapping?" asked Lt. Horatio Caine, his eyebrows furrowing above his sunglasses. "Or do we know where the daughter is?"
"She was supposed to have been in the house." Alexx Woods made an entrance from the large walk in closet, pulling off her red stained latex gloves. "But there is no trace of her anywhere. And if she was found by the same guy who did that," she motioned to the closet, "Honey, I hope that she didn't suffer."
Horatio nodded his head and turned to face the window. "Well, first things first… we need to find daddy."
§
"What have you got Alexx?"
The medical examiner looked up from the swollen and very much dead body of Maria Sine. "Well, although the killing was messy, it's been hard to find a trace of anyone. It's like the person who did it has done it before. See these?" She motioned to several cuts on the woman's abdomen. "You would think that traces from a knife or whatever object would have caused and infection of some sort, or even left a trace. Nothing. It's like the killer sanitized his weapons."
Horatio stood hushed for a moment. The humming of the refrigerated holds for the bodies covered the silence of his thoughts. "The rope?"
"I sent it to the lab. Calleigh is looking at it right now. Unless this woman is hiding something, our hope is based on Calleigh's finds."
"Not just ours… her daughter is missing."
Without warning the metal doors burst open and Eric strode through, his face frozen deep in concentration. "We've got the husband, and a ransom note."
§
"It was mailed to me. I-I mean e-mailed. I brought my laptop if you need it." Mr. George Sine looked up through his thick lenses, magnifying his dark eyes. He ran a hand through the light blonde hair, which contrasted his skin tone. His face was swollen from crying.
"Mr. Sine, where have you been during the past three days?" Horatio leaned over the table, his stature defensive.
"New York city. I was staying in th-the Hilton hotel; the one near Astoria. I was there for a business trip… I manage a company- Alcrop. We help to distribute proper agricultural farming methods around the United States. Pesticides and insecticides are made in our company and approved by the government along with safer farming practice and things like that." A bead of sweat rolled down round face.
"Do you have any proof of where you stayed and when you were there, Mr. Sine?"
"Receipts," burst the man. "I keep all my receipts." He smiled genuinely.
"Good, we will need all of them." Horatio turned his back on the man and strolled out.
Once on the other side of the glass he saw his colleague and with a frown approached him. "Eric, is there anything you noticed about the man?" asked Horatio.
"Well…" Eric stroked his chin thoughtfully. "He never did ask about his wife or daughter. Even when we took him into custody. He just kept… defending himself."
"Precisely."
Eric watched Horatio walk away, his thoughts based on the girl. The ransom note wasn't really a ransom note, merely a threat. Nothing that could help them--no meeting places or secret passwords. They had found a picture of her in the home and kept it as evidence. She was blonde like her father, but rather than having his dark complexion, she was pale. Blue eyes and a wide smile were flaunted—she was also tainted looking; older than seventeen. Carrie Sine.
He looked into the glass room once more before strolling away.
§
Calleigh examined the rope, cell phone, and random artifacts found at the crime scene. Much like Alexx, her investigation wasn't getting very far. Although she had gone over the rope a thousand times, it appeared that the murderer was either experienced or well researched. She had assumed that with the rope being so tight around the victim's neck, epidermis would be covering it. However, she was wrong.
She looked over the other objects. A cell phone, which, by going through the contacts, she learned, belong to Maria Sine. The only fingerprints belonged to the victim and another female who Calleigh suspected to be her daughter. All outgoing and incoming calls had been erased, and the battery was full.
She turned the rope over in her hands and looked closer, peering until her neck hurt. She had decided to look one last time when a tiny fragment caught her eye. Almost embedded in the weave of the rope was a small piece of white material… almost like saran wrap. She grinned momentarily before analyzing it even more thoroughly to discover it was latex; most likely, a rubber glove.
The door to her lab opened up and Horatio stepped in. She smiled at him.
"You're just in time," she said, her accent a little thicker than usual. "Alexx was right. Our murderer knew what he or she was doing." She lifted up the fragmented piece of substance. "Latex—most likely from a rubber glove."
Horatio cocked an eyebrow. "Now who would have everyday access to rubber gloves?"
"Lots of people; doctors, nurses, people who work with chemicals or harmful compounds. Anything that's messy. However," she placed the material into an unshapely machine and clicked one of the buttons. "If we can find out exactly what its composition is, we can find the brand. I know it's a long shot, but maybe it is a private company, one that distributes only to businesses directly. Not for the general public."
Horatio looked down for a moment, thinking once again of the kidnapped girl. "Well, if it comes from some sort of factory—that is what Mr. Sine works in isn't it? That sort of industry work? Chemicals and pesticides and how they should or should not be used. Maybe someone is blackmailing Mr. Sine."
"How so?" Calleigh continued to focus on the computer next to the machine.
"Well, maybe Mr. Sine evokes jealousy. Staying in the Hilton Hotel, attending meeting and have a good time. Maybe his workers are jealous."
Calleigh looked up from the computer. "It's a good theory, but not plausible." She pressed a button on the keyboard and looked up the screen on the other end of the room. "Our glove came from a private company that distributes its products to private clinics across Miami. All nine hundred of them."
§
"Mr. Sine, we need to know if you know anyone in the medical field. Nurses, doctors, specialists? Anyone you know personally." Eric looked down on him, his eyes appearing hard.
"I don't think so… no. Not anyone except my doctor. And I see him twice a year."
Eric walked up closer to the table and leaned on it, trying to appear menacing. "How about anyone who works in a clinic or hospital?"
George's eyes darted left and right before he stared straight back Eric. "No." He replied with a single word, and quite deftly looked away. "I want a lawyer. All this questioning; it's like you think I murdered my wife!"
Eric turned around and before walking out of the room gave George a nasty grin. "Around here, it's guilty until proven innocent George."
Eric slammed the door behind him and walked right into Calleigh. "Sorry!" He jumped back and shuffled nervously.
"Nothing then?" She brushed a strand of hair back into place before peering through the one way mirror. "He must know something. There is no way it's random. Whoever did this knew the house and knew it well. The only footsteps lead to and from the bedroom. They didn't wander or look around or steal anything—"
"Except a seventeen year old girl."
§
She looked up in shook at her captor. She thought him to be innocent of anything like this. A harmless man. Her friend even.
"Where is my dad?" She yelled across the room and listened to the echo. "Does he know you've got me?" Her voice was high and shrill and cracked because of lack of water. She was hanging from a hook in the middle of a dark room, her wrists bound and tied around the clasp. Her knees grazed the floor and she was positive that wherever she was, was a basement.
The man walked up to her, his beard appeared to be covered in filth. "Do I need to make you shut up?" Her eyes widened as he pulled out a gun and pushed the barrel into her shoulder. "Do I?"
She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I won't do it again. Give me another chance."
"I don't believe in second chances."