Wednesday night
Sorry, we are short-handed. That was all Grissom had said when he gave Sara the information about her new case. A 419 in a house far outside the city, almost in the desert. How was she supposed to process a whole house alone?
With even less enthusiasm she arrived at the address. An old house, she guessed around hundred years old. Solid wooden walls, the windows dirty, the garden savage. The house and its surroundings needed a good clean up.
Waiting for her in the hallway was the smuggest of all detectives: Sofia Curtis. Sometimes cases couldn't get worse.
"DB is upstairs, first room, left side."
The house looked old and dirty from the outside, it was worse in the inside. Everything was covered in dust, everything looked broken. At least the hallway, the place Sara saw.
"Thanks." Sara walked up the stairs. Under each of her steps the wooden steps made a sound like they wanted to break and pull her down in more dust and dirt. Old portraits on the wall of people who looked like they died centuries ago, watched each of her steps.
The first room on the left side was a bedroom. The bed, probably the same age like the house, looked unused. The body in front of it looks – like an ordinary body. Except for the fact that Sara couldn't see any wound or cause of death.
She crawled down to the man. She guessed, he was in his forties. No gunshot wound, no signs of strangulation, no stab wounds, no blood around. He looked like he was sleeping. Beside one thing: his face. His eyes were wide open, they were brown and looked like he was scared. Well, somebody killed him; he had all reasons to be scared.
"Scary, isn't it?"
Sara jumped a little bit.
"Why don't you make some noise when you walk up the stairs?"
"I did. You didn't pay attention." Sofia leaned at the door, watching Sara.
"I can't find a COD."
"I had the same problem."
"Did you sneak around the crime scene, detective?"
"Wanna tell me off for that, investigator?" Sofia looked amused.
"No, not really. Did you call David?"
"He arrived a minute ago." Sofia came next to Sara, took a look at the dead man. "Scary."
"It looks like he was scared when he died. I guess everybody is scared when they die."
"For some it's a salvation." Sofia took a look around. "You think he lived here?"
"I don't know, the smart detective usually gives me information like this." Sara raised an eyebrow and grinned. Okay she couldn't work with Jim but Sofia was the second best pick. At least when she wasn't annoying and smug and Sara was in the mood to have the blonde around.
"Stop picking on me, Sidle." Sofia got up. "I'll leave you alone and get some information. There's an officer outside for your protection."
"I feel safe, thanks."
Sofia met David when she left the room.
"Sorry Sara, we are kind of busy."
"That's why Gris sent me here alone."
"Yeah, I'll get your man and leave ASAP to Cath's scene…he looks scared."
"That's why I thought. Even weirder than the impression on his face, I can't find a COD."
David checked the body. "No wounds, no signs of strangulation. Maybe some interior bleedings." He took the liver temperature. "He's been dead for a longer time, rigor is gone, I'd guess, two or three days. Thanks god it has been cold, otherwise he'd look different…it is very cold in here, colder than outside."
"We lost twenty degrees since yesterday, I think that's why everybody thinks it's cold."
"It's colder in here than outside…what was the address again?"
"4514 Malcon Ave. Why?"
"The Dead House."
"What?"
"The Dead House. Never heard of it?"
"Obviously not."
"4514 if you count the letters of the alphabet by numbers, you'll get D, E, A, D for 4514."
"I'm sure this number exists quite often in America. You can make a lot of words with house numbers."
"Maybe it has a meaning."
"Yeah, you celebrated Halloween too much."
"Every tale has its truth. Can I get him out?"
"Yeah." Sara took some photos and concentrated on the room. Nothing looked touched. Not when she saw the amount of dust everywhere.
A dump place? Possible. It didn't look like somebody was living here.
"Do you know if anybody lives here?" Sara asked when she heard something. Sofia had to be back.
No answer. Sara turned around, found nobody. An old house, a house made of wood, wood was living, moving, making sounds all the time. She tried to get some fingerprints from the door handle, but nothing was there. There was not that must dust on the outside of the door, somebody must have open it recently. Sofia, for example, and the detective was smart enough not to touch anything without gloves. A killer, who wasn't complete-ly dumb, would have done the same.
Time to have a look around the house, to look if there were traces of a B & E.
The officer wasn't at the front door when Sara walked down-stairs, he could be walking around the garden. Who would come to this place anyway? They were in the middle of no-where; the next street with transit traffic was ten miles away. Whoever drove to this place drove here to be here and not because they got lost or were driving around. This was the end of the street, the end of the world, if you wanted. Dead end.
Next to the hallway was a living room. The leather three – piece suite was covered in dust. No signs of anybody being in here the last months. She walked in the next room, the kitchen. Like the rooms before, there was a lot of dust and no signs of anybody living and using this place. She opened the fridge. Nothing inside. It wasn't running, same for the light she tried to turn on. Was there any electricity at all in this house? She had to work with the flashlight and the little bit of sunshine that came through the windows.
The last room got her attention. The library. At three of the four walls were shelves full of books from the floor up to the ceiling. The fourth wall, the one with the door, had a chimney. A huge candelabra with actual candles on it, hung in the middle of the room.
"The next neighbors are two miles down the street." This time Sara had heard Sofia coming in the room.
"Some people love to live quiet."
"A relative of you?"
"Fuck you."
"I leave that to other people, I don't avoid them." Sofia answered dryly to Sara's assault. Their relationship wasn't as bad as it used to be, but most of the times the brunette didn't share the humor of the blonde and got snappy easy. Sometimes they started to fight, sometimes they concentrate on their job and let sentences like the ones before, go past without mentioning it later. Usually it worked like here, Sofia said something (on purpose) that pisses Sara off, Sara shot an insult to the blonde and the blonde answered it the same way she said the sentence that pisses Sara off. You couldn't call it a friendship but Sofia knew, none of them was really insulted by this things. And it kept them from building up steam and blowing up; what did happen before.
"Do you job and give me some information regarding to the case, Curtis."
"As I said, the next neighbors live two miles down the street. Two houses, ten people. None of them could tell me who owned the house, it has been empty for a couple of years."
"The last two or three days it wasn't empty."
"It should have been."
"Who found the body?"
"That's a strange story. One of the men living down the street comes here every morning and every evening for a run. When he came up here last night, he saw a light and – I quote him on that – a kind of face in the room upstairs. Knowing the house was empty, he called 911, they sent a black and white over and they found the body. There was no sign of a B & E, no signs of anybody ever been in the house, only the body. The man said, he never stopped running, after he saw the light and the face, he started running faster, scared to death."
"He's scared easily."
"He knows about the house."
"Knows what about the house?"
"4514."
"Dead. You were at the same Halloween party like Super-Dave?"
"They all told me, the house is cursed and there's a ghost living in here."
"Really? Is his name Casper?"
"They were serious, Sidle."
"That makes me serious – serious wonder why people believe everything."
"This is a creepy place, it's cold, and I feel like somebody is watching me and like I'm not alone."
"You are not, I'm here."
"Beside you."
"There should be an officer somewhere."
"He had to leave, accident on the highway, he was the closed unit. I'm the one who has to serve and protect you."
"Great, that's like asking for watch dog and getting Scooby Doo." Sara turned and walked out of the room. She didn't need a cop around anyway. Nobody would come here and with this ridiculous curse hanging over the house, it was even less likely somebody showed up. Ghost and curses. Why did people believe in stupid fantasy things like that? All the bodies she had seen so far – and she had seen way too many – were killed by human. She had never looked for a ghost. As far as she knew they didn't leave fingerprints and DNA.
With her flashlight she left the house and stepped in the garden. Maybe there were some signs of a B & E here.
"Will you stop?" Sofia's voice was angry when she followed Sara.
"What? I'm doing my job."
"You're more than welcome to do your job but would you please let me do mine? If you wander off, tell me. I meant it, there are no officers around."
"There'll be nobody around than us."
"You never know."
"Whatever. I'm just looking for any signs of a B & E. There was nothing at the front door, whoever brought the body in the house needed to enter it somehow. Having a body with you makes things more difficult."
"You think it's a dump?"
"Makes sense to me. The house is empty like you said, the perfect place to hide a body."
"Why leaving it in a the bedroom of an empty house?"
"Why not? It doesn't matter where you leave it, nobody is in here and even if anybody looks through one of the windows, the bedroom is in the upper level, nobody will see the body. That gives you plenty of time to cover your tracks."
"He died without a COD."
"A visible COD. Interior injuries."
"His face looked like he was scared to death."
"Okay." Sara stopped, sighed and looked at Sofia. "Would you please stop with your ghost stories? I've always thought you're a good cop and good CSI, don't make me feel wrong about that. There's no ghost flying around and killing people. Random people because this house was empty, there're no signs of a B & E, which means, your ghost couldn't have killed the man when he broke in. Nearly all cases of known curses and ghost stories are made up to keep people away, so that they don't annoy you, that they don't sneak around, that they don't find out what is going on behind the walls. If I'd plan to do something illegal, I'd start the rumors of living in a cursed and haunted house to scare people away. Do you know who owns the place now?"
"Now, I couldn't find any data about that."
"Why don't you find you?"
"Because for that I need to leave the scene and I won't do that until there's another officer."
"I'll be here."
"Sara, I've always thought you're a good CSI, you know I can't leave you alone." Sofia used some of Sara's words with a smile.
"Alright, let's go inside and get started."
"What started?"
"Searching the place." Sara opened her kit and gave Sofia some gloves.
"What do you think you are doing?"
"Taking you by your words, serve and protect. Standing around to protect the scene is boring, you're not into standing around, so I'll use the other opportunity you've got, serving. You can serve me as my CSI drone. We have a big house to search and if there're any traces of a murder case or a body dump, we'll find it. Move it."
"I'm not your drone."
"Serve and protect, you can be my partner in crime if that makes you feel better." Sara walked back to the house, leaving a speechless Sofia behind. Even worse than understanding a case with ghosts was understanding Sara Sidle. And this woman was real.
You've got the Ghost Case!" Greg was by her side as soon as Sara entered the lab.
"There are not such things like ghosts." Apparently there was also no intelligence life on this planet. Ghost case. It was a 419, not a ghost case. Was there a remake of 'Ghostbusters' in cinema she hadn't heard of and everybody else loved to watch and started thinking of ghosts?
"4514."
"That's half of 9028 or twice of 2257."
"You don't take it serious."
"It's a stupid house number."
"You're victim was scared to death."
"Did Doc Robbins write that in his file?"
"No…I mean…I don't know…" Greg stopped. He would love to sneak around this case to find out what Sara and the coroner found out, but he knew, if he got caught, Sara would be very angry.
"Listen Greg, it was a body dump, simple like that. Sofia and me processed the whole house, there were no traces of ghosts."
"Sofia and you?"
"We're short-handed, she was there, after she spoke to the neighbors, who live two miles down the street and like you guys believe in ghosts. She had some spare time. Her officers left the scene, so she had to stay there, to protect me. You know, in case a ghost comes along tries to kill me…she was there to shoot it."
"You can't kill a ghost with a bullet, it will run through it."
"I told her she can go, I'd be fine. Beside the evil ghost nobody was around?"
"An evil ghost?" Grissom came out of his office.
"Yeah, somehow they all believe in ghosts. Could you tell them that's bullshit?"
"You never know, Sara. There are things the science can't explain."
"Yeah, how adults can get messed up in stories for children."
"It's all about fantasy and believe. Sometimes we have to believe things we can't see."
"Whatever. I'll have a look what doc Robbins says about my victim. Maybe he found some ghost…DNA…"
"They don't have blood." Greg said.
"Immaterial, no blood, sounds pretty non-existing to me, Greggo." She grinned and walked to the autopsy room. It was probably good she was working this case alone. Not to imagine if Greg was with her. As much as she liked her young friend, he was too easily fascinated by stories. Like the one time he didn't want her to cut a piece of carpet because it was a piece of Vegas history. Forty years old carpet was not a piece of history to her, it was a gathering place for bacteria and other things she didn't want to think about.
"Hey doc."
"Sara, you're still alive and not killed by a ghost."
"Let me guess: David."
"The Ghost House."
"It's only a number."
"And a curse and a lot of stories."
"Please don't tell me you believe in it too." Sara rolled her eyes. Was everybody crazy?
"I can tell you some medical facts."
"Yes, please."
"Your man here died of a heart attack. It appears like he died of fear, what is possible…"
"…if the heart is shocked by too much adrenaline that the body can release when scared. It's likely to happen to elderly people, he isn't that old. Did he have any heart conditions?"
"Not that I found one so far, I'll have a closer look and some tests later. It's a busy night."
"I know. At least you didn't tell me he got killed by ghost hands."
"Maybe a ghost scared him to death."
"Or his mother-in-law appeared out of the blue." Sara smirked and left the room. At least it looked like the victim died of a natural cause.