-1Hey Folks,
This is my first CSI:NY story, so be nice to me, please!
I own nothing to do with CSI:NY, and song quotes in this chapter are taken from 'Hellhound on my Trail' by Robert Johnston.
Please, read and review. Thanks
Chapter One
'There's a hellhound on my trail
Hellhound on my trail
If today was Christmas Eve
If today was Christmas Eve
And tomorrow was Christmas Day
Wouldn't we have a time, baby'
24th December, 0600
"Who found her?"
"Guy walking his dog." Flack gestured at the steps of the church, at a man sitting there, sucking greedily on a cigarette, his hands shaking, talking to a young detective. "Ali's talking to him now. Doesn't look like we'll get much from him, though. He's kind of shook up."
Flashes of light cut through the early morning darkness.
Danny Messer crouched over the body, focusing the camera. He snapped another picture and then stepped back. "I tell you, Mac, this guy is getting worse. This is the fourth victim we found in the last ten days."
"I'm going to talk to Ali, see if she's got anything from the witness."
Mac nodded and sat his case down, shivering in the cold wind. He glanced up at the clouds, lingering above them, heavy and bruised. "What have we got from the victim, Danny?"
"Her name's Lucy Carlson. She's twenty, student at NYU." His mouth tightened, and he clenched his fist. "Same as the others. I swear to God, Mac…."
"Focus, Danny. Process the victim. Maybe he got sloppy, made a mistake, gave us something we can use."
"Multiple knife wounds on the body. Sonofabitch chained her up, raped her and let her bleed out." Danny shivered, staring at the body. Slumped on the ground, against the stone cross, her arms chained to the arms of the cross, the pale skin stained crimson by the wounds, long jagged cuts into the skin. "Just the same as before."
One shoe off, her bare foot, oddly innocent and vulnerable.
Her eyes closed, safe at last, at peace.
Her clothes sliced and torn, soaked with blood.
"Mac. I got something." Hawkes stood up, holding something carefully in his gloved hands. "Looks like her shoe."
"What do we do now?"
"Get the body back to Stella at the lab, tell her to run anything she can find against the computer, maybe we'll get lucky. Then process the graveyard." He glanced up at the heavy clouds again, fighting against the urge to shiver. "Work quickly. We don't have much time before that snow comes."
"Mac. Where's Lindsay?"
He shook his head, lifting his case. "Don't ask me questions that you already know the answer to, Danny."
"She's gone to see him, hasn't she?"
XxxXXXxxx
Reikers Island
"You know the drill, Detective Monroe. I need you to turn your weapon in here."
She handed her weapon across the desk, blindly signing the paper the officer thrust underneath her nose. Crossing her arms across her chest, shivering, waiting. She had been dreading this, ever since the letter had arrived.
"Now don't worry, Detective. You wont be alone in there with him. There'll be at least one guard in there at all times and we'll be watching on the monitors…"
"No." Her voice didn't shake and she was proud of that. "No. He asked to speak to me. He wont make me afraid of him."
"I strongly recommend…."
"It's not your decision, Warden. It's mine."
"Aaron Reiners is a very dangerous man, Detective Monroe. He killed a number of young girls…"
"I know how dangerous he is, Warden. I worked the case."
They stopped outside a closed door, and Lindsay stretched out a hand to open it.
"You don't have to do this, Detective. Chances are, this sick sonofabitch just wants to mess you about, make you think he knows something he doesn't."
"I can't take that chance, Warden." She opened the door of the room and walked in.
Inside the room, she closed her eyes, her small frame seeming to fold in on itself, her hands buried in her pockets. Trying to forget what had happened, what it had taken to put this man behind bars. Waiting for a killer.
She didn't wait for very long.
The door at the far end of the room opened, and Reiners was led in by two guards. His eyes lit up when he saw her, huddled at the far end of the room. "Well, well, well. Detective Monroe. I wasn't sure if you were going to come or not."
At the sight of him, she pulled herself together, drawing herself up. "Hello, Aaron."
He smiled, the same twisted, dark smile he had been wearing when her evidence had put him away. "Could I get a cigarette?"
The guard shook his head. "No."
"Then take me back to my cell. I don't talk to no one unless I get a cigarette."
Lindsay's patience snapped. "Will you give him a damn cigarette?" She drew a shuddering breath as the guard fumbled in his pockets, putting a packet of cigarettes and a book of matches on the table. 'Control, Lindsay, control'. "Will you leave us alone, please?"
The guards shrugged and walked out of the room. She walked over to the table, her heart racing.
She remembered what this guy had done. Six girls, and that was just the ones they knew about. Six girls killed, raped and tortured in cold blood. Six girls that had haunted her sleep since she had processed the first scene.
When had it gotten so damn cold?
Aaron lit a cigarette, the acrid smell of tobacco filling the room. He blew a smoke ring up into her face, still smiling. "Wont you sit down, Lindsay?"
Even standing, she was barely taller than him. "It's okay. I'll stand."
"If you don't sit, I wont talk. And I know, you're just dying to hear what I have to say, Detective Monroe." He pointed at the seat opposite him with his cigarette, the faint cloud of tobacco smoke following it like a ghost. "Sit down."
Slowly, reluctantly, she sat down, knowing that it put her within his reach. Knowing that it emphasised his height, knowing that she had given into him, given him control of things already. "Talk."
He laughed, leaning forward, smoke spewing from his mouth with every word. Instinctively, she leaned back, trying to get away from him.
"Do you sleep at night, Lindsay?"
XxxXXXxxx
October 3rd 0600
"This makes four." Flack's voice echoed around the empty church, stripped of emotion and passion, stripped of life.
Like them all, he had been to too many similar crime scenes recently.
Lindsay didn't answer, staring at the girl slumped against the altar, her arms covered with jagged knife wounds, blood pooled around her, soaked into her clothing. Robotically, she snapped the picture.
"Same MO?"
"Looks like it." She moved around the body. "White girl, early twenties." Another photo. "Multiple knife wounds." Another photo. "Body chained to an altar. Clothing rearranged."
She spoke in sharp clipped sentences, not allowing herself to think. It was easier that way. Easier than thinking about another young girl that she had failed.
"Did he rape her?"
She didn't answer, staring at the girl's face, the camera held aimlessly in her gloved hands.
Flack tried again. "Lindsay. Did he rape her?"
"No panties. Heavy bruising on the inner thighs. We'll not know for sure until later, but I'd say so." She stepped back from the body, eyes narrowing in concentration. Looks like she put up a fight. We got some defensive wounds here." She reached into her kit and knelt next to the body. "Who is she?"
"We don't know yet. Ali's trying to find out."
"Where's Danny?"
"He's outside, processing. Maybe the sonofabitch slipped up, left us something we can use." Flack glanced at her, concern evident in his eyes. "He's going to slip up, Lindsay. Sooner or later. And when he does, we're going to get him."
End of Chapter One.