Right handed people aren't always right.
"Red shirt, plaid skirt, flats; interesting outfit for a teenage girl in the woods, huh, Officer Matthey?" The deep brown eyes of my boss turned to look into my own blue ones as the question was addressed to me.
"Well, ma'am, this probably was not the primary crime scene." I replied nervously. It was only my first year as the aide to the great Detective Sara Grissom and I was still somewhat unsure of myself.
"Probably, huh? Probably doesn't catch murders. Where's your proof?"
"Uh," assertiveness returned to my voice as I looked at the scene. This is what I am good at, what I knew. "Well it appears as though she died from major head trauma and there is no blood at the scene. Also her shirt has stretch marks in the shoulder as if she was dragged. Finally, if you look closely, there appears to be drag marks leading away from the body." I looked up nervously; it was a well known rumor that Grissom didn't like getting saddled with an aide.
"Good, now let's see what else we have here."
I took this as my dismissal and went to examine the body. I started at the head; the girl's skull had a huge fracture on the right side and it was covered in red blood. I went to move the girl's hair out of her face but caught myself; no touching, the coroner had not cleared the body yet, no touching. As I examined the girl's shirt I noticed a black grease stain coming from the back of her shirt.
"Grissom," I called, "look here, there seems to be grease on her shirt."
"Yeah," the tall woman replied. "It's all over her backside, where's the dang coroner?" She called out to no one in particular.
"Here, here, hold your horses, I'm here!"
"Took you long enough," Grissom mocked, though I heard the humor behind it.
"Yeah, well we're not exactly in a well known place. GPS couldn't find the address you gave me. All you young people depending on your technology; it never works!"
"Mine didn't either, must be something with this place," I muttered.
"Hey," Grissom pulled out her cell, "I don't have any service."
Coroner McClaud and I both pulled out our own devices and checked; no service.
Grissom looked at us and repeated her question with a more evident sense of urgency, "What the heck was she doing out here?"
We all turned back to the body. No one had an answer.
"Body temperature's about 85 degrees," McClaud spoke first.
Grissom looked at me and I did the math quickly in my head, roughly 1.5 degrees per hour.
"She has been dead roughly 9 hours." I answered her unasked question. A head nod in my direction was my only praise.
"So a teenage girl wearing a skirt and flats is in the middle of the woods, no service at all, at 3 in the morning. What in the world was she doing?"
"Romance." Love, I had learned, was always one of the main motives.
"Good idea," Grissom coaxed, "talk it out."
"Okay, well, she sneaks out into the woods to meet her boyfriend. She is kind of young, so her parents probably aren't too keen about her having a guy. She and this guy meet up, kiss, make out, whatever kids do these days and they get into an argument. The argument gets heated and they start pushing each other. She falls and hits her head against a tree, he panics and drags her body off into a more secluded part of the woods and runs off."
"Ahh, but there are some holes in that story. Where did she get grease all over her shirt, why was she dressed so odd, and why drag her anywhere else at all? I mean, they are already in the woods."
"Uhh, he was a grease monkey." I received two confused looks, "you know, someone who works with cars?"
"Still, why did he drag her?"
"Maybe he wanted to leave her in a more secluded place, or he didn't want to leave her in their special place?"
Grissom looked at me, and I could see in her eyes that she knew why. "Pay attention to your surroundings Matthey. As we drove here, we passed a little garage, only a mile away. I would say that it is our primary crime scene."
I should have known the second she asked me she already knew the answer. She motioned me along, leaving some directions with the CSIs processing the scene, and we got into our squad car. The silence was deafening and Grissom tried to turn on the radio.
It fuzzed funny and I remarked, "Looks like no technology is working today."
"Yeah, well a good detective doesn't rely on technology, they rely on their minds.
With this we saw the little garage, it was nothing much. We pulled into the old parking lot in the front and looked up; a small building with two garage doors and a half lit sign proclaiming Joe's Garage in big letters stood in front of us. As we were getting out of the car, Grissom slid her hand under the hood performing some task that I could not see.
"Something wrong?" I wondered.
"Nope, just wanted to make sure everything's working, I think I heard some rattling earlier," she reassured me.
"Ohh," I replied before looking up at the building in front of us.
"Not much, huh?" Grissom inquired, after seeing my face.
"Just not really a place I would expect a teenager to hang out."
"Yeah, well let's see the inside first." With this Grissom knocked on the door, it was almost immediately opened by a dirty looking man wearing a business suit.
"Joe?" Grissom accused.
"Yeah, that's me, what yah want? I'm on my lunch break," he replied, cracking Grissom a cynical smile.
"Ahh, we have a funny one here now don't we?" She quipped looking in my direction.
"Nahh, he just doesn't know who he is talking too."
"Yeah, well who would that be?" He cracked a smile at me now.
"The police," I cracked my own smile.
"I did not do anything," He announced calmly to us both.
"Well then, would you mind giving us a look around?" Grissom questioned, her voice matching his.
"Actually I would, no warrant, no entrance."
"We'll be back." Grissom replied, she mouthed, "You drive" to me.
I got into the car, excited she was letting me drive and put the key into the engine. I turned it and nothing happened, I tried again and still nothing.
"Let me try!" She angrily interjected, getting out and walking to the driver side. Great, I thought to myself, just great.
"Ahh," she muttered," this stupid car won't start!"
"Well, we are at a garage, let's see if idiot Joe can help."
We walked to the door and Grissom knocked, he opened the door almost immediately once again.
"Car broke, huh?" He drawled looking proud of himself.
"Yeah," I admitted dejectedly, not even she can get it to start!" I shot a glance at Grissom.
"Yeah," she stammered, "could you maybe help?"
"Of course my lady, anything for the protectors of the law," he sniveled and led us back to our car. "Key?"
"Yeah, here you go." I handed him my key after seeing that Grissom was not going too. He put the key into the ignition and tried turning it but the car would not start. He propped up the hood and went back into the garage to get a wrench. At this moment I noticed that Grissom was crouching down on the ground by a large grease puddle. She quickly swabbed the puddle and at the same time collected some dirt from the ground. He returned outside and Grissom straightened up putting both of the swabs into her bag.
"This should do the trick," he said with a great amount of pride in his voice. He reached under the hood and tightened some things with his left hand before returning to the driver's side. He turned the key and the car purred under his touch.
"You detectives, you think you know it all?" He cracked another one of his smiles.
"Yeah, well thanks," Grissom said ignoring his boast at us. We quickly got into the car and she put the two swabs she had collected into her kit. She then grabbed a bag from the kit and slid the key that Joe had just touched into the bag.
"Ah," I spoke quickly, "I understand now; you weren't actually checking under the hood, you were loosening parts so that he would have to fix it and we could get his prints!"
"You have to think Matthey, this job isn't all about the technology," Grissom offered a life lesson to me before turning back onto the road. It took us about an hour to get back to the police station and when we got there Grissom sent me to go retrieve evidence from the crime scene investigators.
"Hey Jim," I spoke to the supervisor of the day shift CSI's; "you identified the body yet?"
"Yeah, the girl was only 15 It's really sad. Her name was Nancy Drew, ironic huh? Parents just came in to file a missing persons report." Jim reported, the sadness evident in his voice. "I'll escort them into interview A."
"Nancy Drew, brings back memories, I'm just going to go inform Grissom." With this I went and told Grissom what Jim had relayed to me. We walked down to interview A in silence, both of us mulling over the case in our heads. We saw that Jim was waiting for us and walked into the interview. Grissom started with the basic questions.
"I am so sorry for your loss Mr. and Mrs. Drew. I just have a few questions I would like to ask."
"Go ahead," Mrs. Drew spoke quietly, tears welling up in her eyes."
"Anything to help our daughter," Mr. Drew spoke; the dry tears evident in his own eyes.
"Well, she was found in a very remote location, off along Route 79, in some woods, do you have any idea why she would be there?" Grissom prodded gently.
"I have no idea," Mr. Drew replied.
"How about a boyfriend, bad habit, friends maybe?" Grissom laid the answers out in front of them.
"Well, there was this guy; Nancy had been going out with him for over a year but I just can't imagine him harming her in any way! He is such a nice young man."
"Yeah, well sometimes situations change people, what is this young man's name?"
"Ted, Ted Williams."
"Okay, thanks."
Here I picked up the conversation and asked the next question, "The place where we found your daughter is pretty far away from your house; did your daughter's boyfriend own a car?"
"No but uhh," Mrs. Drew began but suddenly stopped sounding unsure.
"Just tell them honey; our car was missing this morning. We were too busy worrying about our daughter to really consider the possibilities," Mr. Drew worried.
"It's okay, you were worried about your daughter. We are sorry for your loss," I said one last time before Grissom and I left the room. The Drew's just stared at us, unsure of what to say. Jim picked up the questioning as we left the room.
"We have to find that car," Grissom urgently spoke as soon as we left the room, "let's go back to the scene."
We got into our patrol car and drove back to the scene. We searched the whole perimeter within two miles and found nothing.
"Maybe the boyfriend drove the car back?" I offered my idea to Grissom hopefully.
"Let's go check; he only lives about twenty minutes from here." True to her word we were there in about 20 minutes. The house was a nice house, middle class family, the "American Dream." We knocked on the door and it was opened by a clean cut young man.
"Ted?" Grissom greeted the man that opened the door.
"Yeah, that's me, are you here about Nancy?" When he spoke I could tell that he had been crying.
"Can we ask you a few questions?" I spoke next, my voice soothing.
"Sure, anything to help, come on in," He motioned us inside with his right hand.
"So where were you last night?" Grissom questioned before he could think.
"I was asleep in my bed, like I am every night," he asserted.
"No you weren't," Grissom spoke now, "see you looked up to the left; that means you were lying. Now, we just need to know why? Why'd you murder her Ted? Did she not want to go out with you anymore?"
"No!" Ted was angry now, yelling, "no, not at all! I was supposed to meet up with Nancy last night but I didn't." Ted divulged to us. "You see she was an adventurer, a detective if you want to call it. She said her name was a blessing, Nancy Drew, yah know? She always said she was going to be just like the character and she was! She was always solving little crimes but last night she told me she had found a real crime. Something big, she said, something that would make the world notice her. She wanted me to come with her last night.
We were going to meet up in the woods by Joe's. Apparently her whole case resolved around this Joe's Garage and I was going to help her investigate."
"Well, what happened? Why didn't you?" I asked kindly, playing the good cop to Grissom's bad.
"I, I snuck out with my brother instead. He promised to take me to this big party that I really wanted to go to. Nancy was going to go with me until this case. You can ask anyone, I was there all night!"
"We'll be sure to check that out," Grissom said as a form of goodbye.
"Thanks for your time," I replied, always the courteous one. As we walked out of the house Grissom told one of the cops at the house to check out his alibi and with that we drove away.
"I think it is time to pay Mr. Joe a visit." I was excited, I could see him as the murderer; it was all laid out for us.
"Well first, I want to check something," Grissom said, not as excited as me. She pulled out her phone and made a call to Jim. The information apparently pleased her but she did not seem to want to share. We finished the rest of the drive once again in thought and quickly pulled back into the parking lot of Joe's Garage.
"Jim will be here soon with the warrant," Grissom spoke to me, "Let's just wait here until then." Her dark eyes glanced into mine, "Run it through."
"She comes here, thinking she has a big case about Joe and starts spying on him. He catches her and smashes her head in with that handy wrench he used to fix our car earlier and then drags her out of his shop hoping no one would find her."
"Sounds like a decent theory and look here is our warrant," Grissom motioned over to where Jim stood with a warrant and his crime scene kit. The three of us knocked on the door of Joe's Garage.
"You cops again," Joe answered the door, "Your car broke down again?"
"Nope, it seems to be working fine but we would like a tour of the place," Grissom smiled.
"Hey, I told you guys last time no warrant, no entrance."
"Yeah well we have a warrant," Jim waved the warrant in front of Joe's face.
"So we have entrance," Grissom finished his sentence.
"Come on in," he motioned us inside and as he closed the door behind us I looked around. It looked like a normal garage except something was off about it, the smell. I smelt chemicals in the air, and I highly doubted they were gasoline. Grissom must have smelt the same thing because she immediately walked to a door in the back and opened it.
"Meth lab, interesting operations Joe, looks like we are going to have to arrest you," Grissom smiled at the dirty man.
"Is that why you killed Nancy," I demanded, "Did she find out about your little lab here?"
"No! I swear, I have never even heard of this Nancy before."
"You sure, Nancy Drew, must ring a bell for you right?" I coaxed slyly, the evidence was all clear to me.
"Yeah, I'm not an idiot; I read books when I was a kid but I have never met anyone actually named Nancy Drew."
"Liar, let's take him to the car," Grissom slapped some handcuffs on him and began to walk to the patrol car.
As we walked to the car Grissom turned around, "Gotcha!" She yelled out loud to someone. I had no idea to whom except that they started running. My reflexes reacted and I ran after the mystery man. He was fast but he didn't have the endurance I did and so I eventually caught up.
"Fast one, aren't you?" Grissom declared, bending over to catch her breath. I handcuffed him and began to walk back into the car.
"So Ted, why'd you run?" Grissom asked quickly.
"I uhh, well I followed you here because I wanted to see who did it, I wanted to see who killed my Nancy!"
"That doesn't explain the running," Grissom was not going to give up.
"I just freaked, I knew I was not supposed to follow you guys but I just wanted to see who killed Nancy!"
"Then why didn't you just look in the mirror?" Grissom was quick.
"Huh," The kid was obviously confused or just plain stupid.
"Look in the mirror, you hear me. See the murderer was not your pal Joe here, though he was arrested, it was you."
"No, it was Joe! He was selling Meth and Nancy found out."
"He looked to the left and up, didn't he Matthey?" She questioned me now.
"Sure did, it seems to me he must be lying," I replied in my most sure voice.
"It really is the only option, how else would he have known that it was Meth? I never mentioned that," this was also directed at me.
"Uhh, Nancy mentioned it." Ted assured us.
"I thought you said that Nancy didn't tell you why she was looking at Joe." Grissom had him there.
"I was at the party anyway. I told you guys!"
"No, you see there seems to be a time span of about an hour where no one can recall seeing you at that party. That's plenty of enough time to kill her."
"I left to go clear my head." Ted ranted.
"You didn't mention this earlier!" Grissom recalled.
"I didn't think it mattered."
"Ahuh, so, somehow while you were, clearing your head, your prints transferred unto Nancy's clothes?"
"I don't know! I must have touched her in school!"
"I talked to her parents; she didn't wear that shirt to school." The boy just looked at Grissom and shrugged. He looked as though he had no idea what else to say. "So," Grissom continued," somehow while clearing your head, your fingerprints got on Nancy's shirt along the marks where someone pulled her." The boy just shrugged so Grissom went on, "Well then not only did your fingerprints magically appear on her body but they also appeared on the wrench used to kill her." She glared at me so that I would not mention that we had not processed the wrench yet. After I shut my lips she continued, "I know all about your job working for Joe; the Drew's were so happy to inform us about how responsible you are. I also saw that you kept your own tools handy at Joe's and that the wrench was bloody. The grease that we found on Nancy's shirt, it was the same exact type found on the floor of the garage where you work!"
"It could have been Joe," Ted said dejectedly, it was all he could muster.
"No, it could not have. Joe is left handed meaning the blow would have been on the left side of Nancy's head. The blow was on the right. You are right handed, my friend." With this last statement Grissom smiled, her eyes however were all serious.
"It was her own fault!" Ted proclaimed realizing he was beat, "She was always nosing around in others people's business! All I wanted to do was make a few extra bucks."
"So," Grissom said turning back to look at the kid I was putting into the squad car, "you're telling me that she was worth less than a few extra bucks?"
"No! I loved her!"
"You sure have a funny way of showing it." I spoke and for once I got the last word.