Cartwheels and Corkscrews

by desertgurl

dedicated to Alison – for obvious reasons

Author's Note: CSI and the characters on the show do not, have not, and will not ever belong to me. This story is for the enjoyment of the FanFiction readers, and I am not getting any money from it. (Really too bad, huh?) Anyway, please don't sue me. It's really not nice and since I am not getting any money from my FanFictions, you wouldn't get anything if you were to sue me. So get over it. And read and review my story! (Just so you know, I am an evil person and will not post the next chapter until I get reviews.) Enjoy.

1 Chapter One: Murder

The lights of Las Vegas shone and danced throughout the sky. The casinos were filled with the clinking of coins, and it was the graveyard shift at CSI. Gil Grissom, the supervisor, had a lot to do. There had been five deaths so far that night – two in a car accident, one pedestrian victim of the crash, one suicide, and one that had just been called in not five minutes ago. A death at a hotel.

Grissom handed out the assignments, and then headed off to the hotel with Catherine. He opened the door to the hotel suite and stared at the crime scene. A young blonde woman sat on the couch. At first glance, nothing seemed to be wrong. They wondered if they had been directed to the wrong room. The woman on the couch seemed to be alive. The room was spotless - no sign of struggle. No blood. Grissom and Catherine rounded the couch to look at the woman. Catherine let out a horrified gasp and her hand flew to her mouth. Grissom's eyes went wide and he took a step back.

The woman was definitely dead. Her face was torn beyond recognition. Her eyes were gouged out, the eyeballs completely gone. Her lips were almost torn off her face. Her cheeks were littered with gaping holes. Her entire face was deep red, soaked in blood.

When Grissom got over the shock of the woman's almost-flesh-less face, he took in the rest of the scene. The woman's designer dress had only a few bloodstains. Her golden hair was smooth and perfectly styled. She was sitting up straight on the couch, her ankles crossed.

"Somebody sure cleaned up after themselves," Catherine mused.

"Yes, but the question is: how did they manage it?" Grissom looked around the fancy suite for Detective Jim Brass. He heard a soft sob from the neighboring room, and followed the noise. Brass was in the corner, talking to two hotel employees: a man in a crisp uniform, most likely room service, and a woman in a maid's uniform who was weeping.

"Brass," Grissom greeted the detective.

"Grissom, this is Edward Jones and Ellen Simpson. Edward was delivering the deceased's dinner. He's room service. Ellen's a night maid here. They found the body."

"Do we have an ID?" Catherine came in to the room.

"The deceased's name was Tamara Richards. She booked the room here for two weeks, but she was only here for one." Brass informed them.

"Ms. Simpson?" Grissom bent down to speak to her face-to-face. "Can you tell me how you found Ms. Richards?"

Instead of answering, the maid burst into frenzied sobs. Edward bent down to comfort her. Grissom glanced at Brass, who waved him away.

"She's been like this the whole time," Brass murmured to Grissom. "When ever someone talks to her, she starts crying. And Edward's pretty broken up about it, too. Doesn't say much."

"We'll let them calm down a bit." Catherine said. "Come on, Grissom, let's go back into the other room."

The hotel room was clean, neat and a terribly frustrating crime scene.

"Let's see if she was killed in the room," Catherine suggested. "Then we'll at least have something to go on." She sighed. This was going to be a long night.

Catherine sprayed luminol all over the carpet near the couch, and turned on the light, revealing the cleaned-up blood splatters that covered the carpet in all directions.

"That's a damn good cleaning job," muttered Catherine, revealing more and more blood patterns.

"Wait," Grissom interrupted. "Go back." Moving the light back over the patterns on the carpet.

"It looks like…" she trailed off.

"Writing?" Grissom suggested.

"Writing."



"The blood was used to write a date on the carpet: March 26, 1963. And then the killer cleaned it up, leaving no trace of blood to the naked eye."

"But us criminalists…we're too damn smart!" Warrick joked. The other cases that night had been easy. Evidence everywhere. All eyewitness accounts checked out. Virtual sign-offs. The group had gathered to hear about the mysterious murder at the hotel.

"I think that we – the criminalists, that is – were supposed to see it. Anyway, Sara's researching the date and our victim's name, Tamara Richards, to find some connection between the two, give us a lead. The maid, Ms. Simpson, is still having trouble speaking without bursting into tears and the room service guy, Mr. Jones, isn't much better…if anyone wants to try, they're with Brass." No one looked eager to speak with Ms. Simpson or Mr. Jones, who both already had a bit of a reputation at CSI, and everyone was relieved when Sara came in.

"I found something. Nothing interesting, I guess."

"Well?"

"March 26, 1963 is her birthday."

"Oh, now that's a help!" Nick said sarcastically.

Throwing Nick a Look, Sara continued. "I searched for anything else happening on that day – something with relevance to the murder – and found nothing. Sorry guys. But –"

"Grissom." Brass stood in the doorway. "I think they can talk now. Maybe."

Grissom sighed, but followed Brass.



Mr. Jones cleared his throat. "I was delivering her dinner…same time as every other night. I went up and knocked, but she didn't answer. She had always told us to just come in if she had called for us, so I did. I saw her on the couch and said hello…she never was much of a talker, so I just thought she was being quiet. I left the cart near her table and was just about to leave when Ellen arrived."

Ms. Simpson looked up nervously, but held back her sobs and began. "She said she wanted clean towels every night before dinner. But tonight, the manager paged me. Someone on the third floor was sick, and I had to go clean up the mess." Ms. Simpson made a face, remembering. "So, I was late going up – the guy on third made a real mess – and I was afraid I was late with her towels, so I rushed up. I saw Edward in there with her dinner and knew I was late. I didn't want to get in trouble…" The maid's voice was beginning to crack, and Grissom knew tears were coming. "S-she was sitting on the couch…she looked all right. I greeted her, b-but she didn't answer, so I thought she was mad. I went over to apologize and –" Ms. Simpson burst into tears. Grissom couldn't help himself. He rolled his eyes.



"Nothing." Grissom had returned from talking with the 'witnesses.' "They know nothing. You can tell by looking at Ms. Simpson that she's telling the truth. And Mr. Jones…I think he's just scared of losing his job over this."

"Hey Grissom," Sara said re-entering the room with photographs in her hand. "Look at this." Sara pointed to one of the pictures of the blood patterns from the hotel room. "They look like handprints. What do you think?"

"Sure looks like it."

"Definitely."

"Yep. Anyone want to go back to the hotel with me?" Catherine asked.

"I'll go," Sara volunteered. "If that's okay." She looked at Grissom.

"Go."



"Where are the handprints?" Catherine asked as she and Sara entered the hotel room.

"From the pictures, it looks like they are over here." Sara pointed to the carpet to the side of the couch. Sure enough, as Catherine checked with the light, the handprints showed up. "Look that way," Sara said suddenly, gesturing towards the door. The handprints continued from the couch to the door.

"What the…?" Catherine frowned.

"I have no idea," Sara said, and suddenly got one. "Wait – what if…? No, no that'd never work."

"What?"

"What if the killer walked out on his hands?"

Catherine frowned doubtfully, looked at the handprints again, and sighed. "I think that's the only logical explanation for this."

Sara laughed. "Are you sure logical is the right word?"

Catherine smiled. "No, I suppose it's not. Do you think the handprints continue into the hallway?"

"I don't know." Sara opened the door and paused. "Did you and Grissom check for prints?"

"The door was wiped clean. Nothing. No prints anywhere."

"What about the handprints? They have prints right?"

"How are we going to lift prints off carpet?"

Sara smiled. "The hallway is tiled."

They opened the door of the hotel room and began to check for the handprints in the hall.

"What are you doing?" A police officer guarding the scene glared at them.

"Trying to solve this murder. What are you doing?" Catherine snapped at him.

"We're with the Las Vegas Crime Lab," Sara said, flashing her I.D. The police officer backed off.

"What is with you, Catherine? You're biting everyone's head off!" Sara hissed.

Catherine sighed. "Sorry," she said, without looking up or offering explanation. "Look!" she cried. "Here are the handprints again." The handprints went all the way down the hall to the staircase.

"You don't think…" Sara gazed at the long stairwell.

"We've got to check." Catherine sighed again.



Back at CSI, Catherine and Sara shared what they had found. "The handprints went down all five flights of stairs and out the Emergency Exit on the first floor. But once outside, the pattern changed. Two handprints, two footprints, two handprints, two footprints – all in blood, and they were sideways."

"So this will be easy, right? Match fingerprints and the soles of the shoes…right?" Nick looked from Catherine to Sara, trying to read their faces.

"Plastic bags on the shoes, gloves on the hands," Sara reported quietly.

"You're telling me that a killer bloody gloves on his hands and bloody bags on his feet walked down five flights of stairs on his hands and no one saw him?!?" Grissom was more than a little skeptical.

"They have very nice elevators at this hotel," Catherine explained helplessly.

"And the blood was cleaned up afterwards?"

"Yes, except for the blood outside. There was no trace of it in the building without luminol."

"This is impossible," Grissom mumbled.

"It gets worse," Brass said, appearing in the doorway again.