Chapter One
Horatio Caine stood outside of the building that housed both the Miami-Dade Police Department and the Crime Scene Investigation Laboratory. His golden red hair glinted as he bowed his head looking for all the world like he was merely examining the cuticle on the forefinger of his left hand. The CSI detective was doing that but that wasn't where his attention was focused. He was more aware of his surroundings than most people looking directly at them would be; he was enjoying the breeze that stirred the soupy humid air, and he was listening to the various rhythms of the footsteps of the men and women strolling around the building, striding, standing on the premises, going in, coming out of the peculiarly slanted building behind him. He was almost inhaling the glorious blue sky that surrounded the ever present towering clouds being swept up from the southern Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.
Yet, none of this occupied his thoughts. Yes, if asked, he could have reported most every detail of his surroundings; noticing everything was in his nature. It's just that, none of that was important to him at the moment. Instead, right then, his thoughts were aimlessly wandering on how good it was to be alive. This was one of those rare days when no new major crime had been committed in the last twenty-four hours. His team was occupied with wrapping up examinations of evidence from previous cases and he knew he could well be doing his own job of writing reports, going from section to section, helping anyone who was swamped. He knew he would do that, in a moment or two, just not now. It wasn't often he could take advantage of being the head of the CSI team so while he could, he would.
Horatio raised his head and took a deep slow breath. He shifted his position, widened his stance and, without realizing what he was doing, using his left hand, swept his jacket back to reveal the gold detective badge attached to his belt. His right arm, bent at the elbow, hovered protectively over his pistol still under his jacket. No one here needed to be reminded that he was armed. When he had to face anyone who might resent his office, he never hesitated to show both his holstered gun and his right to use it if necessary.
God! But he enjoyed being a police officer! He always had, from the days of being a blue in New York City, to his move here to Miami and all through his rise to his present position. 'To Protect and Serve' was a motto he felt honored to carry. More, he was privileged to work with men and women who felt the same way, followed the same code, risked their lives, gave so much.
"Hey, Horatio." A honeyed southern tone wound around the greeting.
Detective Calleigh Duquesne greeted him as she continued by. Even though they had talked that morning, making sure each, boss and second in command, knew what the other had on their schedules, she always acknowledged her team mates every time she saw them.
"Calleigh." Horatio returned the greeting to the green eyed blond and smiled back at her flash of teeth. Beautiful as she was, his first thought towards her was, as usual, what an unusually fine police officer she was. She wasn't just smart, she was brilliant when it came to deduction. Then, even as good as he knew he was at interviews and interrogation, she was better. It was almost fun to watch her turn on that Old Southern Charm, lead her subject into a false sense of security at having duped this blond Belle into explaining away the crime, and then see her coldly announce her victim's arrest and the charges. More as far as forensics went, no one in the department could bring the convictions home like she did.
"Horatio."
A deep, Texas tinged voice rumbled into his reverie. "Frank?" Not turning, Horatio didn't have to inquire why he was being addressed. The twenty-four hour truce between the law and murder had ended.
Frank Tripp hung on the open door to the lobby of the building. "D.b. out at the old Flats Farm. I'll meet you out there." The Police Detective Sergeant pulled his bald head back and disappeared behind the darkened glass.
Horatio pulled his phone out and pressed a number. "Calleigh, Flats Farm."
For just the briefest moment, Horatio hesitated and moved his head slightly in a shaking movement. The moment of truce between law and crime had been nice while it lasted.
Stepping down from the silver humvee, the six foot redhead adjusted his sunglasses against the overhead glare. Calleigh had already arrived and was doing a quick sweep of the outside area of the crime scene. Frank was huddled with a group of three uniforms and one man in a suit and tie, like himself. They all stood at the open hangar sized door of the large barn. Calleigh nodded in Horatio's direction and continued her work. When Frank spotted him he pointed to the inside of the structure. They knew Horatio would go inside to look at the body. He always asked to do this, not only to perform alone a sort of ritual of last rites for the murder victim but to get a first look at the crime scene.
The barn was unusually large. Inside, along each wall were the remains of heavily constructed stalls, fifteen to a side. In the middle was a line of poles about four feet high; some with rings still hanging from near the top on one side. Attached to one side of the warehouse sized building, a silo rose to about seventy feet. Inside, a single door about a third of the diameter of the silo allowed entrance into the round confines of the connected structure. It stood wide open. Crossing the huge dirt floor that was littered with leaves and twigs, walking past the large squares of sunlight streaming through large broken windows high off the ground, the closer to the silo he approached the more the detective's head fell to one side. As his head fell, the eyebrows crumpled his forehead together over his intensely blue eyes.
Slowly, almost reverently, Horatio advanced on the crumpled form lying on the ground. A square of light from a trap door in the roof hit the wall above the body's head. The reflected light gave a halo effect to the light brown hair. The closer he got, the more tightly his brows rose in a knot over the bridge of his nose. Finally, by the head of the grotesquely twisted form, he fell to one knee, rustling the ancient detritus left by the remains of tons of corn. One arm draped over his upraised knee, the other in a fist at his belt, his head twisted from one side to the other. His eyes drifted from the honey tangle of locks down to the cotton jacket over the tank top, past the pedal pusher shorts to the feet. One foot was missing the princess flat mate that covered the other. A quick look found the other shoe where it had bounced off, perhaps when the body hit the ground.
Carefully, as if afraid of waking her, Horatio reached down and moved some of the hair from the slightly bloated, discolored face. As he suspected from the clothing, the woman was in her late teens, perhaps early twenties. Her head was slightly raised above her chest so the ligature marks on her neck were plain to see. Someone had taken a heavy cord of some sort and wound it three or more times before pulling it tight, choking her to death.
Oddly, though, the position of the body didn't look like one that had been standing in front of her attacker, struggled, succumbed to a lack of oxygen, and fallen to the ground. Horatio raised his sky blue eyes up the dark insides to the trap door. Coming in, he had seen the metal stair way that wound up the building to the top to a platform that was at the trap door up there.
Horatio allowed his mind to play out two possibilities; the girl had been strangled, carried up to the platform and then tossed down or had been forced to walk up the stairs, then strangled and tossed down. She may or may not have been dead when she was thrown. Whichever it had been, the results had been the same. She was dead now.
Sighing at the regret over the loss of life, he gently laying the lock of hair back across the face, the detective rose. His view now took in the entire length of the twisted form, noting the dust that had risen when the body hit and then settled, laying itself on her clothing. He looked up again at the patch of bright blue in the roof and wondered if, when she had been dropped, that square had been bright as it was now, or dark, with stars peaking through.
A few moments later, Horatio walked up to the group with Frank Tripp.
"Horatio, this is Police Detective Randolph Toler with the Everglades station. The young lady in there is his daughter, Mitzi Toler. She's been missing for a week." The look in Frank's eyes was angry and apologetic. Policeman or not, a father had no right to be on the scene of his child's murder.
Horatio's eyebrows shot up forming an upturned arrow. His mindset was the same as Frank's. "Detective Toler, I'm so sorry for your loss."
Toler's mustached face showed a range of emotions that included how often he had said that phrase in the exact same tone to others, how often he had wondered how he would feel if he heard it, the sorrow he was personally involved in at the moment and more. His gray eyes slowly lost their cloudy haze as he responded, "Thank you." Then without hesitation he launched into the only thing he knew to do. "Officers were here on a routine patrol for this area last night. Every once in a while kids party out here or just cause mischief so it's on a regular part of our routine. My daughter's car is parked over behind the building there. When they saw it, they investigated further and found her. She always came to the station on one excuse or another so everyone knew her. They called me and then I called Miami-Dade for CSI."
Suddenly the voice switched timbre. "I wish you could have known her. She was an angel." The balding man looked down to examine his shoes.
"We'll find who did this."
Eyes with circles and bags and wrinkles looked up at the spoken formula. "Yeah, I know."
Seeing the M.E.'s car arrive behind the ambulance, Horatio directed, "Frank, get the officers' statements and send Toler home. He should be with the rest of his family." He knew it was the kindest thing to do for the moment.
He walked over to the square faced, pale blond medical examiner who always seemed to be in a rush.
"Dr. Loman, can you wait just a moment before recovering the body? We haven't gone over the area around her yet. It won't take a moment."
"If I must. You people are usually the ones in such a hurry for me to get things done for you."
Ignoring the usual complaints, Horatio smiled as he saw Calleigh appear from around the corner. She always seemed to be anywhere he needed her to be when she was needed. Without a word between them, she entered the building and headed towards the silo.
Meanwhile, Tom Loman was not happy. New to the team, he was an efficient, no nonsense medical examiner who knew his job. "If I had known I'd be waiting, I could have stopped off at another scene before coming here."
"My apologies, doctor. I'll keep you in the loop next time."
The sneer was barely hidden. Dr. Loman was a man who always felt underappreciated.
Knowing there was nothing he could say that would make the situation with the M.E. better, Horatio decided to do his own part of the job. Going around to the back of the building, he found a 2000 VW coupe or Bug as it was better known. Too obviously, it had been bought by a loving father and remodeled to fit a favorite daughter's tastes. Besides the flashy chrome rims and the bright pink paint job, the seats had been recovered in dark cream colored leather. As usual, the same brief flash of thought struck at his mind; would he have done the same if he had a daughter? Considering what he'd done for Kyle, the answer, of course, was yes. Just as quickly, the thought faded as he mentally switched his view to magnification of what was at hand. Calleigh had already done a dusting for prints on the doors, the door windows and the roof over the doors. This meant she had also taken photos of any shoe prints.
Pulling a set of rubber gloves from his pocket and putting them on, Horatio slid into the passenger seat and opened the glove compartment. There was nothing inside but a city map, a package of a plastic knife, fork and spoon with a napkin bearing a popular taco shop name wrapped in cellophane and several mini-compacts of makeup. If there was anything deeper, under what was visible, he'd let the forensic team at the lab handle it.
Next he ran his hands quickly under the seat and then leaning over, did the same under the driver's seat. There wasn't even an empty soda can. This was typical of most girls. Turning around, looking at the back seat, he saw an array of blouses, jackets, and shoes. Girls use their cars for carrying wardrobe changes; boys use them as trash haulers. The fact that the clothing was in a neat pile showed she hadn't used the area for anything else, not recently anyway.
"Is it okay for Tom to take the body? I'm done and he's really champing at the bit."
"Yes, Calleigh."
Calleigh opened her phone, punched a button, and said, "Take her away, Dr. Loman. We'll see you at the lab."
As soon as she hung up, she turned attentively to the man who, if she wasn't wearing her heels, would be almost a foot taller than she.
"Calleigh, did you know the victim is the daughter of a police detective?"
"Yes, Frank told me when I arrived."
"Yet, not only did she come out to a remote area, she parked her car in back of the building. Does that strike you as odd?"
The slightest frown briefly bridged the blonde's nose. "You'd think she would have better sense. Of course, being a law officer's child doesn't preclude innocence. Do you think she was involved in something she shouldn't have been?"
"Even so, this doesn't seem right."
"I also noticed those other tire tracks next to her car here. Notice how wide the tread is?"
"I do. Gives good traction and control but it's not your usual passenger car size."
"Could be a high end drug dealer in a fancy ride."
Horatio silently nodded. There were many possibilities which were getting both of them nowhere in particular at this point.
Forty minutes later, Horatio stood up from the side of another young girl, the same age, and general description as young Mitzi. This girl had been found in at the foot of an observation tower in one of the Everglades parks. Marks of manual strangulation were apparent on her throat. She was partially nude from the waist up and her short skirt had been hiked to above her hips. Still, the resemblance to what he had seen earlier was unmistakable. In this case, the death had been much more recent, within the past twelve hours.
He drew Ryan Wolfe aside. His voice rumbled as he whispered, "We just found another girl, but the kill was perhaps a week old. I think we may have a serial killer on a rampage here. Get the evidence and start working on it immediately."
Ryan's large eyes glinted. "Don't worry Horatio, we'll stop him before he can do too much damage."
"I'd prefer, Mr. Wolfe, that we stop him before he does any more damage at all."
TBC