Hey, everybody! Here's another chapter! Thanx 4 all the reviews!
Spoilers: None
Flash! Greg, still in his nice suit, photographed the dead girl lying facedown in the middle of the street. Her short, blonde hair was matted with blood and dirt and partially hid her face. Her clothing—a short, red dress—was stained with blood and bits of dirt from the road. It was close to midnight. Ground fog was beginning to roll in.
Nick was shining his flashlight around the area, noting skid marks left behind by the mysterious SUV. The flashing red and blue lights of the squad cars that had surrounded the crime scene lit up the faces of curious onlookers. Many of them pulled the collars of their coats up against the evening chill.
Flash! Greg captured the girl's flattened purse, a broken heel, and a piece of a shattered headlight.
Warrick was escorting his wife toward one of the cruisers, ordering the officer to take her home. The officer complied, opening the door for her.
"So, this is what you do everyday?" Tina asked, glancing over her husband's shoulder at the crime scene.
Warrick nodded. "Yeah, pretty much."
"Be careful." She hugged him, giving him a peck on the cheek, then got into the car.
Warrick waved goodbye as they drove off.
Flash! Greg took a shot to show the location of the body in relation to the crime scene.
Grissom was standing off to one side, busy giving Det. Vartann his accountant of what had happened that night.
"Well, I'll never get an eyewitness accountant like this," Vartann chuckled, taking down notes as the CSI supervisor spoke.
Grissom gave him a wry smile as he continued his very detailed story.
Flash! Flash! Greg captured a field of debris: one of the girl's boots, the contents of her purse, and shards of glass that littered the road.
Catherine and Sara were standing behind the Denali, changing out of their dresses and into the blue CSI jumpsuits. Some of the guys stole glances at them as they changed, but the girls didn't seem to notice and quickly finished changing, throwing their dresses and uncomfortable shoes into the back of the SUV.
"Hey, Greg, did you get a shot of these tire tracks?" Nick asked, crouched down a few feet from the body.
"Got it," the young CSI replied, working his way toward him.
Warrick met him with a piece of headlight in his gloved hand. "Better bag this."
Greg pulled an evidence bag from his kit and dropped the piece of plastic inside. "It should be a piece of cake tracking down that SUV with all the trace it left behind."
Warrick and Nick nodded in agreement.
Dave was crouched down beside the body, gently probing in certain areas. He was jotting down a few notes when Grissom walked up to him.
"Find anything?" the CSI supervisor asked.
"Well, most of her injuries are consistent with being hit by a car."
Grissom arched an eyebrow. "Why don't you try telling me something I don't know?"
Taking that as his cue to show him what else he'd found, the ME reached over to the girl's left pocket and pulled out a piece of folded paper. "I found this in her pocket," he explained, handing it over to Grissom.
He unfolded it gingerly, not wanting to rub off any trace or fingerprints, and a small, shiny object slipped out from inside. Dave caught it before it hit the ground and handed it to him.
"It's a key," Grissom said, turning it around in his fingers several times, studying it. Then his eyes went back down to the paper. His eyebrow went up again. In somewhat neat, loopy handwriting it read:
She means nothing.
"What does it say?" Dave asked curiously, staring up at him.
Grissom reread it then answered, "I'm not sure, but I have a feeling that whoever did this isn't done."
"Pretty girl," Dr. Al Robbins said as Grissom and Catherine walked up to the worktable the ME was standing by. "You figure out who she is, yet?"
Both CSIs shook their heads.
Robbins turned to pick something up from the table behind him. "Here, maybe these will help." He handed Grissom a card with the girl's fingerprints on it.
"Thanks."
"So, what have we got?" Catherine asked, eyeing the body.
Robbins carefully removed the sheet from the girl's body, revealing her injuries. He shook his head. "You know, I'd have a better chance of showing you what isn't broken on this girl." He took hold of one of her arms and lifted it gently. "Both arms shattered." His gloved hands moved down to her waist. "Torso twisted like a corkscrew."
The two CSIs listened intently as the ME reached the girl's legs.
"Broken leg, crushed kneecap."
Catherine made a painful face. "Ouch."
Robbins chuckled then rotated the girl's right leg for a closer view of a particular injury. Both CSIs looked closely at the deformed leg.
"These superficial tears indicate overstruction of the skin. The impact on the right side of the body forced her tissue mass to the opposite side."
Grissom inclined his head, understanding. "So the skin expanded to compensate for the pressure."
The ME nodded. "Precisely."
Catherine leaned over the body for a closer look then suddenly started sniffing it, something strange catching her attention.
"What are you doing?" Grissom asked.
"Huh?" Catherine looked up at her colleagues and found them staring at her like she'd grown antennae and a third eye. She backed away as if she'd been caught committing a crime. "Oh, sorry. Do you smell that?"
Grissom went in for a sniff. "She smells like garlic."
"Yeah, I noticed that, too," Dr. Robbins said. "So, I sent a sample of her blood to tox."
Grissom's eyebrows shot up. "Are you thinking arsenic?"
The ME nodded. "Most likely. Check out her nails."
Catherine gently picked up one of the girl's hands and studied the fingernails. Familiar white lines ran across all of them. "Mee's lines. Indicative of heavy metal poisoning."
"We'll know for sure when we get the tox results back. But if my suspicions are right, even if that car didn't hit her, she still would've eventually died."
"Sounds to me like someone was getting impatient," Grissom said, deep in thought.
"So what killed her?" Catherine asked, looking up at the ME. "The car or the poison?"
Robbins wagged his head. "The poison was definitely not the cause of death. This girl died because she was hit by a car. Plain and simple."
Meanwhile, Nick and Sara had traced the key that their supervisor had found back to a gentleman's club a few blocks from the crime scene. They immediately headed there to follow up, Brass in tow.
A big, gorilla of man guarding the door was there to greet them when they got there. Brass flashed his badge and the man looked the three over with a sneering, judgmental eye before letting them through. After a quick talk with the bartender, they were led backstage where the owner of the club was mingling with the dancers.
"Ya got one heck of a welcoming committee," Brass said as they marched up to him.
The man chuckled. "You mean, Carl, my bouncer? Don't let his size fool you, guy wouldn't hurt a fly." The club owner held out his hand. "Freddie Wilson. I'm the owner of this place."
"Yeah, we got that." Brass flashed his badge again and the club owner suddenly tensed, letting his arm drop to his side.
Freddie cleared his throat, uneasy. "So, to what do I owe the pleasure?"
"You know what this is?" Sara said, waving the key in his face.
He nodded slowly. "That's a key to one of the dancer's lockers. Did something happen to one of my girls?"
"Well, that depends," Nick said pulling a photo of their victim out of a folder. "Is she one of your girls?"
The man stared at the picture, the color drained from his face. "Y-yeah, that's Casey—Casey Farell."
Freddie led them to a row of lockers farther backstage and paused by one at the far end. "This is—was—Casey's locker."
Nick examined the locker door then using the key, he turned the latch and opened it. Sara stuck her head inside for a look. Nothing out of the ordinary. She pulled her head back out and she and Nick moved quickly and carefully, emptying the contents bit by bit, coat by costume, by dance shoes, into evidence bags on the floor.
The club owner stood by and watched, a little anxious. "What are you looking for?"
"Whatever we find," Nick said, as the CSIs continued to work.
Grissom sat in his office, pondering what they had learned from the doc while Catherine went over to another room to run the girl's prints through AFIS. He thumbed through the autopsy report, seeing in his mind all that had happened that previous evening.
His thoughts were interrupted when his cell phone began to ring. He quickly unfolded it and put it up to his ear.
"Grissom."
"Hey, Gris, it's Nick," the younger CSI's voice greeted on the other end. "We were able to trace that key you found to a gentleman's club not far from the crime scene, the Paradise Gardens Club. Owner recognized the vic, identified her as a Casey Farell."
"Good work."
"Bad news is, that's all we found out. We ran into a dead end. We couldn't find anything here that suggests that someone would've wanted her dead. It doesn't make sense."
"Keep looking, there's gotta be something."
"Will do. See ya, Gris."
"Bye, Nick."
Grissom put his phone away and looked back down at his desk where he'd laid the report he'd been reading. His gaze suddenly shifted to a piece of paper lying underneath the folder, its corners peeking out from behind it. How could he have not noticed it before?
He picked it up carefully and examined it. It was plain, white paper, no fancy labels, no obvious identifiers, nothing to call attention—
He froze momentarily as his eyes fell on what was written on it:
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES ARE YOU TO INVESTIGATE THIS.
Oo…what does that mean??? You'll find out soon…but ya gotta review first!
