Chapter 2
Calleigh's heels clopped hollowly along the shiny stone floors of the morgue. Pulling on a pair of gloves, she shouldered her way into the frigid exam room.
Tom had that morning's victim already on the table, waiting for her. He smiled at her sadly as she approached.
"Ah, I see the even-tempered one has been chosen for this assignment," he remarked.
Calleigh sighed. "Yeah, I thought Ryan and Jesse could use a break from the Casanova case. They took the post for the other three victims, thought I'd take a turn."
Tom nodded. "Even one's too many. You sure you're up for it?"
Calleigh shook her head slightly, looking at the floor. "No, but let's just get it over with, okay?"
Tom nodded again.
"So," she began, steeling herself. "Cause of death. Strangulation?"
"Actually, no."
Calleigh looked at him sharply. "No? But I thought Casanova always strangled his victims..."
"He does. He just messed up this time."
Tom pointed to the bullet hole, stark black against her purple-mottled skin. "I found evidence in the wound track that blood was still flowing at the time of the gunshot wound. I followed it deeper and found evidence of massive bleeding in her chest cavity. Her heart was beating when the bullet perforated it."
"The bullet holes in the other Casanova victims were all definitely post-mortem," Calleigh said.
"Yes," Tom affirmed. "Strangled and then shot. But Rachel Pope was most definitely still alive when she was shot. And there was no water in her lungs, meaning she was dead by the time her car was pushed into the canal."
"He's escalating," Calleigh said softly.
"I'm not so sure," Tom remarked. "I think he was still trying to follow his usual m.o. I think when he went to strangle Rachel Pope, he only rendered her unconscious. He didn't kill her. And then he made his mark on her."
Calleigh made a sound of sympathy.
"She died in a matter of seconds," Tom said quickly, as if trying to make her feel better.
Calleigh nodded. "Okay. What else?"
Tom lifted Rachel's limp arm. Blue and purple bruising blossomed all up and down her flesh. "Significant amounts of bruising over fifty percent of her body surface, and I found at least three different stages of healing in different areas. She was beaten badly over the course of a few days. Judging by the sizes and shapes of the marks, the killer used just his hands and feet."
"That's consistent with Casanova's work," Calleigh pointed out. "Did she have the head trauma like the other women?"
"Yeah, blunt force to the back of the head."
Tom put her arm down and gently turned her neck and parted her silky blonde hair to show Calleigh the bloody gash hidden beneath.
"I'll get you a mold right away," he promised.
Calleigh looked crestfallen. "It'll probably match the other three. We think he used a tire iron. Not exactly an uncommon item."
"I'll get you a mold anyway," he assured her. "It is consistent with the other three. It was a hard enough blow to knock her out but not enough to cause any interior brain damage."
"He hit her, tied her up and beat her for days before finally killing her," Calleigh said. "It all fits." She steadied herself for a moment. "And was she sexually assaulted?"
Tom eyes were sorrowful. He nodded. "Just like the other ones. Like the beating, he did it many times before he killed her. He left tons of DNA."
"Yeah, he's not one to use condoms. But the other samples never gave us a name," she said. "He's not in any of the systems. Not in federal databases, not in national databases..."
"He's a ghost," Tom said.
Calleigh nodded. "We can only hope he'll slip up soon. Is that everything?"
Tom held out a handful of DNA swabs. Calleigh took them.
"Thanks, Tom. I'll let you know if we get anything, okay?"
She moved to leave.
"Calleigh..."
She turned around. Tom was looking at her with a strange sort of fear-tinged sadness on his face.
"I don't want to see another one of these girls on my table," he said thickly. "Ever again."
Calleigh understood him perfectly. "We'll get him, Tom. We will."
(+)
Ryan, Jesse and Walter silently examined Rachel Pope's swamp-stained Taurus in the CSI garage. The canal water and bacteria had destroyed pretty much any possibility of usable fingerprints or DNA, but they searched all the same.
Natalia walked in, pulling on a pair of gloves.
"I hear we have another Casanova victim," she said quietly.
"Yeah," Ryan answered, not taking his eyes off of the steering wheel he was dusting. "Rachel Pope, 28 years old. Stay-at-home mother of two."
Natalia sighed. "This has got to stop. We need to find this monster."
"By all means, jump in," Ryan said.
Natalia joined the three men as they worked, each careful to stay out of each other's way. No one spoke. They simply worked. There was really nothing else they could do.
"He takes them while their driving, subdues them, beats and rapes them for days, strangles them, then he brands a muzzle stamp on their heart and dumps them in a canal in their own car," Jesse listed off angrily. "This guy is not human."
Calleigh entered the garage, a sheet of paper in her hands. The other four CSIs watched her as she approached, knowing what she held.
"DNA match confirms it," she announced. "Rachel Pope is Casanova's fourth victim."
"That we know of," Walter rumbled.
"Still no hits on any database?" Natalia asked.
Calleigh shook her head. "I think it's time we went back to square one on this guy."
The other four nodded in agreement.
"I'll go repeat interviews with all the victims families, see if they can think of anything new that might help us," Natalia offered.
"I'll help," Jesse said.
"I'll stay on the car," Ryan said.
"Me too," Walter chimed in.
"And I'll be in the layout room, trying to draw parallels between our victims," Calleigh finished.
They all stood in silence for a moment, lost in their own thoughts.
"We really need to catch him this time," Jesse said quietly.
Everyone nodded in agreement.