Old Meets Flashy and New-Chapter 4-The Evidence is…the Same?
Even after five thousand years, autopsies, or even the science and act of cutting open dead bodies, still freaked Methos out. Unfortunately for him, Adam Pierson's young "assistant" Jana Bakker was really into forensics and had regaled him the entire trip to Las Vegas with the history of autopsies. On top of that, he had had to endure the autopsy of another supposedly young victim that had been discovered only hours before the plane from France touched down on the tarmac at the desert airport.
"Are you okay, Mr. Pierson?" a young brunette woman, her name's Sarah, right? he asked himself, asked him.
"Huh? Yes, I'm fine, why do you ask?" He appeared perplexed by her question.
"No reason, other than the fact that you look like you're going to be sick. Are you sure you're okay?"
"Yes, I'm fine. I'm just suffering from jet lag, that's all," he assured her, and himself.
"All right; anyway, here are the files Grissom asked me to get to you. These are all of the cases that involve the, um, odd deaths that have happened recently. What I don't understand is why Grissom asked you and your assistant to come all the way her from Paris," Sarah said as Methos glanced through the first file.
"He and my boss worked on a case similar to this when they worked in Los Angeles. Jana and I worked another similar case in Lyons about two years ago," he explained they walked to the DNA lab.
As Adam listened to what the DNA analyst had to say (Sarah was half-listening), the CSI noticed why her female co-workers had been talking about him in whispers ever since he and the young Dutch woman he worked with had shown up. The reason why they had been talking was mostly because of his Welsh-English accent. What hot-blooded woman didn't lust after a man with an exotic accent? Certainly not Sarah Sidle; she had enough man problems at the moment so that she couldn't add lusting after a tall, dark, & most definitely handsome man with an accent to her list of worries. Nope, she was most certainly not going to fall for that trap.
"So, you're saying that there wasn't any DNA evidence left at any of the crime scenes?" The sound of the British man's voice brought Sarah out of her reverie.
"That's half-right. There was DNA, but it wasn't human. The results should be in the file, Mr. Pierson," the lab tech told him.
"You're going to have to talk to me like the idiot I am; Jana's the scientist, I merely investigate. You say that the DNA evidence that was found wasn't human, so what was it?"
The woman looked a bit uneasy as she gazed at him through her glasses. "The DNA that was recovered was initially thought to be human, but when I ran it, it turned up as gorilla. But I don't suppose that that helps-"
She was cut off by the man's brief "Thank you" before he walked off in the direction of the trace lab where Jana had said she would be. Sarah looked to her colleague, thanked her, and followed her supervisor's visitor.
"Does the DNA evidence mean something to you?" she asked him as they continued towards the trace lab.
"Maybe, but I'd have to ask Grissom and Jana," was his short answer before they ran into Greg Sanders and Jana, who were looking at a file that Jana held open in her hands.
"Maybe we should all watch where we're going," a female voice accented by Dutch inflections said as the four people picked up the papers that had gone flying following their collision.
"Maybe, but since I was looking for you, I think it would best if we go somewhere we can share what we found," Adam told her.
Not realizing that he had spoken to the younger Immortal in her native Dutch instead of in English which could be understood by all, he wondered as to why Sarah and Greg gave him puzzled looks. Quickly realizing his mistake, Methos repeated his suggestion of finding someplace to go over what both Immortals had learned. Greg led them to the conference room where Warrick, Catherine, and Nick were discussing the case.
Seeing their colleagues and visitors, Catherine greeted them, "What's up?"
"Your DNA girl is a genius," Adam said.
"Although I would say that Mr. Hodgins is a bit full of himself," Jana added.
"I take it you both found something?" Catherine asked, ignoring the comments about her co-workers. Both Immortals nodded.
"Well then, please, share," Grissom said, scaring the quartet at the door with his Watcher abilities.
Settling down at the table, Adam started.
"Were you aware that gorilla DNA was found at all four crime scenes?" The CSIs nodded.
"The first two were being investigated by the day and swing shifts until they handed them to us," Nick said.
Turning to Grissom, Adam asked, "Well, I don't suppose you remember the Géant murders?"
The older-looking man thought back for a moment. "You couldn't possibly know about those; they happened in the 1970s."
Adam continued, "I was a researcher for three years; but you do remember them? Well, about two years ago, there were a series of identical murders near in and near Lyons, and the only DNA evidence that found was from gorillas."
The room was silent until Jana spoke up, "Your trace analyst said that plant vegetation indigenous to the Seine River area was found at all four crime scenes. That was also consistent with the Lyons murders."
"And the Géant murders, as well," Grissom added to the still stunned silence.
"Wait,isn't géant French for 'giant'?" Warrick asked.
"Yes; there were a series of murders in the 1970s that started in Paris and ended in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, the killer was never caught," Adam said.
"Which explains why you're so familiar with the case," Catherine said to Grissom.
"And right now, we're hoping that we'll be able to catch this murderer and bring them to justice."
At the conclusion of the little conference, Greg, who was still sitting at the table with Nick, Sarah, and Warrick, said, "This guy's been on the streets for 30 years, just arbitrarily killing people on and off, and now they believe that we're going to catch them?"
"I looked up the case from two years ago; apparently Interpol has been after the guy for the past 30 years, so somehow the higher-ups seem to think that we'll catch whoever is killing these people," Nick told his friend.
"Wait, does that mean that Pierson and Jana are with Interpol?" Warrick asked; the two Europeans were still a bit of an enigma to many in the lab.
"Yeah; Jana said that they're from some cold case unit of Interpol," Greg answered.
"So that means that this is essentially their case, not to mention Grissom's, too."
"So we should be helping them find the evidence to point us to whoever is killing," Sarah put in.
The group agreed that they would go over the evidence again to see if it led to anything conclusive as to who the murderer was.
Meanwhile, Catherine, Adam, and Jana had followed Grissom to his office and were currently discussing their next move.
"So, did any of you have any leads in either of your cases?" Catherine asked them.
"We did; a man named Henri le Tailleur. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough evidence to hold him and because he had diplomatic immunity-"
Jana was cut off by Catherine, "What country?"
The younger woman looked at a notebook she held in her hands. "Uh, Belgian; his wife worked at the consulate. It was odd, though. He was a French national; we could have held him for longer."
"A French national was married to a consular worker?"
"Ja."
"And your bosses didn't find that strange?"
"We were working on circumstantial evidence at best," Adam answered for his friend.
"I guess that explains a few things," Grissom told them.
"What do you mean?"
"Our best suspect was an American national married to an aide at the French consulate in LA."
"What was his name?"
"Henri le Forgeron."
"So we have the only suspects being a smith and a tailor," Jana said.
"What did you say?" Catherine asked the younger woman.
"I said, the only suspects that we've ever had are a smith and a tailor. Le Forgeron means 'the smith' and le Tailleur means 'the tailor.' What?" Jana looked at Catherine and Grissom with a confused look on her face.
"There's a big whale in Vegas by the name of Henri le Avocat. Sam said that he's been really bringing in the money," Catherine told her supervisor.
"And so, we now add a lawyer to the mix," Adam said softly.
"Do you think we might be able to get a driver's license or passport photo of him?" Jana asked.
"Maybe, why?"
Jana exchanged looks with Methos and Grissom.
"You think that maybe these three men are all connected?"
"Maybe. A friend of mine in Washington said that there were three murders similar to this. The only reason neither of us were called in was because she was on the case two years ago, too. The only thing is, he went by the surname of le Docteur. However, his first name was-"
"Henri?"
"You guessed it. And if this theory that the three of us seem to be sharing is right, your friends in Paris are going to be itching to get their hands on them." Satisfied that, for the moment, they may have a lead on this exceedingly close to home case, Jana leaned against the wall.
"So, all we need to do is get the photos of all four Henris together and see if anything pops up."
"As you Americans say, you've got it."
Okay, so this was probably one of the longest chapters I've ever written, but just think, there's now an even bigger mystery attached! Who are these four men named Henri? What, if anything, do they have to do with the mysterious man from chapter one? What is this shared theory that Grissom, Adam/Methos, and Jana all have that they're not letting Catherine or the other CSIs in on?
