Note: This was written for the Genderbend Big Bang on LiveJournal. The face of girl!Flack, Dawn Flack, is Stana Katic. Thanks to Elenna for betaing. Thank you for your great reviews.
::
Pushing the bed sheets they had collected at the crime scene aside, Stella sighed in frustration and ran her hands through her curly hair. This wasn't working. Aside from the large amounts of blood - most likely belonging to their victim - she wasn't finding anything.
The sound of the door to the lab opening caused her to look up to see Mac joining her.
"Tell me you had more luck than I did," she said, her frustration bleeding through into her voice.
"It's a common kitchen knife," Mac said as he deposited the evidence bag on the light table. "A popular brand, available in high-end department and kitchen stores. It matches some of the other knives in her kitchen drawer, but not all of them."
"It probably belonged to her, then," Stella mused out loud with a frown. "Instead of buying a set, she may have been picking and choosing. If she's only been out of college for a few years, she might have been switching from cheap knives to something nicer piece by piece."
Mac nodded in agreement as he looked down at the lab report he carried. "The blood on it belongs to the vic, and the handle was wiped down. No prints or any other DNA."
"In other words," Stella said, "nothing."
"Not right now. But we'll find something, Stella."
But two unspoken questions hung darkly across the lab between them. Was he the type of killer who was going to kill again? And would they be able to stop him before he did?
"This is a cheery looking crowd," Dawn said from the doorway.
She looked tired, Stella thought, and frustrated. It appeared that she'd had as much luck with her interviews as they had with the evidence they collected.
"Were you able to get anything at the school?" Mac asked.
"She was well loved by all." Dawn took a seat on one of the lab stools. "Nary a bad thing to be said about her."
"Everyone has enemies," Mac pointed out. "It's just a matter of finding them."
"Well, then hers are keeping quiet," Dawn said, digging her notebook out of a pocket. "There was nothing but love for her there. Even the one teacher she came closest to not getting along with - they taught the same class, but everyone wanted to take it from her instead of him - had only good, and sincere, things to say about her."
"The ex-boyfriend?"
"Flew to Japan three days ago on a business trip, according to his employers. He's not supposed to return for three more days."
"Meaning that he couldn't possibly have been our killer." Stella stood and started pacing the lab. "I meant it when I said he's good." She started ticking things off on her fingers. "He cleaned up after himself - including bleaching the tub after his shower. He knew better than to leave blood present, but he may not have realized that bleach fluoresces, as well. Or maybe he just didn't care that he let us know that he cleaned up. He even cleaned the screen in the drain out - no hairs caught in it, and given how long Marcie Erikson's was, there should have been some."
"He wiped down the knife handle," Mac said, picking up where Stella left off. "And the wine glasses and bottle."
"Not to mention there were no prints on her body, so he possibly wiped her down as well."
"Crap." Dawn pulled her dark hair back from her face with both hands, absently wishing that she had worn it clipped back instead of loose. "Next you're going to be telling me he washed the sheets, too."
"I don't think he went that far," Stella said with a half-grin, "but I didn't get any trace off of them, either. We'll have to wait for the DNA results to return to see if he left any for us there."
"But unless Hawkes has something for us, we have a whole lot of nothing." Dawn's comment was immediately followed by the characteristic sound of a cell phone ring tone.
"Why don't we ask him," Mac said as he held up his phone. "It looks like he's finished the autopsy."
::
The morgue had always reminded Dawn of some odd cross between an old subway station and a European cathedral. The old, beige brick walls, with a constant grimy appearance thanks to decades of use, fit no more with the modern equipment than the arches and vaulted ceiling did. The huge room had cold, empty air to it until the spotlights were turned on, filling the room with bright light and accenting the architecture.
Today the room was dark, not even the windows adding any glimmers of light from the sunset. It was also empty, save a single sheet-covered body - Marcie Erikson, Dawn thought to herself as she approached - on a table to the side. Behind her, Mac ducked into the office, looking to see if Hawkes was back there. The CSI returned with the Medical Examiner not far behind him.
"Miss Erikson is just over here," Hawkes said as he led Mac and Stella over to where Dawn was already waiting. He grinned at her when he got there. "Trying to get a jump on me?"
"I just figured this was where the action was at," she said, giving him a tired smile in return.
"As I'm sure you all noticed at the scene," he said to all three of them as he pulled the sheet covering their victim back, "Miss Erikson died of blood after being stabbed several times. Eleven times, to be exact. And Mac, you were right: one of those stabs did hit an artery - her aorta took a direct hit. She bled out within seconds."
"That's consistent with the amount of blood we found at the scene and the arterial spray," Stella said, more to herself than anything else.
"And the knife wounds match the specifics you sent for the weapon found by her body," Hawkes said. "That kitchen knife is what was used to kill her."
"And it belonged to her, so we're looking at a passionate crime of opportunity." Mac frowned as he spoke.
Hawkes nodded as he uncovered Miss Erikson's arms and continued, "She has no apparent defensive wounds, and her blood alcohol content was 0.23%."
"She was likely unconscious when she was attacked," Stella said.
"That's what I was thinking," Hawkes said as he pulled the sheet back up over her body. "With that combination of alcohol content and lack of defensive wounds, I think it's likely she didn't know what hit her."
"Were there any signs of sexual activity?" Dawn asked, looking up from where she was taking notes. "Other than the fact she was found stark naked in bed?"
"Yes," Hawkes said, "but her partner used a condom. All I found was traces of spermicide."
"So," Stella said in a frustrated voice, "no DNA."
"Sorry, Stel, but this guy was careful."
"That's what we've been finding, as well," Mac said.
"And at this point, we're just assuming that the person she had sex with is the person who killed her," Dawn said. She rubbed the nape of her neck, glancing unconsciously at the windows. It was nearly full dark outside, and she was fairly certain that her shift had technically ended a couple of hours ago. She looked back over at the others as she continued, "We know he cleaned up after himself. What if she brought a partner home with her from her night out, but our killer crashed the party after he left? He would have cleaned up any traces of the partner as well as of himself."
"It's a possibility," Stella said thoughtfully, "but she lives in a pretty quiet neighborhood. Someone would have had to go out of their way to get there."
"And they likely would have brought the murder weapon with them," Mac added.
"Unless they already knew her and knew where she kept her knives," Dawn pointed out. "And we think this guy knew her, don't we?"
"The nature of the stabbing does suggest that this is someone who knew her and had strong feelings about her."
"We can't rule it out at this point," Stella admitted, "but it isn't likely that there were two different people there with her last night."
"Good luck figuring it out," Hawkes said as he followed them back to the door. "I wish I had more to give you."
"So do I, Hawkes," Dawn said quietly as she glanced back over at Marcie Erikson's sheet-draped body. As a homicide detective, it was her job to find out what happened, to provide a voice for the victims by solving the crimes. But how could she do that when she didn't have anything else to go on?
Sighing softly, she followed Mac and Stella out of the morgue. It was late, but tomorrow she was going to have to track down every person who ever knew Marcie Erikson. That was the only way they were going to find this guy.
::
Saturday morning, Dawn was awake long before her alarm went off, her mind examining every little thing she knew about the Erikson case. Unfortunately, it wasn't much. But her plan for the day was to change that.
Dawn turned off the alarm and climbed out of bed, pulling on a pair of shorts and tank. She had enough time to take a longer route on her run this morning. That was something she'd been doing more often lately. While she appreciated the results, she wasn't certain she like the implications it had on her social life - or in this case, lack thereof.
It used to be that there were nights she barely got home to get four hours of sleep before her alarm woke her. Not so much anymore. Tightening the worn laces on her running shoes, she grabbed a Rangers ball cap and hit the door. By the time she reached the pavement, she'd stopped mulling over the case, focusing on other things.
After her last (bad) breakup, it had been easy to go the clichéd route and throw herself into her work. She had still been on the Bank Robbery Task Force back then. But she, and just about everyone else in the NYPD looking to move up, had known that Briscoe was nearing retirement. And that with his retirement there would be an open spot in homicide. She'd wanted that spot and the promotion to detective.
Thanks to that hard work, she'd gotten it. Her social life, however, had yet to fully recover. Oh, she went out with the rest of the squad after a big case was closed, and she and Brustin had gone out with Mac and Stella after cases, but that wasn't the same. It'd be nice to occasionally have a night out that didn't include talking shop.
Maybe next weekend, case willing, she'd call Sam and see if she wanted to go out. It had been a while since they'd done anything together. Of course, it had also been a while since Dawn had actually talked to Sam instead of her voicemail, so maybe not.
That didn't mean she couldn't go out on her own, or call up some old friends to see if they wanted to do anything. Maybe that was what she needed to do, plan a night out after the case closed.
Dawn stopped for a bagel a couple blocks from her apartment, eating it as she cooled down, slowly walking the rest of the way home. She rarely wore a watch on her runs, instead judging the length of time by how far she had run. That mean that occasionally, on days like today when she had something to think through, she sometimes got home with a little less time than she'd like. Taking a quick shower - record-breaking in her case; she'd been teased by more than one person over how long she took in the mornings - she made it out the door and to the precinct.
No coffee this morning; she'd drink the stuff at work instead. She wasn't late, thanks to the ten-minute cushion built into her schedule, but she didn't get there at her regular time, either.
It didn't go unnoticed: Cooper was grinning at her when she entered the squadroom. "Late night last night?"
She wished. "Sorry, Coop; longer run this morning."
"Oh." He actually looked disappointed, probably wanting fuel for the gossip mill, but something else caught her eye before she could call him on it.
Unlike typical desk jobs with a Monday through Friday schedule, working Saturdays around here didn't mean it was going to be any quieter. No, possibly busier instead. There was always a full rotation on the schedule and around the precinct, ready to take calls and cases that came up. Which meant she had a full rotation of cops to choose from for the potential culprits behind this. Dawn glanced back at her desk again before turning and looking at the rest of the bullpen.
It didn't take long to figure out who was responsible: Thacker and Cooper almost immediately dissolved into laughter when she turned her exasperated look their direction. Coop had to hang onto his desk to keep from rolling out of his chair, his amusement over the whole thing funnier than the gag itself.
"Thanks, guys," Dawn said sarcastically as she sat at her desk. She pushed the plastic butcher's knife out of her way to start on her paperwork. "It's nice to know you care."
::
He gripped his briefcase loosely, smiling casually at a few of the people who caught his eye. He felt good. He still felt good, but not as good as he had two nights ago. It hadn't been planned, it hadn't been expected, but oh, it had been exactly what he needed. His... high, if that was the way to put it, was coming down. Or, rather, he was coming down from it.
He needed that rush again. He needed that feeling of being in control. He needed to be in control. And this time he was prepared.
He stepped up to the bar, motioning to the bartender and ordering a beer. He didn't want anything too strong--he wanted to be able to enjoy the moment. Turning and leaning against the bar, he surveyed the crowd on the dance floor. There were a lot of possibilities out there, but none that had caught his eye. None that called to him.
None that could be her.
The door opening at the front caught his eye, and he watched a group of people coming in. They were all congregated around one woman, smiling and laughing as they talked to her. She wouldn't suit his purposes. But one of her friends might.
He shifted the briefcase, the soft thump inside reassuring him that it was still there. Dropping a few dollars in the tip jar, he grabbed his glass and made his way along the edge of the crowd toward the group of friends. They were splintering apart now, some going to the dance floor and others grabbing a table. She was headed to the bar.
Plastering a charming smile on his face, he retraced his steps, pausing to set his half-empty glass on an empty table. He reached the bar at the same time she did. He motioned for her to go first, then paid for hers as he got another beer. She smiled at him, the same smile the other one had had that started pleasant and appreciative but quickly turned interested.
He'd found her.