Chapter 9

Tuesday, September 5th, 2006
9:11 PM

There are some things that are hard to see, and some that are harder. There jobs made usual the hard to see. Lately, Warrick had been seeing the harder. Their victim was laying out nude on the morgue table before them. The bruising across the young woman's body became more visible once her cloths were removed. When they arrived in the room to see Doc Robbins leaning over the body, Warrick chanced a glance at Sara, seeing a grim expression equal to his own. Cameras in hand, Warrick and Sara carefully catalogued each round bruise, before stepping back so that Doc Robbins could begin the autopsy. Warrick watched in silence, exchanging glances with Sara as he stared down at the battered body. When it was over, Doc Robbins confirmed the Cause of Death: Subdural Hematoma. It was no surprise that a blow to the head had caused the young woman's death. The surprise came when Doc Robbins announced that their victim also had eight crushed vertebrae, all in a line.

Doc Robbins' announcement stopped Warrick in his tracks. He looked over at Sara, who was already questioning the doctor. "Her spine is crushed?"

Doc Robbins flipped the body onto its side, showing Warrick and Sara where the damage was done. Warrick studied the area, noting the bruising surrounding the area. Doc Robbins handed Warrick the X-rays he'd taken before the two CSIs had returned to the lab. "She had to have been hit with a lot of pressure, or had a very heavy weight dropped on her."

"Our theory was that she was stoned to death."

"It's a good theory. All of the other injuries are consistent with stoning. However, the rock that hit your Jane Doe's back had to have been very heavy. I doubt it was thrown at her. It would take a man competing in the Highland Games to create enough force to throw a rock large enough to create the kind of injury your Jane Doe sustained. More likely, it was dropped on her after she was already down."

Warrick glanced at Sara, thinking back to the crime scene. "There was a small to mid-sized boulder not far from where the body was found. I didn't think much of it at the crime scene, because it was the only rock that didn't seem out of place, and we were working on the assumption that the surrounding stones were the weapons used, but it was big enough, and probably heavy enough to cause the damage inflicted on her."

"We have to go back to the crime scene."

"Yeah. Look, let's finish up here. Can you get prints and DNA off?" Sara nodded and he looked at Doc Robbins, continuing, "Doc, have you sent a tox panel to Henry?"

"Yes. Your Jane Doe's blood came back clean."

He nodded. "Alright, thanks Doc. Sara, I'll get the rocks we've collected to trace, then head back out to the scene with an officer. I'll meet up with you later." Warrick paused, looking back at the young woman's body before glancing back at Sara. "I'm beginning to think you might be right."

"Rick, can you swab the stones with blood on them, then bring them back here? I want to see if I can match our Jane Doe's wounds with the ridge outlines of the rocks. If we can get enough ridge detail, we might be able to find the rock that caused the fatal blow."

"Good idea." He paused before leaving. "Doc, were there any signs of sexual assault?"

"There was some bruising, indicative of rough, but consensual sex. No signs of forced entry."

"Hmm, thanks, Doc." He left, a little relieved the victim had been spared that violence.

11:37 PM

She knocked softly on the office door, opening it slowly when she heard the familiar voice answer. She stepped in and gave Grissom a small smile which he returned. Closing the door softly behind her, she moved towards the empty chair across from him. She took a seat and leaned forward, resting her forearms on the desk. "Hi." Her voice was soft, almost shy, but after not seeing him for six days, she didn't even know where to begin.

"Hi."

His response had been equally soft and tender and for a moment it left her breathless. Then, she remembered that she wasn't stealing away a moment just to be with him, but that she had something to discuss with him. She sighed and sat up, leaning back against the chair. "Griss, tell me about the crime scene you and Greg have been working on."

Grissom frowned, leaning back in his own chair. "Sara, I think you've got it backwards. I'm the supervisor. You're supposed to brief me on your cases."

Despite the puzzled frown, his voice held a degree of levity. Underneath the levity, though, Sara was certain she could detect a hint edge to the cadence. He was reluctant to speak to her about it. She understood that. From what Warrick had told her, the case had shaken Grissom, though he wouldn't let it show, and she knew part of the reason he was holding back was his fear about how it would affect her. She pressed on. "Please Griss, it's important. I'll explain later, but I need to know."

It was silent as he studied her. She held his eyes, communicating to him that she needed to hear it and that she could handle it. She gave him a closed mouth smile when his features showed he was about to cave in. "Alright. A young woman's body was found in an off-strip motel. When Greg and I arrived, the woman lying, spread eagle, on top of a shower curtain, tied down to the bed. There was blood covering her pelvis and upper legs, pooling in between her legs on the shower curtain." Sara winced and Grissom stopped his description. She shook her head, urging him to continue. "The room was spotless. It had been sterilized before the murder had been committed."

Sara furrowed her brow, her mind processing the information and the meaning behind the sterile motel room. She caught Grissom watching her. "Sorry, go on."

"Greg checked the bathroom. It was also sterile, with the exception of a few items left on display. On a white towel, in the middle of the bathroom floor, there were two bloody scalpels and a bowl containing our victim's genitalia. On the edge of the tub, there was a closed cell phone, and sitting on top of the toilet's tank, there was a needle, containing traces of heroin, used by our victim to shoot-up earlier that day."

"Can I see the pictures?"

"Sara, what's this about?"

She sighed. Grissom's description of the sterile room had lent more credence to her theory that the murders were connected. However, she had to see his seen before she could voice her theory to Grissom. "I'll let you know in a minute. I need to see the pictures first."

The folder containing the photos came out. Sara could sense the reluctance Grissom had in showing her. His hand hovered over the folder, hesitating before slowly opening it and revealing the contents. Sara wheeled her chair around his desk, leaning over his shoulder to glance down at the photos. The images before her were graphic and she found herself unconsciously biting down on her lip. She nodded and wheeled her chair away, putting a couple feet of space between her and her supervisor.

"Want to tell me what this is about, now?"

"Warrick's and my victim was stoned to death."

"Stoned?"

"Yes. I matched a rock at the scene to a puncture in the victim's skull. Warrick and I found other rocks at the scene. I was able to match some of the other rocks to other wounds found on our victim."

"Okay…"

"Warrick said that Nick and Catherine have a case where a widow was burned over her husband's corpse."

"And you think they're all related?"

"As crazy as it sounds, yes, I do. I know we don't have any evidence to support it yet, but I feel it inside me. I mean, three women killed by practices we don't see in Vegas, all killed within a week. I know we see some pretty messed up stuff, but for this to happen, all at once."

"Sara, the practices don't have a common cultural thread. FGC and stoning are known to occur in Sub Saharan Africa, while Sati and stoning have been used in Indian practice."

"Stoning in common to both. Maybe there's a thread we don't know about. I can research it, check the web, hit the University library and see what I can find. The photos of your crime scene show an obsession with presentation. Ours did as well. The stones we collected seemed so out of place. We aren't sure where our Jane Doe was killed, the wind swept away all tracks and traces around the body, but if she was killed elsewhere and dumped in the desert, the killer went to great lengths to collect all the stones he used and arrange them around our Jane Doe's body."

"Somebody built a funeral pyre for Nick and Catherine's victim."

Grissom's words only helped to strengthen her theory. Her mind was working in overdrive. Building a funeral pyre fit in with the creation of a presentation. Sara turned to Grissom, her eyes alight. "We need to find the common thread."

It took a few moments for Grissom to form a response. Sara stared at him, her eyes drawn to the way his lips were pursed in thought. Suddenly, he turned back to her and his eyes flashed. "Unless the murders aren't about what is common, but what is uncommon."

"What do you mean?"

"The hotel room and the cell phone left in the hotel room bathroom were both registered to Emile Durkheim."

"Great, so we're looking for a dead sociologist."

"Well, I think we can omit Durkheim from any list of suspects we create, but maybe we're looking for a fan."

"A fan of Durkheim?"

"Or someone who fancies himself a modern Durkheim, studying the practices Durkheim may have studied himself."

"Durkheim focused a lot of his work on religion, the sacred and the profane, and how it was used to organize society. Somehow I don't think these murders cover it. And, I am sure Durkheim would never approve."

"Durkheim also focused on the practices that continued to exist after a cohesive religion was formed. The killer could be concentrating on those, using the murders to study them."

"Conducting his own social experiment?" Her own words caused a cold chill to run through her body. It had only been months ago they'd had a case where a man decided to become a modern Dr. Mengele and was experimenting on humans, performing eye transplants and lobotomies on his victims. "Griss, you don't think we're looking at another Leon Sneller, do you? Social experimentation rather than biological?"

Sara watched Grissom freeze in place. Suddenly she was sorry she brought it up. That case had been inordinately trying on Grissom, not only because of what the case involved, but who. Now, it looked as though Grissom was reliving the experience, and trying once again to come to grips with everything that case had brought up. Finally he moved, shaking his head sadly, and Sara could breathe again. Grissom's voice was soft, his eyes full of worry. "I don't know, but if the murders are connected, we're looking at a careful, meticulously obsessed killer."

"This had to have taken some planning, but also required a great deal of opportunity, especially with the case of Sati."

"It's possible the killer changed the order when opportunity arose. The third victim may have been slotted to be killed second."

"When did each of the murders occur?"

"The murder in the hotel occurred on September 1st. Nick and Catherine's Sati occurred on the third."

"And Warrick's and my victim was killed sometime this morning."

"The fifth. If you're right, we're looking for someone killing at the rate of every second day."

Wednesday, September 6th, 2006
12:02 AM

There have been times when he felt he'd been swimming, barely keeping his head above water. Cases had worn him down; the people working the cases had worn him down. Some of those times he felt as though he were drunk, uncomprehending, not working in capacity, seeing the world through blurred lenses as lines began to blur between the personal and impersonal. While this was not yet one of those times, Sara's words certainly had reminded him of those times.

When Sara spoke of Leon Sneller, it had completely blindsided him. Leon Sneller translated to Zoe Kessler, which, in turn, translated to Heather Kessler. That had been a tough case to handle, lines blurring between the personal and impersonal. At the time, he'd been basking in the glow of what was a glorious affair, and had suddenly and unexpectedly been confronted with his feelings for another woman. Even knowing he was in love with Sara hadn't helped. Heather Kessler had needed him and he felt obliged to be there, driven slightly by guilt, but even more by some invisible string which drew him to her. Sara was his…he couldn't catalogue what she was, but she was the woman who completely undid him, the one woman he could not stop his mind from thinking about or straying to. When the Sneller case came up, he hadn't thought about Heather Kessler in a long time, but there was something about seeing her needing him that drew him back in and he couldn't deny caring about her. While he'd come to realize it was just friendship, he knew that Sara didn't have that same understanding. All Sara saw was the string, invisible to him, but very clear to her. She'd been patient through it all, but he'd been clearly able to see the level of discomfort she had with the case and with his relationship to Heather Kessler. And now, Sara was bringing up that case again? The first case to really test the bounds of their relationship?

Things had changed. In the months since Jim had been shot, things had definitely changed. The affair had morphed into a relationship as he began to open up to her and give her more of himself. While the feelings Grissom had for Sara had intensified in the past months, the real change came when he became more willing to express those feelings, not verbally but definitely in his actions. He cared for Sara, very deeply, and willing to show it, if not to the world, than to Sara herself. Sara was…everything. And now, she was delving, face first, into the incomprehensible. Putting the issues from the previous case aside, he was now worried about how invested Sara was in this new case. As he looked at her case photos and thought back to Catherine's and Nick's, he began to see more of a connection. The case was drawing him in as well.

His mind was spinning, between the past and the present, between two cases equally horrifying, between the feelings each of the cases brought forth. Was it supposed to spin like that? He needed it to stop. He needed to find a way to deal with what was going on, but there wasn't the time. There would time later to analyze the workings of his mind, but for the moment, he had to suspend it all and focus on the night's assignments.

Warrick was the only person missing from the break room, but he'd expected that after being told by Sara that Warrick went back out to the crime scene. The rest of the team was assembled, waiting on him. He glanced quickly at Sara, noting her expression let him know she was waiting for him to take the lead. He glanced around at the other occupants, at Greg gazing back at him in expectation, at Catherine, looking impatient as she waited for him to speak so she could get on with her own case, and at Nick, whose own expression was caught in between the two, anxious and expectant. Grissom cleared his throat. "Before I hand out assignments, I want to put forth a theory that was outlined to me. We have three cases, all involving practices we don't see in this area. While the MO's may be different, the theory is that the cases may be connected. After hearing it out, I am inclined to follow the line of theory and investigate it."

"You're kidding right?"

"What's the third case?"

"No way!"

Voices were flying at him. He looked at the disbelief on the faces of his colleagues and nodded softly. "We don't know for sure, but it's too big a coincidence to go ignored. Warrick and Sara are investigating a stoning. We have three murdered females, all Caucasian, two young, one old. They were all killed by practices that are or were common to other cultures. Each of the murders occurred two days apart."

"No, I don't buy the connection. What's the signature?"

Grissom turned to Catherine. "If the theory is correct, the signature ties into the cultural element. In all three cases, the killer went to great lengths to show us exactly what he'd done. There was no mistaking any of the practices. With regards to Greg's and my case, the killer called himself Emile Durkheim. Maybe, in some round-about way he was telling us then what he was doing. Look, I know there isn't any tangible evidence supporting the connection yet, but it's something we have to look into. For now you'll continue to investigate the cases separately. Nick, Catherine, you continue working on your case. Warrick, when he returns from his crime scene, will continue working on his. Greg, you can help Warrick when he returns, which should be soon. If any new cases come up, you'll handle them. If need be, I'll help. For now, I'll work with Sara, seeing if we can find anything that can connect the cases and the practices. Alright?" The faces glancing back at him were all filled with uncertainty; Greg's more along the lines of bewilderment. Grissom shook it off. They had work to do. He looked at Sara and nodded his head towards the door. She nodded back, standing as she did so. He waited for her to pass in front and then followed her from the room.