Chapter 10
"Damn it, Walter, I can get out of the car myself!" Ryan snapped.
"Stop being such a crotchety old man!" Walter shot back.
"Am I gonna have to separate you two?" Jesse asked mildly, holding back a grin.
After Ryan was released from the hospital the next day, Horatio had ordered someone to stay with him for a few days, both as an assistant of sorts until he got re-used to the layout of his house and also as a sort of bodyguard in case Casanova got desperate to eliminate witnesses. A patrol car was also stationed at the end of the block.
Walter had volunteered to help Ryan out, and Jesse was thoroughly enjoying watching what ensued.
"Don't forget your walking stick, old man," Walter quipped, playfully shoving the aluminum rod into Ryan's hands.
Ryan huffily lowered the end of the stick until it touched the ground, using it to guide him as he walked. "I'm totally going to whack you with this when you're asleep," he muttered stormily.
"Dude, you can't aim when you can see," Walter retorted. "What makes you think you can hit me now?"
"I don't appreciate your insensitivity to my injury," he said haughtily.
"Yeah, keep it up and I may just give you another injury for me to be insensitive about!"
Ryan grinned and painstakingly began making his way to the stairs up to his front door.
Jesse turned to Walter, their faces serious.
"Be careful," Jesse said quietly. "Casanova's still out there. There's no telling what he might try if he thinks Wolfe's a potential threat."
Walter swallowed. "Yeah, I know. I'll keep eyes and ears open."
Jesse nodded, then clapped him on the arm. "Good luck," he said.
He turned to get back in the Hummer to go back to work. He looked back at Walter and grinned.
"Have fun!" he called.
Walter made a face at him, then waved as he drove away.
"A little hard for me to unlock the door when I can't see the keyhole!" Ryan called in a singsong voice. "Oh, babysitter?"
Walter sighed and hung his head in resignation.
(+)
Calleigh stood in the middle of the garage they were in yesterday. She looked at the disturbed patch of dirt near the burnt red car, cringingly remembering Ryan's screams as she and Jesse tried to help him. The hose was still lying where they had left it, a small trickle of water still leaking out of it.
"Jesse said Ryan's back home," Natalia said as she ducked under the crime scene tape to join Calleigh. "Walter's staying with him."
"Good," Calleigh said absent-mindedly.
Natalia noticed Calleigh wasn't paying very close attention. "Jesse's downstairs taking samples from that room you guys found, where you found Maggie Hayes."
"Uh-huh," Calleigh answered vaguely.
"He's okay, you know," Natalia said gently.
That startled Calleigh out of thoughts. "What?"
"Ryan," Natalia clarified. "He's okay now."
"Oh, I know," Calleigh said, returning her attention to the scene. "It was just scary, you know? I don't know what I would do if I went blind, even for a little while."
"Well, I'm just thankful the doctors were able to fix him up," Natalia said.
The two women continued searching the scene, looking for any evidence they could use to find the missing killer. It was a frustratingly fruitless task.
After an hour of looking for any identifying evidence, Natalia sighed in frustration.
"I can't help but think that no matter how much DNA or fingerprints we get on this guy, it's not gonna matter. He's not in the system."
"Well, when we do catch him, we'll have all this hard evidence just waiting to lock him up forever."
They kept looking. Calleigh walked toward the rusty truck on the other side of the garage. She stepped on something metallic with a loud crunch. She bent down and picked it up.
It was an old, rusty license plate. The back had completely blended in with the dirt. She would never have noticed it if she hadn't stepped on it.
Calleigh rubbed off some of the dirt and grime with a thumb. Letters and numbers of the plate slowly became visible. She bagged it to take back to the lab.
(+)
"Stewart Phelps?" Calleigh asked.
The man who answered the door frowned. He had dark blond hair and brown eyes. He was clean-shaven but he didn't look healthy to her for some reason. He stepped out his front door to face them, the screen door clanging shut behind him.
"No, Stewart's been dead for ten years," he said, putting his hands on his hips. "Who are you?"
Calleigh and Tripp flashed their badges in his face. He paled at the sight of them.
"We found Stewart's old license plate at a crime scene. This was the address filed with the plate number," Calleigh explained. "Did you know him?"
"I'm his son, Greg," the man choked. "What do you mean, you found it at a crime scene?"
"A garage off Hoffstead ringin' any bells?" Tripp asked.
"Yeah, my father owned a car repair stop out there for a long time," the man said quickly, sounding nervous.
"Have you been there recently?" Tripp inquired.
"Not in years," the man answered.
Calleigh's eyes weren't on the man's face. They were on his hands. Thick, black smudges speckled the insides of his fingers, as if he had more on them before, but did a haphazard job of washing it off.
"Could hold out your hands, please?" she asked suddenly.
Greg was startled into obedience.
Calleigh looked closely at the smudges, then produced a swab and took a sample.
"What are you doing?" Greg demanded sharply.
"You have engine grease on your hands, Mr. Phelps," she said, eyeing him like a hawk.
"I was tinkering with my car earlier," he said quickly.
"Yeah, yesterday in your daddy's old garage," Tripp snarled.
Greg's mouth opened and closed like a drowning fish.
"You're coming with us," Calleigh stated.