"Your mind is tossing on the ocean."
William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
****
Horatio ducked under the crime scene tape, slipped his key into the lock, and opened the door. It was 5:00 AM, and the world seemed still asleep. He was later than he had planned, and he didn't want to run into the police, but he couldn't leave the temporary foster home where they had been placed until Ray was asleep; he had to be there for Ray now. Only when he was sure his brother was asleep had he allowed himself to focus on his second vow, to find out who had killed his mother. He had left a note on the kitchen table for Mrs. Spencer, the woman in whose house they had been placed, simply saying that he was out taking a walk and would be back later. Not a lie, he reassured himself. He had walked over here, and he would return later.
Once inside, Horatio headed straight for the kitchen. He knew that his mother's body was no longer there, but he also knew that he would have to see it gone before he could settle to noticing other details. The bloodstains on the floor didn't help, but nothing could look as bad as his mother's face had. Every time he closed his eyes, he could still see it. He looked at the place where she had been until her absence had firmly registered, then he stood in the kitchen doorway and started to study the room, not looking for anything in particular, just seeing how it fit together, what the shambles and debris from the fight told him. For as long as he could remember, he had been able to see things, patterns that no one else could, how things fit together. He could work a jigsaw puzzle in no time flat. There was no trial and error to it. All he had to do was pick a piece, look at those remaining, and the matching piece would almost jump out of the rest. Once, for fun, he had worked a 500 piece puzzle in 15 minutes. His mother had marveled at it, Ray had fumed at it, and Horatio simply took it for granted, learning to downplay it around others so that he wouldn't frighten them. He had never tried to seriously apply it to any situation that mattered. Until now.
He leaned against the doorway and studied the room, knowing not to focus too tightly. Like working the puzzle, it was a question of scanning and not getting distracted by one detail. At least he hoped it was like working the puzzle. For a moment, he could see nothing, but then the pattern started to settle. His mother had been over by the kitchen sink doing dishes; the sink still had cold soapy water sitting in it. Someone had come to the back door. She had gone to the back door but refused to open it. The murderer then kicked the door in - the lock was splintered - and the door had hit his mother, knocking her backwards against the wall. There was a slight indentation in the plaster where her head had hit, precisely in a line corresponding to the door's swing. She had come back fighting, and the ensuing scuffle had knocked over the trash can and table. She must have hurt her murderer, too; Horatio remembered her clenched hands and bloody nails. She had finally gone down for good next to the table, and her murderer had beaten her face to a pulp, going far beyond just causing death. Blood was spattered around a good bit of the room, but there was a pool there, where his mother had been lying.
Horatio suddenly turned his back, gulping in deep breaths. This wasn't a mental agility exercise; she had actually been killed in there. What kind of person was he who could analyze his mother's death scene? A person who was going to damn well see justice done, he told himself. He apologized to his mother silently. I know this isn't one of our mind games, Mom, but I have to see it finished. I have to be doing something productive. Can you understand that? Still with his back to the kitchen, he walked across to the living room wall to study the pictures there. His favorite was of his mother playing the piano. Calm, serene, beautiful, expressive. He tried to memorize her features, but like yesterday, when he closed his eyes, he only saw her dead, beaten face. He opened them and looked at the picture some more.
"Hold it, Miami-Dade Police!" A stern voice barked from the front door. Horatio turned slowly, hands up. "Hey, wait a minute. You're the kid who lived here, the one who called us." The young officer holstered his gun and entered. Horatio remembered him as one of the two who had kept Ray from rushing into the house. "Horatio, right? What are you doing here?"
"I . . . I thought I might help." It sounded stupid when he said it, but the young officer replied kindly.
"Look, Horatio, we do have people trained to do this. The best thing you can do is stay out of our way." Horatio didn't reply. Damn those eyes, thought the policeman. Aside from the eyes, he looked like a typical kid, but there was something there, an intelligence and a soul far above average. It was very hard to look straight at this kid and simply tell him he wasn't needed, even though he knew the kid shouldn't be here. "How did you think you could help us? You told us all you knew yesterday, didn't you?"
"Yeah, but I thought I might see how it happened. The other officer said you could reconstruct the crime and find the killer from the evidence. So I thought if I looked at the kitchen, I might see something that would help you. I didn't touch anything. I was just looking."
"And what did you see?" The policeman was getting curious in spite of himself.
"Look." Horatio went back to the kitchen door. "She was doing dishes when someone came to the back door. She went over but didn't open it, and the door was kicked in. That means she knew who it was. She would have opened the door for a stranger, for anyone who might need help. If she didn't want to let him in, she knew him. She knew he was bad news."
"How do you know she went over to the door? We saw that the door had been kicked in, but couldn't it have been kicked in suddenly while she was still at the kitchen sink? Then the fight started from there."
"Behind the door, in the plaster, there's an indentation from her head. The door caught her and slammed her back. If she had been knocked there later, during the fight, she would have hit the door, not the wall behind it."
The policeman was stunned. In three hours here yesterday, none of them had noticed the slight indentation in the plaster behind the door. He walked over to look more closely. Precisely at the victim's head height. "How long have you been here?"
Horatio looked at his watch. "About 15 minutes before you." And in 15 minutes, he had spotted something that everyone yesterday in three hours had missed. Who was this kid?
"Go on," said the detective, and there was nothing patronizing in his tone now. "What else did you see?" Horatio described the rest of the fight as he had pieced it together, and when he finished, the look of admiration and true respect in the detective's eyes warmed him, thawing the frozen core inside a bit.
"So you see, it wasn't random," he said. "It wasn't a robbery gone wrong. She knew him, and she knew he was trouble. And he knew her. He went a long way past killing her. He wanted to send a message." Again, the stark reality of what he was saying suddenly gripped him, and he turned and bolted from the house.
The detective caught up to him in the yard and gripped his shoulders tightly. "It's okay, Horatio. We'll get whoever did this." He checked his own watch. "Look, my supervisor will be here any minute, and he isn't going to like you being here. Why don't you leave first, and I'll contact you later today. We can talk more then."
Horatio swung around to face him. "I have to help. I need to." The urgency in his voice melted the detective's heart.
"You have helped, and I do mean it. I'll keep in contact. Only don't tell my superior, okay?"
"What's your name, sir?"
"Al Humphries. Rookie on the force this year." They shook hands solemnly, as if sealing a pact.
"Mr. Humphries . . . "
"Al," said the policeman firmly. "If I'm calling you Horatio, you have to call me Al."
"Al. Could I take her picture? The one on the living room wall? That isn't part of the crime scene, and I'd like to remember what she looked like." He didn't elaborate, but Al heard the unspoken thought and remembered that Horatio had been the one to find her. Dear God, what a thing to come home to. Technically, he wasn't supposed to let anything leave that house, but the kid needed the picture. Just like he needed to help. And maybe he could help. The detective was still stunned at what this untrained kid had pieced together in 15 minutes.
"Sure." They walked back into the house together, and Horatio took the framed picture off the wall, looking at it again, trying to memorize the face. He closed his eyes and still saw the other one. Al slipped an arm around his shoulders and gave him a sympathetic squeeze. "I will call you today. I'll let you know what's going on."
Horatio ducked back under the crime scene tape, clutching the picture to his chest, and started walking down the street. He studied the picture as he walked. Who could destroy someone so beautiful? Who could have known her, yet hated her so much? His walk became a run, his run became a wild sprint, and he raced blindly down the street as hard as he could, trying to escape the events of the last day.
But he did not cry.
****
Horatio abruptly realized that the hot water in the shower was rapidly turning to cold. He shut off the water and grabbed a towel. His mind felt ripped in different directions, and he had been standing under the water trying to sort them out. There was the familiar but still acutely painful impact of the memories of his mother's death. In 28 years, this annual reliving still hadn't gotten easier. But this morning, there was something else demanding his attention as well. Calleigh. He had gotten the best night's sleep he could ever remember having in the first week of April since his mother died, and when he had woken up, she had been there on the floor with one hand on his arm. He knew instantly that that hand had been his lifeline through the night. She had held away the worst of the dreams. Of course, he now felt guilty about her spending the night on the floor, although she had seemed very soundly asleep when he moved her. But beyond that, last night forced him to think more about his relationship with this petite blonde spitfire.
Of course he was attracted to her. He had been attracted to her from the beginning, and learning her personality, working around her each day, the attraction only deepened. But the twin brakes that he held on any intimate relationship had been firmly in place. He did not want to be vulnerable, to be hurt again, but more than that, he did not want others to be hurt. And the track record for people he was close to getting killed was a very high percentage. His father had been the first. Horatio had been in the car accident with him. Another car had run them off a mountain road, and Horatio had been trapped in that car for seven hours with his dead father before they were found. Seven hours to wonder if he had distracted his father and contributed to the accident. Then his mother's death, which haunted him yearly. Ray, whom he had promised his mother's spirit he would take care of. Most recently, Al Humphries, who had become his best friend and mentor on the force. Horatio had concluded with Ray's death, and had had it reinforced with Al's, that he simply was not meant to have people love him. Everyone he loved died violently. Probably his ex-wife would have died if she hadn't saved herself by leaving him. And now Calleigh . . .
Countering those thoughts, though, was the sweet, unaccustomed release of letting someone else be strong for once, letting himself be taken care of. He had been so tired last night that he probably couldn't have driven safely home, but he never would have admitted anything to her about the dreams if he hadn't been trapped into a situation where he couldn't deny it. Still, she had respected his wishes not to talk about them. And then she had sat there with him all night and held them back. Comforting. Frightening. He was the responsible one, the one who felt that he needed to take care of others. All of his life, since his father's death, he had had to be the strong one. He still remembered the probably well- intentioned woman at his father's funeral who had said to him, "You'll have to be the man of the family now." And so at age 7, that burden had crashed down on him. Only with his mother had he let go somewhat. To let someone else be the strong one, to simply admit that he had been at the end of his rope last night and couldn't have taken any more, was a new experience. He wondered if it would change how she saw him. From being the ever strong mentor-boss to being the one who had run straight into a desk and fallen over while wildly bolting from a nightmare. How would she deal with it?
His mind felt torn in 50 different directions, and for once, he wasn't sure how the pieces were going to fit together. He finished dressing and shook himself mentally. Today, he had to put in some honest work on the case. He had been worthless yesterday, and he knew it. Today, he would pull his weight. But his mind already cringed at the thought of tonight. He had been through this 27 times previously, and he knew it wasn't over.
****
Calleigh marched around the corner into the autopsy room and stopped short. Horatio was already there. His eyes met hers, and he gave her his usual quirky smile. "Good morning. Sleep well?"
"Yes, I did, actually. Quite well." She studied him. He looked 100% better than last night but still not normal. "How about you?"
"Very well. Thank you." He turned back to Alexx. "Alexx was just explaining the findings on yesterday's victim. We might have a lead."
"Yes, well, she died of a snapped neck. The killer had both hands around her throat, and there was some bruising up under the jaws, especially on the left."
Calleigh nodded. "Thus making the killer right-handed."
"Better still, we've got some traces of blood on her neck on the right side, about the location of the index finger. No skin break on the victim, so I think it must have come from the killer. He had a cut on that finger."
"And with blood, we can get DNA," said Horatio. "Good work, Alexx. I didn't notice that yesterday at the scene."
You were in shock and dead tired, Horatio. Cut yourself some slack, thought Calleigh. She said aloud, "Now all we need is a suspect to match it to."
"I'm going to be talking to the husband later today, and I'll request a sample from him."
Calleigh frowned. "Wouldn't the husband kill her at home?"
"He'd have to stage a break-in to divert suspicion. He might have killed her in the alley to make it look like a mugging gone wrong. And there are some very interesting financial aspects; she held most of the property, not him. She was a rich heiress; he was an immigrant who made good. I'm not jumping to conclusions, but we have to consider him. I do think she knew the killer, since there were no signs of a struggle."
"So he made money, but she had much more. Could be a motive," said Alexx. "One other thing I want to show you." She walked over to the sheeted body and pulled it back. Calleigh, watching, saw Horatio flinch, then focus tightly, concentrating on the face, on the differences. "Look at these throat bruises," said Alexx. She held her hand up to them; the finger marks were much farther apart than her hands. "Very large hands, I think. Definitely a man. You try it, Horatio."
He backed up a step. "No, my hands aren't that much larger than yours. I think it's safe to say the killer had large hands." Horatio did in fact have only medium-sized, thin hands, but Alexx gave him an odd look. He half-turned away from the body. "Calleigh. What about the handkerchief and the gun you found yesterday?"
"Nothing on the handkerchief, and I'm still working on the gun. No prints, though. The number has been filed off; I was reconstructing it last night." Before we got otherwise occupied, she thought. Horatio heard the thought and looked guilty.
"No problem, finish it whenever you can. Alexx, Speed and Delko finished up their case yesterday, so I'll have Speed come down to get the DNA sample from the blood." He turned, managing not to face the body again, and left the room.
Alexx looked back at Calleigh. "What's with him? Yesterday, he looked like a zombie, and today, he suddenly doesn't want to get close to a body. He usually isn't squeamish."
"This particular victim happens to look a bit like his mother," said Calleigh.
"Oh." There was a world of intonation behind the word. "No wonder he didn't come in to watch the autopsy yesterday. I'm sorry, I never would have uncovered her with him here if I knew. Poor guy."
"Alexx, what happened to Horatio's parents? I was just wondering last night, I've never heard him mention either of them."
"You just said the vic here looked like his mother."
"I haven't ever asked him; I've just seen the picture on his desk." Alexx accepted that explanation, but Calleigh could see the wheels turning. Alexx was entirely too perceptive at times. She knew what Calleigh thought of Horatio, and Calleigh knew she knew.
"Look, I'm not trying to be a busybody, and I'm not loading ammunition for my own cause. I really do have a reason that I need to know." She stopped short of telling Alexx about last night. That was too personal, and she was sure that Horatio didn't want it known. "Please, trust me on this. It really is important."
Alexx considered for a moment, then said softly, "He never talks about it. Never. This is even more off limits than the subject of his brother."
"Understood." Calleigh closed the distance between them a little, although there was no one in the room to overhear them.
"His father died in a car accident when he was 7. Horatio was actually in the same accident, and he was trapped in the car with his dead father for hours before he was rescued." Calleigh's eyes opened wide, but the next statement was even more of a shock. "His mother was murdered when he was a teenager."
Calleigh's heart stopped. "Murdered? Alexx, did Horatio see her killed?"
"No, but he found the body."
Oh, Horatio, thought Calleigh, her heart breaking. Finding your mother's body would give anyone nightmares. As would being trapped with your dead father for hours. She could find the file on the murder, though; CSI had archives. "Do you know her name?"
"No. Like I said, it's not something he talks about."
"When was this?"
"He was 16 or 17, I think. I'm not sure of the exact date." Alexx cocked her head slightly. "Why do you suddenly need to know this today?"
Calleigh sighed. "Alexx, I'd like to tell you. Really, I would. But I can't. Would you just accept my saying that there is a reason?"
Their eyes met. "Sure, honey. But if you want to talk about it later, if you're able to talk about it, I'm here."
"Thanks, Alexx. I'd better get to work."
****
Calleigh took out the gun she had been working on the night before, but with the other hand, she was making calls on her cell phone. She had to have a name and at least a rough date in order to track down the old murder file. Records that old weren't computerized, and she didn't want to take all day doing this, because she didn't really want Horatio to catch her at it. She started with Ray Caine, hoping that he was buried in a family plot. She did know the time of his death, about two months after she came to CSI. The first three cemeteries she called produced no results, but the records office at the fourth one found where Ray Caine was buried. It was indeed a family plot, the helpful woman said, and after a few moments, she had the data on others in the same plot. Howard Caine, died July 8, 1965, and Rosalind Caine, died April 3, 1975.
Calleigh froze in the middle of writing down the dates. "Did you say April 3?"
"Yes, April 3." Yesterday. Oh, Horatio.
"Thanks," Calleigh said woodenly and hung up. She now had her answer, had the trigger. And she dearly wished it had been something else.
****
She thought she had all the pieces, now, but later on, at her lunch break, she realized that she still didn't know half of it. She found the old murder file in the basement archives of CSI. It shocked her. Even to someone who saw violent crime scenes every day, the photos were disturbing. That beautiful face had been absolutely destroyed. And Horatio had found her. And he relived it on the anniversary of her death. At least the case was closed. In fact, it had been closed fairly rapidly, in only a week.
Wait a minute, she thought, suddenly furious with herself. How the hell did I miss this last year? If he relives it every anniversary, why didn't I notice? Two years ago at the beginning of April, she was just starting at CSI, but last year, not to have noticed was inexcusable. What case had she been working on that kept her from seeing his pain? Mentally kicking herself, Calleigh switched to the much faster computerized archives to find out what cases she was working last year at this time, what cases kept her from seeing what he was going through. She studied the records and felt her fury at herself change instantly to fury at someone else.
Last year, the first week in April, Horatio had taken the entire week off on vacation. The year before, he had also taken the same week as vacation. He hadn't been at CSI three years ago, but she was sure if she searched the bomb squad records, she would find the same pattern. In fact, she remembered now that Horatio had originally been scheduled for a week's vacation this week. However, two of their CSIs had gotten married and were on their honeymoon, and last week, two others had gone in for emergency surgery, one for an appendectomy, one for a cholecystectomy. The department simply couldn't spare him, and he had cancelled with his usual calm demeanor. But for 27 years, up until this year, he had taken the first week in April off and spent it alone in his personal hell. Had he been there at that moment, she could have shaken him. Why, Horatio, why shut yourself off like that? You don't have to face it alone!
Another thought came sliding in on the heels of that one. Why did he take the full week off? Why not just April 3rd and maybe the 4th to recover from the 3rd? It was actually quite rare for him to take a full week off. He got three weeks of vacation yearly, but he usually took it in bits and pieces, a day here and a day there. He didn't like to be gone too long. He had often said that this job was his life. So why schedule a full week away yearly? It could only be because it wasn't over yet. Calleigh went back to the original chart on his mother. It had taken four days to complete the investigation. The idea that Horatio had three more days like yesterday to get through appalled her. The idea that he had four days to get through like that yearly and had deliberately spent them alone for the past 27 years without telling anyone infuriated her.
She filed the chart and went back upstairs. Five minutes left of her lunch break, and she had had nothing to eat. She was too mad to eat at the moment but decided to grab a cup of coffee. She went stalking into the break room, dropped her cup, and stared down at the shattered pieces. Sighing, she knelt to clean up the mess. She threw away the pieces, got a new cup and filled it, and suddenly realized that she was no longer alone in the break room. She hadn't heard him or, oddly, felt him, but that voice could only belong to one person, the object of her current fury.
"Calleigh."
She turned around.
TBC.
****
Horatio ducked under the crime scene tape, slipped his key into the lock, and opened the door. It was 5:00 AM, and the world seemed still asleep. He was later than he had planned, and he didn't want to run into the police, but he couldn't leave the temporary foster home where they had been placed until Ray was asleep; he had to be there for Ray now. Only when he was sure his brother was asleep had he allowed himself to focus on his second vow, to find out who had killed his mother. He had left a note on the kitchen table for Mrs. Spencer, the woman in whose house they had been placed, simply saying that he was out taking a walk and would be back later. Not a lie, he reassured himself. He had walked over here, and he would return later.
Once inside, Horatio headed straight for the kitchen. He knew that his mother's body was no longer there, but he also knew that he would have to see it gone before he could settle to noticing other details. The bloodstains on the floor didn't help, but nothing could look as bad as his mother's face had. Every time he closed his eyes, he could still see it. He looked at the place where she had been until her absence had firmly registered, then he stood in the kitchen doorway and started to study the room, not looking for anything in particular, just seeing how it fit together, what the shambles and debris from the fight told him. For as long as he could remember, he had been able to see things, patterns that no one else could, how things fit together. He could work a jigsaw puzzle in no time flat. There was no trial and error to it. All he had to do was pick a piece, look at those remaining, and the matching piece would almost jump out of the rest. Once, for fun, he had worked a 500 piece puzzle in 15 minutes. His mother had marveled at it, Ray had fumed at it, and Horatio simply took it for granted, learning to downplay it around others so that he wouldn't frighten them. He had never tried to seriously apply it to any situation that mattered. Until now.
He leaned against the doorway and studied the room, knowing not to focus too tightly. Like working the puzzle, it was a question of scanning and not getting distracted by one detail. At least he hoped it was like working the puzzle. For a moment, he could see nothing, but then the pattern started to settle. His mother had been over by the kitchen sink doing dishes; the sink still had cold soapy water sitting in it. Someone had come to the back door. She had gone to the back door but refused to open it. The murderer then kicked the door in - the lock was splintered - and the door had hit his mother, knocking her backwards against the wall. There was a slight indentation in the plaster where her head had hit, precisely in a line corresponding to the door's swing. She had come back fighting, and the ensuing scuffle had knocked over the trash can and table. She must have hurt her murderer, too; Horatio remembered her clenched hands and bloody nails. She had finally gone down for good next to the table, and her murderer had beaten her face to a pulp, going far beyond just causing death. Blood was spattered around a good bit of the room, but there was a pool there, where his mother had been lying.
Horatio suddenly turned his back, gulping in deep breaths. This wasn't a mental agility exercise; she had actually been killed in there. What kind of person was he who could analyze his mother's death scene? A person who was going to damn well see justice done, he told himself. He apologized to his mother silently. I know this isn't one of our mind games, Mom, but I have to see it finished. I have to be doing something productive. Can you understand that? Still with his back to the kitchen, he walked across to the living room wall to study the pictures there. His favorite was of his mother playing the piano. Calm, serene, beautiful, expressive. He tried to memorize her features, but like yesterday, when he closed his eyes, he only saw her dead, beaten face. He opened them and looked at the picture some more.
"Hold it, Miami-Dade Police!" A stern voice barked from the front door. Horatio turned slowly, hands up. "Hey, wait a minute. You're the kid who lived here, the one who called us." The young officer holstered his gun and entered. Horatio remembered him as one of the two who had kept Ray from rushing into the house. "Horatio, right? What are you doing here?"
"I . . . I thought I might help." It sounded stupid when he said it, but the young officer replied kindly.
"Look, Horatio, we do have people trained to do this. The best thing you can do is stay out of our way." Horatio didn't reply. Damn those eyes, thought the policeman. Aside from the eyes, he looked like a typical kid, but there was something there, an intelligence and a soul far above average. It was very hard to look straight at this kid and simply tell him he wasn't needed, even though he knew the kid shouldn't be here. "How did you think you could help us? You told us all you knew yesterday, didn't you?"
"Yeah, but I thought I might see how it happened. The other officer said you could reconstruct the crime and find the killer from the evidence. So I thought if I looked at the kitchen, I might see something that would help you. I didn't touch anything. I was just looking."
"And what did you see?" The policeman was getting curious in spite of himself.
"Look." Horatio went back to the kitchen door. "She was doing dishes when someone came to the back door. She went over but didn't open it, and the door was kicked in. That means she knew who it was. She would have opened the door for a stranger, for anyone who might need help. If she didn't want to let him in, she knew him. She knew he was bad news."
"How do you know she went over to the door? We saw that the door had been kicked in, but couldn't it have been kicked in suddenly while she was still at the kitchen sink? Then the fight started from there."
"Behind the door, in the plaster, there's an indentation from her head. The door caught her and slammed her back. If she had been knocked there later, during the fight, she would have hit the door, not the wall behind it."
The policeman was stunned. In three hours here yesterday, none of them had noticed the slight indentation in the plaster behind the door. He walked over to look more closely. Precisely at the victim's head height. "How long have you been here?"
Horatio looked at his watch. "About 15 minutes before you." And in 15 minutes, he had spotted something that everyone yesterday in three hours had missed. Who was this kid?
"Go on," said the detective, and there was nothing patronizing in his tone now. "What else did you see?" Horatio described the rest of the fight as he had pieced it together, and when he finished, the look of admiration and true respect in the detective's eyes warmed him, thawing the frozen core inside a bit.
"So you see, it wasn't random," he said. "It wasn't a robbery gone wrong. She knew him, and she knew he was trouble. And he knew her. He went a long way past killing her. He wanted to send a message." Again, the stark reality of what he was saying suddenly gripped him, and he turned and bolted from the house.
The detective caught up to him in the yard and gripped his shoulders tightly. "It's okay, Horatio. We'll get whoever did this." He checked his own watch. "Look, my supervisor will be here any minute, and he isn't going to like you being here. Why don't you leave first, and I'll contact you later today. We can talk more then."
Horatio swung around to face him. "I have to help. I need to." The urgency in his voice melted the detective's heart.
"You have helped, and I do mean it. I'll keep in contact. Only don't tell my superior, okay?"
"What's your name, sir?"
"Al Humphries. Rookie on the force this year." They shook hands solemnly, as if sealing a pact.
"Mr. Humphries . . . "
"Al," said the policeman firmly. "If I'm calling you Horatio, you have to call me Al."
"Al. Could I take her picture? The one on the living room wall? That isn't part of the crime scene, and I'd like to remember what she looked like." He didn't elaborate, but Al heard the unspoken thought and remembered that Horatio had been the one to find her. Dear God, what a thing to come home to. Technically, he wasn't supposed to let anything leave that house, but the kid needed the picture. Just like he needed to help. And maybe he could help. The detective was still stunned at what this untrained kid had pieced together in 15 minutes.
"Sure." They walked back into the house together, and Horatio took the framed picture off the wall, looking at it again, trying to memorize the face. He closed his eyes and still saw the other one. Al slipped an arm around his shoulders and gave him a sympathetic squeeze. "I will call you today. I'll let you know what's going on."
Horatio ducked back under the crime scene tape, clutching the picture to his chest, and started walking down the street. He studied the picture as he walked. Who could destroy someone so beautiful? Who could have known her, yet hated her so much? His walk became a run, his run became a wild sprint, and he raced blindly down the street as hard as he could, trying to escape the events of the last day.
But he did not cry.
****
Horatio abruptly realized that the hot water in the shower was rapidly turning to cold. He shut off the water and grabbed a towel. His mind felt ripped in different directions, and he had been standing under the water trying to sort them out. There was the familiar but still acutely painful impact of the memories of his mother's death. In 28 years, this annual reliving still hadn't gotten easier. But this morning, there was something else demanding his attention as well. Calleigh. He had gotten the best night's sleep he could ever remember having in the first week of April since his mother died, and when he had woken up, she had been there on the floor with one hand on his arm. He knew instantly that that hand had been his lifeline through the night. She had held away the worst of the dreams. Of course, he now felt guilty about her spending the night on the floor, although she had seemed very soundly asleep when he moved her. But beyond that, last night forced him to think more about his relationship with this petite blonde spitfire.
Of course he was attracted to her. He had been attracted to her from the beginning, and learning her personality, working around her each day, the attraction only deepened. But the twin brakes that he held on any intimate relationship had been firmly in place. He did not want to be vulnerable, to be hurt again, but more than that, he did not want others to be hurt. And the track record for people he was close to getting killed was a very high percentage. His father had been the first. Horatio had been in the car accident with him. Another car had run them off a mountain road, and Horatio had been trapped in that car for seven hours with his dead father before they were found. Seven hours to wonder if he had distracted his father and contributed to the accident. Then his mother's death, which haunted him yearly. Ray, whom he had promised his mother's spirit he would take care of. Most recently, Al Humphries, who had become his best friend and mentor on the force. Horatio had concluded with Ray's death, and had had it reinforced with Al's, that he simply was not meant to have people love him. Everyone he loved died violently. Probably his ex-wife would have died if she hadn't saved herself by leaving him. And now Calleigh . . .
Countering those thoughts, though, was the sweet, unaccustomed release of letting someone else be strong for once, letting himself be taken care of. He had been so tired last night that he probably couldn't have driven safely home, but he never would have admitted anything to her about the dreams if he hadn't been trapped into a situation where he couldn't deny it. Still, she had respected his wishes not to talk about them. And then she had sat there with him all night and held them back. Comforting. Frightening. He was the responsible one, the one who felt that he needed to take care of others. All of his life, since his father's death, he had had to be the strong one. He still remembered the probably well- intentioned woman at his father's funeral who had said to him, "You'll have to be the man of the family now." And so at age 7, that burden had crashed down on him. Only with his mother had he let go somewhat. To let someone else be the strong one, to simply admit that he had been at the end of his rope last night and couldn't have taken any more, was a new experience. He wondered if it would change how she saw him. From being the ever strong mentor-boss to being the one who had run straight into a desk and fallen over while wildly bolting from a nightmare. How would she deal with it?
His mind felt torn in 50 different directions, and for once, he wasn't sure how the pieces were going to fit together. He finished dressing and shook himself mentally. Today, he had to put in some honest work on the case. He had been worthless yesterday, and he knew it. Today, he would pull his weight. But his mind already cringed at the thought of tonight. He had been through this 27 times previously, and he knew it wasn't over.
****
Calleigh marched around the corner into the autopsy room and stopped short. Horatio was already there. His eyes met hers, and he gave her his usual quirky smile. "Good morning. Sleep well?"
"Yes, I did, actually. Quite well." She studied him. He looked 100% better than last night but still not normal. "How about you?"
"Very well. Thank you." He turned back to Alexx. "Alexx was just explaining the findings on yesterday's victim. We might have a lead."
"Yes, well, she died of a snapped neck. The killer had both hands around her throat, and there was some bruising up under the jaws, especially on the left."
Calleigh nodded. "Thus making the killer right-handed."
"Better still, we've got some traces of blood on her neck on the right side, about the location of the index finger. No skin break on the victim, so I think it must have come from the killer. He had a cut on that finger."
"And with blood, we can get DNA," said Horatio. "Good work, Alexx. I didn't notice that yesterday at the scene."
You were in shock and dead tired, Horatio. Cut yourself some slack, thought Calleigh. She said aloud, "Now all we need is a suspect to match it to."
"I'm going to be talking to the husband later today, and I'll request a sample from him."
Calleigh frowned. "Wouldn't the husband kill her at home?"
"He'd have to stage a break-in to divert suspicion. He might have killed her in the alley to make it look like a mugging gone wrong. And there are some very interesting financial aspects; she held most of the property, not him. She was a rich heiress; he was an immigrant who made good. I'm not jumping to conclusions, but we have to consider him. I do think she knew the killer, since there were no signs of a struggle."
"So he made money, but she had much more. Could be a motive," said Alexx. "One other thing I want to show you." She walked over to the sheeted body and pulled it back. Calleigh, watching, saw Horatio flinch, then focus tightly, concentrating on the face, on the differences. "Look at these throat bruises," said Alexx. She held her hand up to them; the finger marks were much farther apart than her hands. "Very large hands, I think. Definitely a man. You try it, Horatio."
He backed up a step. "No, my hands aren't that much larger than yours. I think it's safe to say the killer had large hands." Horatio did in fact have only medium-sized, thin hands, but Alexx gave him an odd look. He half-turned away from the body. "Calleigh. What about the handkerchief and the gun you found yesterday?"
"Nothing on the handkerchief, and I'm still working on the gun. No prints, though. The number has been filed off; I was reconstructing it last night." Before we got otherwise occupied, she thought. Horatio heard the thought and looked guilty.
"No problem, finish it whenever you can. Alexx, Speed and Delko finished up their case yesterday, so I'll have Speed come down to get the DNA sample from the blood." He turned, managing not to face the body again, and left the room.
Alexx looked back at Calleigh. "What's with him? Yesterday, he looked like a zombie, and today, he suddenly doesn't want to get close to a body. He usually isn't squeamish."
"This particular victim happens to look a bit like his mother," said Calleigh.
"Oh." There was a world of intonation behind the word. "No wonder he didn't come in to watch the autopsy yesterday. I'm sorry, I never would have uncovered her with him here if I knew. Poor guy."
"Alexx, what happened to Horatio's parents? I was just wondering last night, I've never heard him mention either of them."
"You just said the vic here looked like his mother."
"I haven't ever asked him; I've just seen the picture on his desk." Alexx accepted that explanation, but Calleigh could see the wheels turning. Alexx was entirely too perceptive at times. She knew what Calleigh thought of Horatio, and Calleigh knew she knew.
"Look, I'm not trying to be a busybody, and I'm not loading ammunition for my own cause. I really do have a reason that I need to know." She stopped short of telling Alexx about last night. That was too personal, and she was sure that Horatio didn't want it known. "Please, trust me on this. It really is important."
Alexx considered for a moment, then said softly, "He never talks about it. Never. This is even more off limits than the subject of his brother."
"Understood." Calleigh closed the distance between them a little, although there was no one in the room to overhear them.
"His father died in a car accident when he was 7. Horatio was actually in the same accident, and he was trapped in the car with his dead father for hours before he was rescued." Calleigh's eyes opened wide, but the next statement was even more of a shock. "His mother was murdered when he was a teenager."
Calleigh's heart stopped. "Murdered? Alexx, did Horatio see her killed?"
"No, but he found the body."
Oh, Horatio, thought Calleigh, her heart breaking. Finding your mother's body would give anyone nightmares. As would being trapped with your dead father for hours. She could find the file on the murder, though; CSI had archives. "Do you know her name?"
"No. Like I said, it's not something he talks about."
"When was this?"
"He was 16 or 17, I think. I'm not sure of the exact date." Alexx cocked her head slightly. "Why do you suddenly need to know this today?"
Calleigh sighed. "Alexx, I'd like to tell you. Really, I would. But I can't. Would you just accept my saying that there is a reason?"
Their eyes met. "Sure, honey. But if you want to talk about it later, if you're able to talk about it, I'm here."
"Thanks, Alexx. I'd better get to work."
****
Calleigh took out the gun she had been working on the night before, but with the other hand, she was making calls on her cell phone. She had to have a name and at least a rough date in order to track down the old murder file. Records that old weren't computerized, and she didn't want to take all day doing this, because she didn't really want Horatio to catch her at it. She started with Ray Caine, hoping that he was buried in a family plot. She did know the time of his death, about two months after she came to CSI. The first three cemeteries she called produced no results, but the records office at the fourth one found where Ray Caine was buried. It was indeed a family plot, the helpful woman said, and after a few moments, she had the data on others in the same plot. Howard Caine, died July 8, 1965, and Rosalind Caine, died April 3, 1975.
Calleigh froze in the middle of writing down the dates. "Did you say April 3?"
"Yes, April 3." Yesterday. Oh, Horatio.
"Thanks," Calleigh said woodenly and hung up. She now had her answer, had the trigger. And she dearly wished it had been something else.
****
She thought she had all the pieces, now, but later on, at her lunch break, she realized that she still didn't know half of it. She found the old murder file in the basement archives of CSI. It shocked her. Even to someone who saw violent crime scenes every day, the photos were disturbing. That beautiful face had been absolutely destroyed. And Horatio had found her. And he relived it on the anniversary of her death. At least the case was closed. In fact, it had been closed fairly rapidly, in only a week.
Wait a minute, she thought, suddenly furious with herself. How the hell did I miss this last year? If he relives it every anniversary, why didn't I notice? Two years ago at the beginning of April, she was just starting at CSI, but last year, not to have noticed was inexcusable. What case had she been working on that kept her from seeing his pain? Mentally kicking herself, Calleigh switched to the much faster computerized archives to find out what cases she was working last year at this time, what cases kept her from seeing what he was going through. She studied the records and felt her fury at herself change instantly to fury at someone else.
Last year, the first week in April, Horatio had taken the entire week off on vacation. The year before, he had also taken the same week as vacation. He hadn't been at CSI three years ago, but she was sure if she searched the bomb squad records, she would find the same pattern. In fact, she remembered now that Horatio had originally been scheduled for a week's vacation this week. However, two of their CSIs had gotten married and were on their honeymoon, and last week, two others had gone in for emergency surgery, one for an appendectomy, one for a cholecystectomy. The department simply couldn't spare him, and he had cancelled with his usual calm demeanor. But for 27 years, up until this year, he had taken the first week in April off and spent it alone in his personal hell. Had he been there at that moment, she could have shaken him. Why, Horatio, why shut yourself off like that? You don't have to face it alone!
Another thought came sliding in on the heels of that one. Why did he take the full week off? Why not just April 3rd and maybe the 4th to recover from the 3rd? It was actually quite rare for him to take a full week off. He got three weeks of vacation yearly, but he usually took it in bits and pieces, a day here and a day there. He didn't like to be gone too long. He had often said that this job was his life. So why schedule a full week away yearly? It could only be because it wasn't over yet. Calleigh went back to the original chart on his mother. It had taken four days to complete the investigation. The idea that Horatio had three more days like yesterday to get through appalled her. The idea that he had four days to get through like that yearly and had deliberately spent them alone for the past 27 years without telling anyone infuriated her.
She filed the chart and went back upstairs. Five minutes left of her lunch break, and she had had nothing to eat. She was too mad to eat at the moment but decided to grab a cup of coffee. She went stalking into the break room, dropped her cup, and stared down at the shattered pieces. Sighing, she knelt to clean up the mess. She threw away the pieces, got a new cup and filled it, and suddenly realized that she was no longer alone in the break room. She hadn't heard him or, oddly, felt him, but that voice could only belong to one person, the object of her current fury.
"Calleigh."
She turned around.
TBC.
