CHAPTER 3
The call came in at precisely 5:00 a.m. Grissom was not surprised that she was punctual, and made a note of it.
"Dr. Grissom, are you ready?" she asked.
"Yes. Could you give me some sort of appelation for you, even if not your real name?" he requested.
"You can call me 'Lilith,' if you wish, or you can devise your own name for me," she answered.
"Lilith, as in the Queen of the Succubi?" Grissom asked. Heads turned around the room mouthing 'succubi,' asking for a definition. Sara wrote "female demons" on her pad and showed it 360 degrees around the room.
"You have already proven yourself to be better-read than my previous adversaries," Lilith offered admiringly.
"May I ask how many questions we may ask?" Grissom queried politely.
"Depends on the questions," she answered evenly.
"I see that you committed six murders in Chicago, spaced every two months ..." Grissom began.
"I prefer to think of them as executions," she interrupted.
"Fair enough," Grissom agreed. "Then in Boston they were every month for six months. May I ask what your schedule will be in Las Vegas?"
"I'm shooting for once a week," she said hopefully, "though that could prove to be overly ambitious."
"Should we assume you have six names in mind?" he asked.
"You should assume nothing," she answered.
"How are you choosing the men to be executed? I see that they have all been convicted of sexual crimes against children."
"I am choosing them randomly from a website listing sexual offenders," she replied.
"Could you explain why you are executing them?"
"Because they deserve it," she stated simply.
"So you view yourself as an avenging angel?" he asked.
"No. Not at all. The recidivism rate for pedophiles is practically one-hundred percent. These people just don't change. They destroy innocent lives, and even when they are caught, they eventually are released to destroy others. I used to believe that they should be castrated the first offense, but studies have shown that they still molest children, even without the use of their genitals. It's psychological more than sexual. They need to removed from society permanently." she answered.
"Yes, but why you, specifically?" Grissom pressed.
"Because I'm willing to do the job," she answered. "I have nothing to lose and no greater agenda," she explained. "By the way, how are you coming in your investigation?" she asked.
"You didn't leave us much to work with," Grissom answered honestly.
"That's good to hear," she laughed. "Glad I'm not loosing my touch."
"I'm a little confused by the paradox. You carefully manage the crime scene to deny us evidence, yet contact us offering assistance."
"I want to be fair, but the poor miscreants are too stupid to protect themselves, even if I warn them. I've tried that. But I'm not going to purposefully allow you to capture me, if that's what you are hoping for."
"Are you seeking publicity for the plight of the victims of pedophilia?" Grissom asked.
"No. Publicity will accomplish little. More lives are saved by killing the scum that prey on kids. Will Ms. Sidle and Ms. Willows be attending to the next corpse as well?" she asked. A low buzzing murmur began to spread in the room, until Grissom held up a silencing hand.
"How do you know anything about our staff, especially who's assigned to the case?" Grissom asked.
"Six months of research, Dr. Grissom. I am familiar with the graveyard shifts of both the detectives and the forensic scientists. I know who was assigned to the case because I saw them at the scene."
"I have to admit, Lilith, that's unsettling to me," he said, feeling a rising sense of unease.
"They are in no danger, I can assure you," she said quickly, to dispel their fears. "I'm not some random lunatic murderer who will kill anyone who gets in her way. If they get in my way, I'll go around them. If they catch me, they catch me."
"I'm relieved to hear that," Grissom said honestly.
"I've never been pitted against a team containing women before. It should be interesting," she said. "Well, I've got to go. I've still got some preparations to make before the next execution on Sunday."
"Will we be speaking again?" Grissom asked hopefully.
"I will contact you if I feel the need, or rather, if I feel you need it. By now, you should have my cell phone number. As long as you don't pester me to death, you can call from time to time, when you get stuck," she offered. "The phone is disposable, of course. If you abuse the privilege, I'll just toss it and get another."
"Happy hunting, Sara, Catherine," she said, laughing good-naturedly. The line went dead, but the room was still held in silence.
"That was very strange," Warrick offered.
"Archie, I want you to dub copies of the tape for everyone in this room, as well as Captain Brass and Dr. Kane. I want you all to listen to it again, as many times as necessary. Make notes on your impressions. Archie, tear it apart. Find anything we can use. I also want you to analyze the voice. I want to make sure this isn't a hoax."
Grissom stood and looked around the room. "I'd like Catherine and Sara to stay. The rest of you can get back to your workstations."
The noise level in the room quickly rose and began to pour out of the door, leaving Grissom and the two women in silence.
"Do you want me to leave you on the case, or replace you?" he asked.
"Why?" Catherine asked, knowing his answer.
"I don't like that she saw the two of you, and knows your names," he answered.
"She will see whoever investigates the next one, and she'll know their names as well," Sara retorted.
"You are probably right, but I want to give you the option," Grissom shrugged.
"You take us off this case and you will have two very pissed off women," Catherine answered, looking to Sara for confirmation and getting it.
"You can stay on the case, but I want to assign one of the men to work with you," Grissom said authoritatively, to attempt to divert any opposition.
"Oh? And what big, strong man are you going to assign to protect us weak, little women?" Catherine hissed.
"Okay, Catherine, I'm a sexist. You can tell because I have a greater percentage of women on my staff than any other forensic department in America," he shot back.
"You have to admit that you are being a little paternalistic," Sara said calmly, trying to keep the discussion from escalating into a full-scale shouting match between the two friends.
"If I offer to let you choose who to work with, will you accept it without any more complaints?" he offered in compromise.
The two women stepped to the back of the room and whispered animatedly to one another. After a moment, they walked up to their supervisor. Catherine, not surprisingly, spoke for the duo. "We choose you," she said simply.
"May I ask why?" Grissom asked.
"You have already established a rapport with Lilith, for one," Catherine said.
"And we like your solve rate better," Sara chipped in.
"Two logical reasons," he agreed. "Not exactly what I had in mind, but I'll keep my end of the bargain," he said.
"But I'm still primary," Catherine added in warning.
* * * * *
Grissom, Sara and Catherine met in his office at shortly before midnight Saturday. In minutes, it would be Sunday. They waited impatiently, occasionally getting up to get more coffee.
By 1:30, they were already getting stir-crazy. All three jumped when Grissom's phone rang.
"Grissom," he answered.
"Hey, it's Brass. I'm at the house of one Richard Hernandez. He seems to be missing something, but I bet I know where we can find it."
"How did you find him so quickly?" Grissom asked.
"She called me and told me who and where," he answered. "Nothing like getting the inside scoop."
* * * * *
"You two start processing the victim. I will poke around the rest of the house," Catherine directed, to the amusement of Detective Captain Brass.
Grissom and Sara wordlessly complied, moving carefully down the hall into the bedroom, scanning for evidence along the way.
"You the boss now?" Brass quipped.
"Only in this investigation," she replied, running her flashlight along the tattered furniture of the living area.
"Haven't seen them work together in a while. Think they still have the geek mind-meld thing going?"
"Let's hope so. We'll need every advantage we can get," Catherine snorted.
Brass moved over to the TV. Donning latex gloves, he picked up a video rental box. "Hmm. 'Babes in Joyland'. How did I miss this classic?" he mused. He popped the video in the VCR, turned on the TV and pressed the play button. He and Catherine only had to watch a few seconds of it to know that they didn't want to see any more.
"How can they rent out this crap? Kiddie porn is illegal!" Catherine shouted.
"I'll let Vice know, but you know how much good that will do. Supply and demand, Cath," Brass breathed out heavily.
On the end table next to the chair parked in front of the TV was an overflowing ashtray, a plethora of empty beer bottles and a handtowel.
"Wanna bet what the ALS will show on that towel?" Brass said disgustedly.
"Looks like about the only thing this guy did that wasn't illegal," Catherine observed, noting the small leavings of marijuana in the ashtray.
"It's a good damned thing it's not illegal," Sara quipped as she stepped further into the room.
"Yeah, if it was, most of us wouldn't have any sex life at all," Catherine muttered.
"Oh, you ladies are breaking my heart," Brass threw in. "It's been so long, I don't even know if I'd remember what to do."
"It's like riding a bike, Brass. It will come back to you, no pun intended. Assuming you ever get the opportunity again," Catherine rejoined.
David Phillips dragged the gurney over the doorjamb and looked questioningly at the trio in the living room. "Where to?" he asked.
"Bedroom. Down the hall," Sara pointed. David struggled getting the gurney turned around in the sharp turn into the narrow hall. Grissom squeezed past him, wondering once he got to the living room if it wouldn't be better to turn back around.
"How 'bout you, sister? How long's it been?" Brass confronted the blonde.
"Hmm, let's see," she thought, counting back on her fingers. "I think it was a little more than a year ago. Yeah, that's about right," she nodded.
She and Brass turned expectantly to Sara, both sets of eyebrows raised, waiting for her true confessions.
"Me? That's easy. It's been two years, ten months, 1 week, and ... uh ... 2 days," she said.
"That's sad. No one should know to the day how long since they had sex when it's been that long," Brass said, shaking his head.
"Well, it's not that hard to remember. It was a week before I came here," she confided.
The three fell into easy laughter, then Brass looked up into the aghast face of Gil Grissom.
"How about you, Gil? Do you remember when the last time was you had carnal knowledge?"
"It's been a while," he answered non-commitally.
"Six months is hardly a world record in our little group," Sara said more good-naturedly than she felt.
Grissom blushed, telling them he was going to help David, but just then the gurney came banging through the doorway from the hall.
"Okay, David. You're the last hope we have," Sara said brightly. "How long has it been since you had sex with another living human being, other than yourself?"
The room fell silent waiting for his reply, but they didn't have to wait long. "Two weeks," he answered shyly, pushing the gurney out through the front door.
The four stared at each other in amazement. They were shocked that he would answer the question at all, and even more shocked at what the answer was.
"That is ... so ... very ... wrong," Sara muttered, shaking her head.
"I'm going to go home and kill myself," Catherine said glumly, bagging and tagging the towel.
"Think he'd go out with me?" Sara teased. "He seems to be the only one getting any action around here."
"I don't know. You've been ignoring his crush on you for years," Catherine mused, casting a side-long glance at Grissom.
"Then it's high time he was rewarded for his persistence, don't you think?" she asked Catherine, chuckling.
"If only it worked that way," Catherine answered meaningfully.
"I hate to interrupt this enlightening discussion with something trivial like work, but has anyone found anything resembling evidence?" Grissom asked pointedly.
"Only evidence that Richard Hernandez was a scum-bag and a blight on the earth," Catherine answered. "What about you?"
"Nothing. We'll send everything to Trace, but there wasn't so much as a stray hair, as we probably should have expected," he answered heavily.
"How'd she get in?" Sara asked.
"Back window had a fan in it. She pushed the fan out. It's nice and dark out back," Brass answered.
"I'll dust for prints and check for shoeprints," Sara said quickly, hoping that Lilith wasn't as good a break-in artist as she was a murderer.
Sara went out the front door, circling around to the rear of the building.
"Grissom, it's dark and isolated out there. You better go with her," Catherine suggested.
He nodded his agreement and followed Sara's path. When he caught up to her at the back window, he busied himself quietly scanning the ground while she concentrated on dusting the window frame.
"I'm sorry if I embarrassed you in there with the six-months remark," Sara said, without turning around.
"It's not something I like to be reminded of," he exhaled. It was the second time tonight she had been stunned by someone's blunt honesty.
"How long had it been before that?" she hazarded.
"Too long, evidently," he answered. "But I couldn't tell you to the day," he quipped.
"Well, when the last time was that long ago and you were only 29 at the time, it's memorable," she said in her defense.
"You and Hank dated for a year and three months. In all that time, you never ..."
"God! Was it that long? Of course, we didn't go out very often. We probably only went out fewer than two dozen times in those fifteen months," she said, more to herself than to Grissom. She had finished dusting around the frame and was examining it inch-by-inch with her flashlight, searching for non-existent fingerprints. "But, to answer your question, no, we never did. It wasn't that kind of relationship, Grissom. I told you that," she answered.
"You had been seeing him ten months before I ever even heard about it. And things can change," he said unemotionally, giving up on finding any footprints or other evidence on the concrete surface.
"Some things never change," she answered back.
TBC – Maybe ... if I start getting some reviews.
