A/N- Many thanks to those who are still reading. Two more chapters after this one.
*
As they made their way through the lab's labyrinth of corridors, Tony was glad to have Sara as a guide.
"I feel like I should be leaving a trail of bread crumbs or unwinding a ball of thread behind me," he said.
She turned and laughed. "Come on, Theseus, I'll show you the way."
Two lefts and a right later, he saw Nick poring over a computer screen, his right hand scribbling notes down on a nearby legal pad. Sara rapped on the glass window to the office. And Nick, his attention now diverted, motioned them in with a jerk of his head.
"How goes it, Nick?" she asked.
He shrugged. "Depends on your definition of 'goes'. I was just going to take this stuff over to Grissom, see what he thinks." Seeing her nod, he gathered up his papers and notes.
The walk to Grissom's office was considerably less convoluted and Tony felt his equilibrium return. After catching Grissom's eye, the trio crowded into the room.
Not wasting any time, Grissom took his glasses off and tossed them onto the desk. "I'll go first, since I probably have the least amount to say," he began. "I double-checked the report. Little or no trace evidence was found at the scene that could be considered helpful. No prints or epithelials, so it looks like the killer wore gloves of some kind. Nothing under the victim's nails, so whatever happened definitely caught him by surprise. Nothing on the victim's clothes except two white fibers, which were identified as cotton. Makes sense now that we know he wrapped the hand in a towel. Knowing that, I re-ran the test. White terry cotton fibers, associated with towels. Very generic towels." He sat back and held out his hands. "And… that's it."
Nick took a small step forward. "Well, I've got an entirely different kind of problem. I got too much information." He rolled out a small map of Vegas on Grissom's desk. Sara and Tony gathered around. "Now, there are over 640 churches in Vegas. I narrowed that number down to 437 Catholic churches and from that, I narrowed it down to 133 Roman Catholic ones." He pointed to the small red marks on the map. "I marked the location of every one of these churches with a red dot. Then I did background checks on as many of the churches as I could. Eight have been in the paper in the last two years because of suspicion of abuse. Those are the blue dots."
"You amaze me with your efficiency, Nick," Sara said honestly.
He looked up in barely concealed embarrassment, and glanced between Tony and Sara. Shaking his head, he answered, "I don't even want to know what kind of things you can glean from a profiler, Sara."
She grinned. "Just say thank you, Nick."
"Thank you Nick," he parroted. Everyone smiled, then Nick returned them all to the task at hand. Gesturing to the map, he continued. "The problem is, eight might not even be an accurate number. Who's to say how many out of the 133 priests are abusers and haven't been accused?"
"We have a bigger problem than that," Tony spoke for the first time. "He may not even be an abuser."
Nick tilted his head in confusion.
Sara picked up Tony's line of thought. "We think the killer has escalated. We couldn't find any past reports on Father Douglas. Maybe because there aren't any. The killer has gone past his original motivations. It's not about justice, it's simply about fulfilling a pattern."
"The pattern has become the motivation," Grissom said.
"Exactly," Tony agreed.
Nick gave a low whistle. "So he's goin' to hit number nine no matter what it takes."
Tony's eyes swept over the map. "Well, he's certainly make it harder for us to predict his next victim. But all is not lost." He looked over to Sara.
"We figured out something else in the church," she said. "It was awfully close to the Strip. Why would he take the chance of pulling off a murder in such a high density area of people?"
Grissom nodded, following the train of thought. "He doesn't know Vegas. He's a tourist here."
"And where do tourists stay?"
"Along the Strip," Nick joined in.
"Right again," Tony said. "So we need to narrow the search down to a five, perhaps six block radius from the Strip."
"We still have a problem." All eyes went to Grissom. "Even if we narrow it down, we're going to need bodies to keep that area on alert. And there's no way Mobley will sign off on those kind of man hours."
Nick grinned. "I'm all over it. I got some buddies on the force who'll do me a favour. It might only be seven or eight guys, but at least that's better than nothin'."
Tony clasped Nick on the shoulder. "Thanks, Nick."
He waved off the gesture. "No problem, man. Glad to do it. In the meantime," he rolled up the map, "I'll see what I can do about narrowing this down." With that, he was gone.
Sara sighed. "I love the feeling of actually accomplishing something."
"You won't be saying that if he comes back with 133 churches in the area," Grissom remarked.
Tony laughed. "Too true." Looking at his watch, he added, "Well, there's really nothing more to do until Monday gets closer. I suppose I should let you get back to some real work."
Grissom shook his head. "Don't worry about it, Tony. It's been slow for a few days and it's kept Sara from doing her paperwork."
She brought her hands to her chest. "Thank you, Tony," she said in over-exaggerated relief. Sara caught Grissom's look and smirked. "Though I guess I could get to that. How do you plan on spending the next 36 hours or so?"
"With something equally exciting," Tony answered. Turning to Grissom, he asked, "Do you have a fax machine?" When Grissom nodded, he said, "I'm going to get Carol to fax a couple of those crowd photos. Since I have no legal authority to do much of anything else, I thought I'd go around to the hotels on the Strip and show the picture. Who knows? Maybe someone will recognize the killer and we can nip this in the bud before Monday."
"You know, you'd get that done much faster if you had help," Sara offered. Catching another, more pointed look from Grissom, she sighed. "All right, all right. Envy me, I'm off to do paperwork!"
Before she had the chance to leave, Tony touched her arm. "You've been invaluable in all this. Thank you."
She flashed him her broadest smile and left.
*
Tony stood in front of the fax machine listening to the soft whir as it printed out the information he had requested from Carol. With Grissom gone to get them coffee, the momentary peace and quiet, coupled with the time difference his body hadn't yet grown accustomed to, conspired to lull him to sleep. In fact, he suspected he had actually dozed off while standing when he nearly jumped out of his skin at Grissom's approach.
Tony laughed away his nerves. "That's the second time today you CSIs have very nearly scared me to death."
"Sorry," Grissom smiled. "Please accept this cup of tea as a token of my apology."
"We really are stereotyped, aren't we?" he asked as he reached out for the cup.
"Not at all. I ran into Sara in the breakroom."
He took a cautious sip of the hot beverage. "Whatever it is you pay her, it isn't enough."
"I know."
Something in the softness of his tone caught Tony's attention, but the beep of the fax machine interrupted any further thought in the matter. Turning back to the machine, he lifted two pieces of paper. One was the crowd shot; the other was a blurry close-up of a figure from that crowd. At the bottom of each page was a note in Carol's familiar handwriting. The first read, 'A t-shirt does not constitute a souvenir.' The second was considerably shorter. 'You're missed.'
Grissom saw the ghost of a smile pass across Tony's mouth, but chose not to inquire after the source of the smile. Tony glanced up and met Grissom's eyes.
"My friend, Carol. She was the one who gave me the file in the first place. Along with the pictures I requested of her, she took the time to inform me, and I quote, 'A t-shirt does not constitute a souvenir'."
Grissom couldn't help but laugh. More serious, he remarked, "Taking those pictures was a stroke of genius."
Tony shrugged. "I don't know. At the time, it seemed so. Unfortunately, it hasn't seemed to have helped us at all."
"May I?" Grissom asked as he held out his hand.
Tony obliged and sat down. He savoured another drink of his tea.
After several moments, Grissom spoke again. "You know, you told me you couldn't track down four people from this crowd. And there's what, fifteen people in the crowd?" Tony nodded. "I don't think I could tell you which four would have such a questionable life that you couldn't track them down somehow, let alone tell you which one was the killer."
"The 'normalness' of the people who commit such horrible acts still surprises you at times," Tony noted.
Grissom thought about this then replied, "I don't know. The irony is, I'm long past being surprised by the act itself. I don't think there's much left for one person to inflict on another that would surprise me. I deal in the 'how', but rarely in the 'why'. I work with the physical evidence that keeps me removed from the emotional influence of the case. I separate the science from the psychology. But looking at something like this," he lifted the photo, "I can't help but wonder 'why?'"
"If only the workings of the mind could be found in the blood of the body." Tony downed the rest of his tea. "Fortunately, that's where I come in," He smiled and stood up. "I was never very good at science."
Grissom stood up as well and returned the smile. Scribbling on the back of one of the photos, he handed them to Tony and said, "My pager number. If you happen to find anything or need anything, give me a call." Tony flipped the page over and noted two sets of numbers. Grissom smirked. "The second one is Sara's. I'll never hear the end of it if she's left out of the loop."
*
