Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Spoilers: Nothing specific, set mid third season.
A/N: Each chapter is told from a different point of view. I owe enormous thanks to M and J who are two wonderful beta readers.
I LIKE TO THINK OF MYSELF AS A HARDENED INVESTIGATOR who has seen it all and isn't really shocked by any form of human depravity. That's easy to say until you are in way over your head. That's what happened during the cultist case, as I call it for myself. I had no idea what I was getting into. To my defense, nobody had any idea what we were dealing with, not even Gil Grissom, who always knows more than the rest of us, did. I think that's what hit him hardest, that he didn't see the disaster coming. It took him by as much surprise as it took me. When patrol called in the quadruple homicide, it was all routine. I awaited Grissom and his gang. They got to work at the scene, while I took to old-fashioned investigation and let them play with the science. And to think that I used to be the CSI Supervisor!
Following the time-honored rule of first witness, first suspect, I went to ask the guy who called it in. Turned out that, Roy Fredrick, in a fairly drunken state had gone over to the Delaney's flat to get his money back, an alleged three hundred bucks that John had borrowed from him sometime before. That was his story at least. I had my doubts about that. Those doubts were underscored by claims from other patrons that he and Delaney had argued the same afternoon about payback of the debt. Apparently there had been some issue concerning the amount. Mr. Fredrick had blood all over himself. For that, he just offered a shrug as explanation. A quickly phoned in check turned out that he did not own a registered gun, but that's to say nothing, especially in this area of town. The situation warranted a search of his apartment, about which he wasn't happy. Apart from finding no insignificant amounts of drugs the undertaking yielding zilch. I left further questioning of the patrons to the uniformed officers and headed back to the station to get background on the victims while Grissom and the gang were wrapping up at the apartment. Investigative work is really a lot less exciting as it's made to look on TV, mostly it's really just hard work, running checks, asking people. Back at the station, I pulled all available records on the victims, as well as run the prints of Jane Doe through the system. Jane Doe come back as Tina Rivers, the sister of Gwen Delaney. One mystery solved. The aunt had been over for a visit.
It is astounding and disgusting how the life of people is summed up by criminal records, work history and credit card bills. Apart from a six month sentence for prostitution in 1987, I found nothing whatsoever on Tina Rivers -no credit cards, no bank account, no registered address. As if she had popped out of nowhere and shown up at her sister's just to get murdered. According to the next door neighbors, she had gotten there, "something like two or three days ago". Her arrival had been accompanied by lots if fighting and yelling. But apparently that had been nothing new at the Delaney's home.
I cannot claim that I have ever excelled as a husband or a father. And I am glad that my time as a former is over. With the latter I'm still struggling. But with the kind of families that I often deal with on the job, I see myself as not quite such a loser in that regard.
The family yielded somewhat more than Tina Rivers had. Mr. Delaney had been gainfully employed as a pizza delivery man, his wife had worked for the city, Gardening. They were rather heavily indebted with the bank, didn't own a car and had no criminal records. No obvious motives for murder aside from the neighbor who wanted his dough back, but we didn't have enough to hold him. Frustrated about the lack of clues, I pulled phone records for the last few months. They had not used the phone very much. Mr. Delaney had called his employer once. There had been several calls from Mr. Fredrick, but other than that, nothing. They had not had much of a social life apparently. The only number outside Vegas popped up first, ten days prior to the murder. Two incoming calls, one was twelve seconds and one in four seconds. The same number again three days later, this time it was only thirty-eight seconds. Then four days before the murder a longer call, three minutes and forty-six seconds from the same number, the call had been placed at 2 a.m. Three days before the murder, again an incoming call from outside the city, but a different number than before, the call had lasted ten seconds. Then immediately after, the Delaney's phone had been used to call that number. This time it was a call of twenty-four minutes and seven seconds. Then a call from today, 8.17 p.m. someone had called 911. It couldn't be the neighbor's; his call had come in shortly before 10 p.m. The call was short, only seven seconds. Not enough. Maybe the killer was already in the house. I got on the phone to get the recording of the 911 call, as well as addresses to the two out of town numbers. Hopefully they could get something off the 911 tape at the A/V lab. My mood had significantly improved and somehow I got the idea to look into a record of criminal activity around the block. There was plenty. In the last seventy-two hours there had been two drug related incidents, one stabbing, one rape and four noise complaints. There were also two parking violations, directly in front of the house, two times the same vehicle. On a hunch, I pulled a number and ran it through the DMV database. The registered owner was one Daryl Marks.
That was the first time I came across the name of a man I seriously wish had never existed. Given the chance, I might have killed him myself. He is one of the few who I think really deserve a slow and painful death.