DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the CSI characters, they are all property of the shows writers and CBS.
A/N: I am not a scientist, so if some of the science stuff is off the mark, forgive me!
HELL HATH NO FURY
Part Three: Run Rabbit Run
The smell of vomit emanating from the building was intense. Warrick pinched his nose and exhaled sharply.
"Where the hell is that coming from?" he asked Nick, who's breathing was equally laboured. Rounding a corner they came face to face with a LVPD officer, bent at the waist and heaving violently.
"Hey man…you ok?" Nick asked, realising that the officer was not alone in his predicament. Around them vomit glistened on the asphalt and a handful of uniformed police were hunched in various positions, all looking disgusted and embarrassed. Nick approached the least green looking one and asked what they'd found inside the building.
"Jesus man…it's like….horror movie….Jesus." came the stuttered reply. Warrick shot Nick a concerned glance. LVPD officers were not known for having gentle stomachs and had borne witness to some unbelievable atrocities that sin city had produced. He felt his stomach tightening as they approached the garage, the corrugated iron doors raised only a foot from the ground, pulling the neon light into the darkened space and creating an unearthly atmosphere. Together the CSI's ducked under the door, straightening immediately to avoid being brained by the hanging presses.
"Well I can smell the blood, but where's the body?" Nick asked, snapping on his flashlight and scanning the cramped space. Presses and machinery hung from every available space and covered every surface. Illuminating a pile of empty paint sprays and specialist tools, he commented to his partner that the garage was probably dealing in illegal body work and reclassification of stolen vehicles.
"Yeah…you think this was a dissatisfied customer?" Warrick questioned, taking a couple of small steps backwards. His foot caught on something and he flashed the light onto the floor.
"Holy shit." He breathed. Trailing across his shoe was a piece of intestine, ruptured and bleeding. He edged the light along the floor until the trail of bloody flesh came to rest in a spreading pool by the east wall.
"Nick." Warrick croaked, slowly rising the beam. The wall was soaked in sticky bodily fluids, spattered in a mass of lines and arches. Nicks beam joined Warricks and together they moved up the wall until a pair of naked blood soaked feet appeared. The lights shimmered on the slick blood covered legs and torso, revealing a jagged cut from groin to neck, held open with hand vices and a horrific mass of internal organs protruding out.
"It's a human operation game." Nick swallowed down the bile rising in his throat and further investigation of the upper body showed gouged eyes and a blackened tongue stretched from the mouth by a pair of iron tongs. Warrick completed the scan, raising the light to the ceiling and showing the victims hands, which had been trapped in the hydraulic machinery and mangled until unrecognisable.
"I don't think this was a dissatisfied customer man." Nick whispered.
"If it was, I wouldn't want to be their dry cleaner." came the dry reply.
*
Dr Robbins watched sympathetically as the vice coroner, David, turned and retched into a sink.
"Sorry" he said sheepishly, wiping his mouth and returning to the table, where the garage victim had finally been assembled. It had taken nine paramedics and five police officers to move the body and it was so covered in their vomit and bile that Grissom worried the evidence may be completely tainted. Reading his mind, Dr Robbins nodded towards a pile of swabs by the victims' personal affects.
"Nick and Warrick took DNA from everyone once they realised cross contamination was unavoidable." He shook his head and squinted down at the body, "I've seen some terrible things in this job but this one takes the biscuit."
"Cause of death?" Grissom asked. Robbins pointed to each of the wounds in turn.
"The bruising and blood loss indicates that the victim was alive to have his hands trapped but dead before the gutting began. I can't be sure, as all the cuts were made quickly, but I should imagine the first one was this." He motioned to a stab wound just below the victims' heart. Grissom nodded.
"Makes sense. But how did the killer get him to grab the machinery in the first place and just dangle there?" he asked. Robbins shrugged,
"This is just a guess, but I found evidence of recent ejaculation around the genital area and stomach. Maybe he was holding on for support and someone turned the grate on?"
Grissoms eyebrow rose at this possibility. It would explain the victims' nakedness as well as the grease found on the soles of his feet. In a garage it was highly plausible that he was standing on a stool and gripping the bar above his head.
"Did you swab for foreign DNA?" he asked. Robbins nodded. Grissom thanked him, took one last shuddering look at the body and slowly made his way to the meeting room, where a shaken Nick was holding court.
"Where's Warrick?" Grissom asked. Nick grimaced,
"He went home to shower and change his clothes."
"That's not a bad idea for all of us" Catherine added. "We've been on for over 24 hours Gill….I know this is a huge case but we need to rest."
Grissom looked across at the dark circles under his colleagues eyes and sighed.
"I want everyone back first thing in the morning." He warned, watching the relief flood their faces. At the door, Catherine paused,
"I meant you too Gill."
"I just want to finish some stuff. I'll go home I promise." He smiled at her and caught her rolling eyes with amusement.
"Oh one last thing…since you're still here. Warrick said that Eckley had a revenge case a couple of months back he couldn't solve. He wouldn't let Warrick have the case file for comparison, but he might if you talk to him."
Grissom grinned, "Or I could just steal it?" he offered.
"Hey you're the boss…what you gonna do, fire yourself?" Catherine replied with a sly grin and a wink.
*
Despite her best intentions to the contrary, Sarah couldn't stop her head bopping in time to the infectious beat radiating from the DNA lab. The normal pounding metal beats had been replaced with a suspiciously fast disco track. Peering in, she smiled to see Greg striking his best John Travolta pose and wiggling his hips in time to the music.
"Gone back in time?" she asked. Greg jumped and switched off the music. Cheeks burning, he turned and grinned at her.
"Family reunion next weekend. Papa Olaf has challenged me to a dance contest and I intend to shake my funky stuff all the way to the finishing line. Hey, wanna come?" he asked hopefully. Sarah smiled,
"Love to Greg but I'm having my earlobes waxed that weekend." She joked. Gregs face fell for a moment, then he recovered and shot across the lab to the printer where several sheets of paper had collected.
"Guess you're here for the fish guys stuff, right?"
"Fish guy?" she asked, suddenly unsure if she wanted the answer. Greg shrugged,
"Dangling from a hook and gutted right? Just like a fish."
Sarah shook her head and held her hands out for the results. As he handed them over, Greg summarized them.
"Semen with his DNA and saliva with foreign female DNA. Ran the profile against the stuff from your heart and bingo…markers match exactly. Whoever your mystery woman is, I wouldn't want to meet her on a dark night."
"Anything special?" Sarah asked, scanning the results. Greg shook his head.
"Nope...nothing out of the ordinary. I ran it through the database and nothing came up. Which reminds me….." he reached into a drawer and advanced with a swab. Startled, Sarah recoiled and held her hands in front of her face.
"What are you doing"? She demanded. Greg grinned.
"We got a new profiling programme. You see everyone who works here has their fingerprints on file, but we don't have everyones DNA. New guidelines says it all has to be fed into the programme before end of the month."
"You can do that?"
"If you open your mouth." He joked. Sarah allowed him to swab her cheek then glanced across towards the break room, where a hunched Catherine sat, staring blankly into her coffee cup.
"You seen Grissom yet?" she asked. Greg shook his head.
"Not yet, but tell him I need his DNA."
Sarah pondered the outcome of that conversation and shuddered.
"Just be careful Greg…Grissom bites."
Eckley knocked twice on the closed door then opened it forcefully. A dull shriek from across the darkened room caused him to jump and scowl.
"Grissom?" he called. The desk lamp suddenly snapped on, startling Eckley.
"Jesus Grissom don't you have a home to go to?" he spat. Grissom rubbed his bloodshot eyes and glanced at the clock above his door. Eight thirty. Damn.
"What is it Eckley? I'm late for a briefing." He muttered testily. Eckley smiled evilly,
"Gee I don't know Grissom. I come in this morning to find a note on my desk saying you've signed out several of my case files without my knowledge. Any idea why I'm here?"
Grissom held up a branded file, "I only took two and you can have this one back. I needed to check one of your unsolved, dark haired male killed a couple of months ago, ring any bells?"
Eckley snorted, "The one Brown wanted? I told him to solve his own cases before starting on mine."
"It's our case now." Grissom said clearly. He ran a hand through his mussed hair and pushed past Eckley into the already bustling corridor. Snapping at his heels, the day shift supervisor followed Grissom into the break room and slammed the door heavily behind him, causing all the night shift CSI's to look up in horror.
"What the hell is going on?" he demanded. Grissom flipped open Eckleys case file and removed the coroners' photo of the victims face. He laid it down beside the other victims, including the most recent, and stared back at Eckley.
"Notice anything?" he asked. Eckley leaned forward and barely concealed his surprise.
"So they look alike. How many dark haired teenagers do you think there are in Las Vegas, Grissom? Hundreds and they aren't all dead."
"No" Grissom agreed, pulling out another sheet from the file and waving it before Eckleys slowly reddening face. "But adding the black hair you found to the ones we found I think that constitutes more than a coincidence."
"You found hairs?" Eckley stammered. Catherine nodded.
"Yeah, at the first two crime scenes and the one from last night. And from the look on your face I'm guessing you got the same results, inconclusive with a solvent used in wig making."
Eckleys expression darkened. "I don't like people poking around in my investigations."
"Well I'm not too fond of women going around mutilating young men but we cant all have what we want." Grissom snapped. The rest of the team didn't exhale until Eckleys retreating back was well out of sight. Catherine turned to Grissom,
"So we have got a serial." She sighed. He nodded and leaned back against the counter. He hadn't slept and from the look of the rest of the CSIs neither had they. The body of last nights victim kept running through his head, keeping him on a constant state of disgust and revolution. Whoever was doing this was clearly psychotic and wouldn't stop until they were caught.
"Let's play it out." He said finally. Catherine straightened.
"Ok, timeline first. Eckleys guy found two months ago; out first victim, the maggot boy – last Saturday, eight days ago. Sarahs stony heart guy – last Wednesday, five days ago and two more vics in under 48 hours. How does one person have time to do all this damage?"
"I can answer that. Maggot boy was killed at the scene, cut quickly then invested. Quick and clean." Warrick answered. Sarah nodded,
"Yes and my heart guy would have taken longer, but not by much. Dr Robbins said he probably died from choking within seconds of the penis being shoved in his mouth. Our girl didn't mess about, didn't take her time. It's quick, forceful and passionate."
"Bed clothes guy thrashed about for a while before he died, but it would only have taken a couple of minutes to lace the bed." Grissom interjected. Catherine pushed her chair back and slid across the room to the coffee pot.
"You know none of them had defensive wounds. And fish guy was clearly consenting to something before he died." Sarah mused. Grissom regarded her strangely.
"Fish guy?" he asked.
"Don't ask" came the answer. Catherine stared at her reflection in the coffee pot for a moment then spoke quietly.
"Sarah, have you ever been cheated on?"
The others turned to face her is astonishment. Sarah blushed, then replied that she hadn't. Catherine moved back to the table and spread her hands, palm down.
"Out of all the victims we know, according to their friends, that three were single and prone to cheating. All look alike, which speaks to lover preference, and none had defensive wounds. That meant they knew the killer and were happy to be alone with them. And knowing the cheating male as well as I do, what's the one thing their ego can't resist?"
"The ex that caught them cheating come crawling back." Nick said suddenly. Grissom grabbed a piece of paper from the table and pointed to something near the bottom.
"Mike…our bed victim…hadn't had a girlfriend in six months according to his friends and the last one was someone called Lila something." He read. Grissom dropped the paper down at leaned over his team.
"Right…Nick…you take the maggot boy, find out who his last serious girlfriend was and what she was like. Warrick, you try and ID our garage guy and do the same thing. Sarah….."
"Find out where the heart came from and who the vics last girlfriend was…I'm on it." She interrupted, jumping from her seat and leaving the room. Catherine looked at their supervisor.
"What do we do?" she asked.
"I'm going back to the crime scene. Our victim was the only one not killed hands on…I want to know why."
"I'll press the name. See if the girls can remember more now they've had their beauty sleep." Catherine announced. Grissom nodded and departed, leaving the other three to collect the files. The most recent victims' coroners' photo slipped and Catherine shuddered.
"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."
It turned out that finding the retailer of the stone heart was easier than Sarah had expected. She was processing the markings on the back when one of the audio technicians entered the lab and admired it, claiming that the heart was part of a set sold exclusively through a single retailer off the strip. Ten minutes later, she hung up the phone and smiled. The set had been purchased using cash, but the retailer insists that every customer signs the visitors book. Lila Gregory had been the only person to get that particular set, complete with the black stone heart which Sarah now held in her hands. She threaded her way down the busy corridor towards Grissoms office, knocked twice and receiving no answer tried the handle.
"Damn" she muttered, fishing into her lab coat for her cell phone. Flipping it open she noticed a young woman standing approach the office, knock, and then look dejected by the lack of reply.
"Are you looking for Gill Grissom?" Sarah asked, pausing her dialling. The girl nodded.
"I think he's out in the field. Is it about a case? I'm a CSI, I might be able to help." She offered.
"It's not about a case. It's a personal matter." The girl replied. Sarah shrugged in amazement – Grissom didn't have personal matters.
"You can leave a message with me if you want, I'll make sure he gets it."
The girl gave her the once over, her icy blue eyes making Sarah feel instantly uncomfortable. There was something undeniably familiar about the girls manner, her facial expressions and structure that the CSI couldn't place.
"Fine." The girl replied finally, her tone measured.
"Can you tell him his daughter stopped by?"
