A Little Bit of Texas: Speed
Part Three
Morning brought the three of them to the Bodywerks gym, showing the picture, trying to find a name. They didn't really expect the man to show up, just days after his lover was killed. When he walked in it was a surprise, but a welcome one.
The man's name was Michael Genetti, whose occupation was to have fun. His parents had left him a fortune, and Michael loved to spend it on pleasures of the world.
"Married women make the best girlfriends. They are so grateful to someone who gives them the attention they deserve," he said. "You can get them to do just about anything as long as you tell them they're still beautiful, still desirable."
They had brought Michael into the station interrogation room. Speed was handling the questioning, while Calleigh and Dayna watched from the other side of the one-way glass.
"Was Cathy thinking of leaving Keith?" Speed asked the suspect.
"Nah, she would never leave him. She loved him too much, which made her perfect for me. Add on the guilt she felt, which always makes for better sex and faster getaways, and we had the perfect relationship," Michael said. He grinned at Speedle, a genuinely happy smile of a child who got what he wanted for Christmas. Then the smile faded, "I'm bummed she died. That's sucks."
"Yeah, now you have to go out and find some other desperate married woman," Speed said, disgusted. "Let's get to why you're here. Where were you between one and four AM on October 12th?"
"The 12th? That's easy. I was in Arizona. My buddy got married on the 11th," Michael said.
"When did you fly back?" Speedle asked.
"Yesterday. That's when I found out about Cathy."
"You found out your girlfriend was murdered yesterday, and you were ready for a workout this morning?" Speed asked.
Michael looked at him for a second, confused, then said, "Well, yeah. I mean, life goes on, right?"
"Not for the Grear's. Where did you stay in Arizona, and what airline did you fly on?" Speed asked harshly, tired of being in the same room with the man.
Michael pulled the information out of his palm pilot, looking hurt that Tim would doubt his word. Speed walked out of the room, leaving Genetti alone to stew.
Dayna took the information and ran it. She came back looking troubled. "He checks out," she said. "I would love to bust him for something, though. He's just too sleazy to let walk around loose."
"Until they make sleaze a crime, we have to cut him loose," Speed said.
"Well, shit," was the only thing Dayna could think of to say, which made the two CSIs crack up.
"I'll take care of it," said Speed.
"Alright. Why don't we break for lunch, then go back and see if we can't find the actual killer on our third time around," Calleigh said.
Dayna's cell phone rang. She looked at the caller ID and said, "I've got to take this call, then I'll get something to eat. I'll be back after lunch." She waved over her shoulder as she turned away, raising the phone to her head with the other hand.
Speed went back to the interrogation room. "You're free to go," he said.
"Thanks man. I hope you find who did it. It's a tragedy," Michael said.
"Yeah, I know you'll be crying the night away," said Speedle.
"Huh?" Genetti asked, confused.
"Bye," Speed said.
Calleigh was eating a sandwich she had brought from home in the break room. Speed grabbed his helmet and headed out to his motorcycle, thinking of buying something at the Italian place down the street.
He had already climbed on his bike when he saw Dayna was still in the parking lot, leaning against her silver Mustang, forehead resting on the roof, her fingertips touching the window of the driver's door.
Speed got off his bike and walked over. "Hey, did you lock yourself out?" he asked when he got close enough to her.
Dayna lifted her head from the roof and swung her purse down from her shoulder into her hand. "No, I've got my keys right here," she said. Her voice sounded strange to Speed, as if she were talking from a distance. He also realized she hadn't looked around at his question.
She started digging in her purse, trying to find the keys, her head bowed, still facing the car, looking into the bag. She finally found the keys and tried to press the unlock button. She dropped them, the keys jingling loudly as they hit the asphalt. She squatted down, picked them up and immediately dropped them again.
She bent down a second time, and Speed bent with her. He saw, as she reached for the keys, that her hand was shaking.
Speed reached out, "Hey." He grabbed the keys from the ground with his left and, placing his right on her upper arm, helped her straighten up while he did the same. "Let me," he said. Dayna nodded.
Speed hit the unlock button on the keypad and opened the door for her. She got in the car and held out her hand, but Speed kept the keys. She finally looked at him, the first time since he walked over to her. Her eyes were glinty with tears, not quite falling yet.
"You can't drive like this. What's wrong?" he asked.
She looked up at him from the driver's seat. "My friend was in a car accident. She's in a hospital in Houston," she said. The tears began to travel down her cheeks. She brushed them off quickly.
"Dayna, I'm so sorry. Is she going to be okay? Do you need me to drive you to the airport?" Speed's mind was already going through the steps. Call the airport and get an emergency ticket to Houston; he could do that from the car. Bring in another detective for the case. John Hagen probably wouldn't be the best for a case Calleigh was on, and Yelina was completely out of the question – asking her to pick up a case of Dayna's would be a bad idea on several different levels, not to mention the recent fight with Cal. He would give Tripp a call when he got back, which would also give him a chance to follow up on the lawyer question from a few weeks back...
His thoughts were stopped cold when he noticed that the only reaction to his questions was to make Dayna cry harder. "Dayna, I'm sorry. I didn't realize your friend was going to...," He reached into his back pocket and got out his handkerchief, pressing it into Dayna's hand.
"She's not," Dayna said, forcing the words to be articulate through her crying. "They think she's going to be fine." She was starting to sound congested, and he face had turned bright red with the force of her crying. When her eyes met Tim's he could see how red the sclera had gotten. Her eyes are grey. The thought sprinted through his mind, confusing him. He wondered why he had noticed that now, when he should be thinking about how to help Campbell.
His focus snapped back when Dayna started talking again, hiccoughing the words out, "I can't go home at all. Ever. My best friend is in the hospital, and I can't go see her." She was wiping the tears away with Tim's handkerchief as fast as she could.
Tim hated to see women cry. He never knew what to do. He suspected that had cost him more than one girlfriend, and made it impossible for him to talk to most victims' families. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other a few times, hoping Dayna would get herself under control. He tried to think of a way to leave her to her tears, sure that she was as uncomfortable having a witness as he was watching her. His normally fast thinking failed him, and he just watched helplessly as Dayna cried to herself.
When she calmed down she folded up his handkerchief and put it on her dash. "I'll get that cleaned for you," she said.
"Don't worry about it. Are you going to be okay?" he asked.
"Oh yeah. It just really hit me hard. A pretty graphic way to realize I can't go back," she said. She sniffed loudly, catching a late tear with her fingertip.
Speed's curiosity fought with his fear of starting her crying again. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked.
Dayna checked her face in the mirror. "I've got to wash my face. I look horrible," she said. "I can't go in there to do it. It's bad enough I've been blubbering right outside the building where anyone could see me. If I walk in there my reputation will be shot forever."
Speed looked at her for a few seconds. "You've been crying in front of me this whole time," he pointed out. Dayna just looked at him. Speed gave up, "Fine, I know a restaurant down the street. You can wash your face, we'll grab lunch, and then you can tell me what's going on ... but only if you don't start crying again."
He actually managed to get a small smile from Dayna with that. She said, "I'm not making any 'no crying' promises, but we can give it a try."
"Why don't I drive?" Speed offered.
"I'm fine to drive, Speedle," Dayna said.
"Oh yeah, I can see that, but I know where the restaurant is. Plus, you know, you're a girl so ... who knows what might set you off again."
He actually got a laugh out of her. He smiled back and held out his right hand, expecting the keys. Dayna reached out and put her left hand in his right, turning the gesture to him helping her out of the car. Since this made him unintentionally gallant he wondered if he should walk her over and get that door for her too.
Dayna said, "I must still be upset if I'm letting someone else drive my car," almost to herself. "Do you know how to drive a manual?"
"Yeah, I'm a guy. Of course I know how to drive manual. Get in."
Driving to the restaurant only took a couple minutes. They walked in and Dayna immediately went to the ladies room. She came out only a few minutes later, her coloring almost back to normal.
They both placed their orders, and Tim felt a sense of déjà vu, remembering sitting with Calleigh, waiting for her to tell her story. "You don't have to talk about it, if it's going to upset you again," Tim said.
"I haven't talked to anyone about it yet. You might as well be the first," she said. "Hell, you've earned the right to be the first. Watching me cry ain't easy."
The food arrived. "It started as a murder case, and it ended up rewiring my life. We found a body in the warehouse district of Houston. Me and Lindsey, that's my partner, we caught the case. I was the lead, I was the one who talked to the media. It was a doorway into this huge triangle, running illegals one side, drug runners another, and white supremacists the last. I found out they were in bed together, ended up cracking the whole thing wide, wide open. Everyone wanted a piece, the Feds, the DEA, hell I think the CIA was involved at one point. I managed to piss off not only the bad guys, but most of the law enforcers as well."
"How did that happen?"
Dayna snorted, "We're very territorial creatures, you may have noticed. So, all the bad guys knew who I was, and only me. Lindsey had taken on all of our other cases, letting me run with the triangle. It started off great, I could devote everything to it, but in the end it meant I was out in the open, all alone. None of the other agencies had kindly feelings towards me, so they weren't going out of their way to make sure I'd be safe. Hell, I would have been insulted if they had. I might as well have carried a flashing neon sign with 'shoot here' around with me." Dayna sat, looking at her lasagna. Sighing, she pushed away the plate, having only eaten three bites.
The waiter immediately came over, intense concern apparent in his frown and drawn down eyebrows. He picked up Dayna's plate, "There is something wrong with the food?" sounding like heads would roll in the kitchen.
"No, no, it's wonderful. I would like to take the rest of it home, but my stomach is a little upset right now."
"Of course. Allow me to take care of it for you." He disappeared with the plate.
"That's a little more observant than waiters usually are," Dayna said.
"Well, it's a family place, and you're here with a regular. You're lucky one of the owners isn't here. They would have pumped you for your whole life story before they let you order, and if you hadn't eaten the food...," Speedle trailed off, shaking his head. "I can't even imagine it. But please, go on with your story."
She took a deep breath, "Right. The first time they came after me was at my place. But the second time was a drive by with fully automatic weapons."
Speed briefly closed his eyes in empathy.
Dayna continued, her voice going flat and emotionless, "Three dead and twelve wounded, just because they were standing on the street when I was getting a cup of coffee. I had cut the head off the organization, but the dying body was still trying for revenge. What made it worse was the people who were left were the ones we couldn't find during the investigation. The invisible members. So they would try and get me, then fade into the shadows when it didn't work. Even when we caught some, it didn't help. The individuals were looking for payback for their group's people, so stopping the drug runners didn't help us 'make visible' anyone from the illegals or the supremacists. I didn't want to, but I eventually moved to Dallas, just to protect my people in Houston."
Speed looked at Dayna, knowing more must be coming since she wound up in Miami.
Dayna looked up and met the prompting curiosity in his eyes. She gave a quiet "Heh" at the look, then dropped her eyes and continued, "My new partner in Dallas got shot two weeks after I joined the Dallas PD. After than I was ready to go to war: As far as I was concerned everyone was fair game, from mothers and wives to children, girlfriends, neighbors, anyone in any way touched by any single person of any arm of the triangle. I was going to find and arrest every last person involved, I didn't care how many there were."
"You can't do that on your own – it's suicide," Speed said.
Dayna's lips twisted into a strained smile, "So everyone told me. It wasn't until Lindsey, Chief Blackston, and three of my best friends went to Dallas and yelled at me in person that I finally clued in. They really did call it a suicide intervention."
"Jesus, Dayna. So that's how you ended up in Miami?" Speed asked.
"Yeah. The Chief started calling around, and Miami-Dade gave the best offer. Y'all seemed to really want me. But that's why I can't go back to Texas. Lindsey tells me they're still picking up some people, and the only thing they still have in common is a deep hatred of me. It would be dangerous for me, but more for anyone around me. I could go visit my friend in the hospital, but if I get recognized ..."
Speed reached across the table and touched her lightly on her hand, "I'm really sorry," he said, then wondered at himself. He never had been big on casual touching. He pulled back his hand and asked, "Hey, are you ready to get out of here?"
"Yeah. Hey, thanks for this," said Dayna, gesturing to space between them.
"Do you feel any better?" Speed asked.
"Yeah. Actually I do," Dayna said, sounding a bit surprised.
"Then it was my pleasure." Speed smiled at her.
They settled the bill, and were walking towards the exit when the waiter came out of the kitchen. "You food, ma'am." There was the expected square box, plus a bowl on top of it.
"I'm sorry, this isn't mine," Dayna started to say, but the waiter interrupted her.
"It's chicken noodle soup, the owner's mother's personal recipe. It will help you feel better."
"Thank you," Dayna said, stunned. When they were outside she turned to Tim, "Okay, you know the BEST places."
"Yeah, it's a talent. Are you driving back, or am I?"
Tim, Calleigh and Dayna were stuck. All the leads brought them to dead ends. Dayna left, frustrated, to work on her other cases. Speed suggested to Calleigh that some time away from the case might be in order, and so she went off to catch up on some ballistics reports. Failing to follow his own advice, Tim went back to the collected evidence. He was trying to find something – anything – overlooked the first time, or some inconsequential tidbit put aside as unimportant that could hold the key. Horatio found him taking off his lab coat, ready to go back to the crime scene.
"What's happening with your case?" H asked.
"So far we've had two suspects, neither of which did the murders. We've hit dead ends following the evidence. I'm about to go back to the crime scene, see if there's anything we've overlooked."
"Tell me about the suspects," Horatio said.
"Originally it looked like a murder/suicide, so the first suspect was the husband, Kirk Grear. He and his wife were so full of ruffies, though, there's no way either one were conscious. It turns out Cathy Grear had a boyfriend, so we investigated him."
"Right, because most murders are done by someone who is close to the victim, often because they 'love' them." Horatio said. He and Speed exchanged an ironic look, forever amazed at the atrocities done by people who were supposed to care.
"Right, but he was out of the state at the time, with plenty of witnesses. On top of that, he claims to prefer married women, says the guilt enhances the sexual experience. He had no reason we can find to want them dead. In fact, what has him the most upset with the situation is now he has to find another married woman to play with."
"Hmm," Horatio looked into the distance. "What are the two things people usually feel strongly enough to kill over?" he asked.
"There are a million reasons people kill each other," Tim said.
"That's true, but the two most common are love, which you've ruled out ..." Horatio trailed off, inviting Speed to finish the thought.
"And money," Tim said.
"Follow the money," Horatio said, walking out of the lab.
"We need to get into Kirk's business life," Speed said the next day, when the three were gathered together in the trace lab.
"He had his own company. Well, his two partners and him," Dayna said.
"What does the company do?" Calleigh asked.
"Uhhmm, let's see," Dayna looked through her file. "They make videos. They tape depositions for courts and small company training videos, stuff like that. Seems to be pretty lucrative, really. It looks like Kirk, who was the founder, saw a niche and filled it."
"So did the three partners share evenly?" Speed asked.
"I don't know, but I'll find out. Why don't I take the company, the records and accountant stuff, and you two take the partners?" Dayna suggested.
"Do you think you can get a warrant? We don't have anything to link the partners into this," Calleigh said.
"I think I can, but if not I'll see what I can get into without one. I should be able to find out what the profit split is, at the very least. I'll be in touch," Dayna said, then turned and walked out of the lab, already dialing her cell phone to talk to the DA about the warrant.
Kirk Grear had two partners: a man named Jim Talbot and a woman named Stacy Walters. Calleigh and Tim went to their office to talk to them.
"Please, come upstairs," Stacy invited them into the office overlooking the equipment room, crammed with videos, monitors, techs cleaning up the equipment and checking the quality of the recorded work.
Talbot was already in there, waiting for them. He was at one of the three desks in the huge room, head bent over some paperwork he was signing. When the CSIs walked into the room he finished signing a paper, and looked up. He then stood up and eased himself around the desk, hand extended to shake hands with Speedle first, then Calleigh.
"What can we do to help with your investigation?" Stacy asked, looking grave. "Everything I have I owe to Kirk, so anything you need from me, just ask."
"Thank you, Ms. Walters. Let's start with your whereabouts between 1 and 4 am on the 12th," Calleigh said.
"I was at home in bed," Stacy said instantly.
"Can anybody verify that?" Calleigh asked.
"My husband. Oh, and probably my son too. He's going through a needy phase right now, and likes to sneak into our bedroom and crawl in with us after we're asleep. Do you need me to call them?"
"We'll take care of that later. How about you, Mr. Talbot?" Speedle asked him, noticing the intensity he had been watching Stacy with while she was answering the question.
"I was at home as well. I was alone, though," Talbot said. Speedle noticed that Talbot was very self-conscious, putting his body in exactly the same position Stacy Walters had been in while she answered Calleigh's question. He also noticed the man was sweating, although the room was slightly chilly from the air conditioner.
"We'll need both of you to give us some of your DNA, so we can exclude you from the evidence collected," Speed said suddenly.
Calleigh looked at him, then opened her kit, pulling out two cotton swabs with the cardboard transport containers. "We should get your fingerprints at the same time."
"Why? Did you find fingerprints?" Talbot asked, rubbing his hands down the front of his leg.
Calleigh just gave him a small smile, holding the swab up to his face, "Open your mouth, Mr. Talbot. This won't hurt a bit."
The criminalists left shortly after that. "We should try lifting footprints from the carpet from the scene. See if we can't get a warrant for Talbot's shoes," Speedle said.
"You like him for the murder?" Calleigh asked.
"Don't you? I thought talking to him about fingerprints was brilliant on your part," Speed said.
Calleigh smiled, "Thank you. Everything about him screamed guilt, but we don't have any evidence tying him to the scene."
"Not yet, anyway," Tim replied. "Let's go find some."
They had been back at the crime scene for a couple of hours, using electric charges to pull shoeprints onto special paper. Speedle's phone rang, and Dayna started to give her findings.
"Grear got a full fifty percent of the profit. Talbot gets twenty-five, and so does Walters."
Speed asked, "Now that he's dead, how will it be divided?"
"Since Cathy's also dead, that leaves the company equally divided between the two surviving partners. How did the interview go?" asked Dayna.
"I'm really liking the man for the murders. We're at the house, trying to find something, anything he left behind. This guy is so jittery I think just looking in his home will be enough to get a confession from him," Speedle said. Calleigh agreed from behind him, although Tim didn't think Dayna couldn't hear her through the phone microphone.
"This case has been a pain in the neck since we caught it. Let me know if you find anything. Let's get this guy in a box, with plenty of evidence to send him away. I really can't wait for this one to be over," Dayna said, then hung up with him.
"Any luck on the prints so far?" Tim asked Calleigh as he bent down to lift another quadrant. Calleigh was organizing the prints, removing hers, Tim's, Alexx's and the other medical personnel who had been in the room. She took the photos of the soles of the shoes the victims were wearing from her kit, brought specifically for this field comparison. She removed several more prints from her pile, and ended up with one print unaccounted for.
She answered Tim's question, "Maybe. I've got a mystery print here, but for all we know it's the boyfriend's."
"Let's finish the rest of the room, then we'll find out what size shoe the boyfriend and the partner have. If it's the partner then between the shoe print and the new money he's going to have we should have enough for a warrant for his house," Speed said.
"I wonder why we haven't found any trace from this guy?" Calleigh mused.
"He was very careful. But I think between the DNA swab and the fingerprints we might have him wondering if he was careful enough," Speed said.
At the end of the day they had found the unexplained footprints around both bodies. The shoes were a size seven. Michael Genetti wore a size ten. Dayna met up with them at the office of the video company, finding that Talbot had left shortly after the interview with Speedle and Duquesne. They got his address from his partner, and went there with lights and sirens going. The Mustang got there first, followed closely by the CSI Hummer. The timing was inspired, since the patrol cars arrived simultaneously, carrying the warrant needed to search the house and premises.
"How did that get here?" Calleigh asked Dayna as a uniformed officer knocked on the door to the house.
"I had given the DA a head's up before we met at the office. When I got in the car I called and told him Talbot had rabbited, he had everything ready to go but the judge's signature."
"Smooth, Campbell, very smooth," Calleigh grinned at the taller woman.
"Thanks Duquesne. I do my humble best," Dayna grinned back, while getting her sidearm from its holster in preparation for busting into the house. One of the uniformed officers brought up the ram, and broke down the door, yelling "Miami-Dade PD" as they entered.
They found Jim Talbot in the backyard, sitting on the ground, surrounded by trash. There was a black garbage bag near him, caught by the wind and moving away. He had a rain slicker next to him, and a two rubber gloves in his hand. He was staring at the gloves, looking confused. When he saw the police coming straight for him from inside his house he stood up and looked ready to run, then took a deep breath and raised his hands over his head, still holding the gloves.
Speedle and Calleigh gloved up and started grabbing everything from the ground. Calleigh chased down the black garbage bag, and put it into a fresh paper bag for transport back to the lab. Speedle got the slicker, folded it, and put it into its own large paper bag.
"I don't understand. I don't see any tears in the gloves. How did you find my fingerprints at the crime scene?" Talbot asked, almost crying as the gloves were taken from him, and the cuffs put on his wrists.
"We didn't," Speed said.
"But you said ... you said you needed my fingerprints to compare to the scene," Talbot said.
"We never said we found fingerprints at the scene. We just said we wanted yours," Speed said. "Get him out of here."
"Plastic wrap for his hair, slicker to keep the blood off his clothes, gloves to stop the fingerprints, all the ingredients for a clean getaway," Dayna said.
"Too bad his guilty conscious gave him away," Calleigh said.
"Will you be able to get enough off this stuff for a conviction?" Dayna asked.
"Oh yeah. A couple of hours with this stuff in the lab, and the prisons get one more killer," Calleigh said.
"Cool. Hey, when y'all are done in the lab, why don't we all go out? I'm in the mood to celebrate," Dayna said.
"Sounds good to me. We can all grab dinner together. Tim knows this great Italian place down the street from the lab," Calleigh said.
"I know that place. Perfect! Call me when you're done for the day, and I'll meet you there," Dayna said. She walked back to her car, to follow Talbot to booking and start the paperwork.