Chapter Two – Forensic Evidence
Rae pulled into the front driveway of her house and watched Steve come in behind her. She climbed out of Tom and waited for her partner to join her. They had decided that they would pick up breakfast on the way home and discuss the case together as they ate it.
It was a little before ten, and so it was more of a brunch, they had bagels and cookies as well as the coffee and orange juice that seemed to accompany most meals. Rae opened the front door and dropped her keys into the dish on the window sill.
Jesse came out of the breakfast room as he heard the noise and smiled a small smile. "Hi, Rae … Steve." He had Anneya in his arms and she squealed at her mom, but Eliana made the most noise as she rushed at Steve's legs and was swung up into the air by her Uncle.
Rae moved over to kiss her husband, but he backed away just at the last minute and she kissed nothing. It seemed that, apart from his daughters, he couldn't cope with any form of physical contact unless he initiated it. It hadn't always been so. When Jesse first returned from the hospital he seemed to crave her company, and then, gradually, he had moved away from her and she had thought he was getting independent again that she had helped him to survive without her, but now, nobody except Eliana and Anneya was allowed to get anywhere near him.
"We need to finish some work on a case we picked up last night, but didn't want to go back into the station. We won't be too long because if I don't get some sleep in the next couple of hours I think you'll find me snoring standing up."
"Ok, I'll be in the playroom, that way you can use the table in the breakfast room. Rae, Eliana had an asthma attack just after she woke this morning, you'll need to note it down." Jesse almost smiled at his wife and then his best friend, and headed towards the girls' toys.
"Oh dear, Honey, are you all right?" Rae moved closer to her eldest daughter, reached up and stroked her cheek as she sat happily in Steve's arms.
"Ess, kew, Mommy."
Rae knew that whatever was bothering Jesse he would have given the little girl her medication and so she leant in a little closer and kissed Eliana on the forehead, listening to her breathing as she did so. Happy that everything was now fine she turned and then watched Eliana run past her after she had been put down onto the floor and tried to get herself back into work mode again.
Steve opened the door to the bright sunny room that Rae liked best of all in her house and they put their paperwork and food down on the table. Rae undid the sideboard and took out two plates, she put the bagels on to them, put the cookies in the middle of the table and took a swig of her juice, then she plonked herself down in the closest chair and pulled a folder towards her; as she did so she felt the dried blood on her jeans and shuddered. "Steve, I have to go change before I do anything else." She stood back up and, seeing him nod in agreement, headed for the stairs.
Steve stood up as well and, knowing he had a few minutes to spare, moved into the playroom to see his friend. Although Steve hadn't said anything it seemed that there had been very little voluntary contact between Jesse and his friends since he had been rescued. He knew that Jo had come and seen him, and they'd had a barbeque when everybody had been present, but Jesse had just seemed to be going along for the ride. He had joined in, made conversation, but Steve got the feeling that something was wrong with his friend, and he was worried for him.
Steve tapped on the nursery door, not only because he would never enter without permission, but also in case one of the girls was standing behind it. There was no friendly shout of 'come in' or 'hold on' or anything, so after waiting a minute Steve carefully poked his head round the doorframe. There were French doors from the playroom out onto the patio, which were wide open. Steve moved out into the garden and he could see Eliana and Anneya in the fenced off play area. It had been well thought out by Rae, and had swings, a small slide, a climbing frame, that Steve guessed would come up to his thigh, and a sand pit. There was also another fenced area within it, which was just for sitting in the sun and playing with ordinary toys and that was where the girls were.
Anneya had her set of blocks which she was playing with, and Steve thought that she was nothing if not determined. He knew from something Rae had said earlier that she was into building towers at present. Eliana had a shape sorter which looked like a gumball machine. It was a circular shape and the holes for the blocks were spaced out around the ball. On the side was a handle, and if you pulled it down all the shapes, which had disappeared inside, came tumbling out of a hole in the base. Eliana had never had any interest in putting shapes into their right homes, but she loved pulling the handle, and so would now put one shape in, pull the handle and then try another one. It was the most successful sorter to date.
"Aii, Unki Teve." Eliana got up and moved across to the closest point to the man she adored and smiled up at him.
"Where's Daddy, Sweetie?" Steve was surprised that Jesse wasn't sitting on the bench which was also a part of the play area. As much as Rae enjoyed getting down and dirty with her daughters, there were times, she said, when adult seating was a must.
"There." A little pudgy finger pointed to a part of the garden just out of sight of the children's swings and Steve saw a pair of feet just poking out of the bushes.
With a worried look on his face Steve made his way towards them, waving to his goddaughter as he did so. Although he was concerned about his friend, he couldn't help but feel a little hurt that Anneya hadn't even looked up at him. "Jesse?" Steve looked down at his friend who was sitting on a low wall that surrounded a flower bed. There was no movement, no indication that he had heard his name being called, nothing. Steve, carefully so as not to scare Jesse, put his hand on his arm. "Jess?"
Jesse just seemed to come to. "Oh, hi, Steve."
"Jesse, are you all right?" Steve was still worried; even though he had answered him fine the second time.
"Yeah, why?"
Why? Steve wasn't really sure. His friend could have just been deep in thought; he could be imagining the fact that he hadn't seen much of Jesse, or making more of it than it was. Sometimes they went for long periods without any close contact. These thoughts passed through his mind in an instant, and he shook them away. "You just looked miles away, and … well, I know it's none of my business, but the girls can't see you."
Jesse smiled, but there was no warmth in it. "They know where I am, or Eliana does, I can see them, and sometimes I like to sit and just watch them, y'know, when they have no idea they're being observed."
At that moment Steve heard his name being called, and knew that his partner was back from freshening up. "Ok, Buddy, I gotta go back in, but I'll see you later, all right?"
"Yeah, Steve, whatever." Jesse turned his attention back to his children, and Steve moved towards the house, knowing that however doubtful his thought process was, one thing was certain, something was up with Jesse, he just wasn't sure what it was.
Rae had ducked through the shower because the blood had soaked her jeans, and as it had dried it had stained her leg, she'd been cross with herself for not watching as she crouched down, her ankle had turned on the uneven ground, and she'd had to kneel down to save herself from falling. But now she was clean again and waiting in the breakfast room, her hair wet and brushed straight back from her face, and she had on a pair of white casual trousers and a blue sleeveless shirt. Steve smiled at her. "That looks nice."
"Well, thank you, I'm glad you approve." Rae joked, but she was surprised and delighted by her partner's words, and both of them knew it. Giving herself a mental shake, Rae began to focus her thoughts back on the case at hand. "Ok, Mrs Rothschild gave us, ooh, would you say nothing or absolutely nothing?" Rae shook her head. The interview with their witness had been a non starter. The dog had found the corpse and she hadn't seen anything or anybody.
"Well, I guess once she saw the victim and the blood that was enough for her. I have to say I think it would probably be enough for most people." Steve took a bite of his bagel and washed it down with some of his cooling coffee.
"So, what do we really have?" Rae looked at the rough notes they had taken while they were out, and the ones she had written as they were driving back to the precinct. They hadn't gone back inside the building for anything more than a quick check of their messages. They had left a note on Cheryl's desk to let her know what they had so far, in case anything came up before their next shift, and then they had signed out and left. Neither of them had spoken more than five words the entire time they had been in the squad room. They were exhausted, and the prospect of a few days off was very welcome, however, they had a feeling that they would be back in the squad room some time the next day to work on the information that Amanda would have by then.
"Until we have the stuff from Amanda we have very little. From what I saw I would say the victim was late teens, early twenties, average height, blonde, female and very dead." Steve stopped talking, wanting to hear Rae's views as well as his own.
"Yeah, I agree with all that. I'll stick my neck out and say she was killed with a knife. Maybe it's a stabbing, or maybe she was slashed with the weapon, but still a knife. I think she was killed where we found her, and unless her murderer was naked too, he, or she, I guess, would have been covered with blood as well. I only knelt down to check something, and my jeans were soaked on one leg." Rae had kept her eyes on her partner the whole time she spoke, and had been gratified to see him nod his head in agreement a couple of times.
"So, we can list it as Caucasian female, eighteen to twenty-four, five eight, five nine tall, blonde … eyes, we didn't get that did we?"
"No, her eyes were closed, thank goodness, but she was a natural blonde, if that helps."
"Nope, not really. She could still have almost any colour eyes. What?" Steve noticed Rae look a little cross.
"I didn't mean that her hair colour would help with her eyes, I know there is no correlation because …well, I just know." Rae didn't want to start explaining things to someone who knew it all anyway.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. I guess it's not a lot to send through to missing persons, but we'll give it a shot. I hate to say this…" Steve paused as he saw Rae smile.
"But, get a couple of hours sleep and then we need to go to work?"
"Yeah, exactly. I don't want to go either, Rae, Jo leaves in a coupla days, and I want to spend some time with her. But this needs to be done; there's no way around it."
"I know, and I agree. Ok, you go home grab a few hours too. It's what, ten after eleven, so how about if we make our way in at about three, we can work for a couple of hours and still be home in time for dinner?" Rae smiled, hoping that Steve would realise that she really did understand.
"Sounds good to me… Rae, before I go, can I ask you something?" Steve didn't know whether to bring the subject up or not.
"Yeah, go for it." Rae's eyes were dancing, and her smile was light.
"Is Jesse ok?" Steve watched as the enjoyment and relaxation left Rae's face.
"I don't know. He won't let me get close enough to find out, which is another reason why I want some time with him before he starts back to work. Why?" The worry was evident in her voice now.
"He just seemed a bit distant." Suddenly Steve wanted to back off. If Rae was already worried about him he would stay out of it for a while longer, just be a sounding board. "But if you want to talk about it to me, just let me know."
"Sure, and thanks, but you brought it up." The comment was light, but it wasn't accompanied by anything remotely like a smile and Steve moved over and placed his arm around her.
"Yeah, I know, but the offer stands, ok?"
Rae was just about to answer when the French doors to the breakfast room opened and Jesse came through. He didn't do any more than just nod to his wife and best friend, even though Steve still had his arm around his partner, before carrying on towards the kitchen, and then, after a couple of minutes passed in total silence, he returned carrying two cold drinks and a bottle of water. This time there was no acknowledgement and Jesse closed the doors and went back to his children. Rae and Steve looked at each other, but had no words to speak.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Jo looked at the clothes on the bed in front of her and sighed. She guessed it said something about the way she was feeling that all the stuff she had picked to go on her trip was business-like, formal and definitely stuffy. Jo had loved her grandmother very much, and that was really the main reason she was going to Texas. If she was honest with herself Jo could no longer picture her parents in her mind, the large framed photo that she'd put up in the hallway to the East Wing served as her image of them, and she really didn't want to go digging into the past to find out how they had died.
She remembered being with her parents, of breakfasts together before her daddy went off to work, of her mom coming into the nursery where David and she spent their days, to join the nanny and play games with them. The images of the faces in those memories didn't tally with the ones in the photographs and she guessed that she had turned them into some sort of fairytale prince and princess as she travelled through her childhood alone.
As Jo had looked through all the pictures she had found in the attic, she had realised that her grandparents hadn't really come into her life until after the fire that had decimated her family. She had never met her mother's parents, it had never seemed a situation that was discussed, but maybe, while she was in Texas, she would look them up too.
Shaking herself out of her reverie Jo moved over to one of her closets and took out two pairs of jeans, one which had frayed slashes down the legs, and another which had patterns all over them in a glittery spray. She put them on the bed with a determination that made her laugh, and then went in a search for two frivolous tops to go with them.
As she came back towards the bed once more she heard the front door close downstairs and dropping her clothes she moved out onto the landing to see who was home. Daniel was at school, but Michael had only gone to the market so it could be him, the one other person with a key was Steve. There was nobody visible when Jo got to the top of the stairs and so she ran lightly down, tracing her fingers down the dark mahogany banister as she did so.
Hearing a sound in the kitchen she pushed open the door and then a smile split her face as she saw her husband, his head in the refrigerator, in front of her. "Hey, are you finished with nights?"
Steve backed out of the fridge, a guilty look in his eyes and a slice of meatloaf in his mouth. "Mmm, hmow mar … you?" He swallowed and then smiled.
"Michael will have your guts for garters. You know he made that for Daniel." For some reason the boy had a passion for the butler's meatloaf at the moment, and if it was cold with salad and fries he was in fifteen-year-old heaven.
"Sorry, hungry, come here." Steve closed the door with his foot as he turned and pulled his wife into his arms. He began to kiss her but she backed away.
"Ewww, Steve, no, Honey, you taste of dinner." The feel of his arms around her was welcome and she didn't move any further away. "I guess you'll be goin' to bed then?"
"Afraid so. I … I uh I have to go into the station later. We picked up a new case last night, and I need to get the ball rolling on it. I'm sorry, Jo." Steve could see the sadness in her eyes as he gave her his news.
"Yeah, I know, an' I also know that you have to do this, but please, darlin', can we get at least one day together before I go?" Jo leant her head on his chest. Apart from the time when Werner had taken her and Jesse, they hadn't been apart since their wedding, and she was going to miss him so much, which was another reason, she was sure, why her heart wasn't in the task her grandmamma had left for her.
Steve just nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Suddenly he didn't want her to go, he knew that justice had to be served, but did it really need her to go hundreds of miles to see it done? Then Steve thought about his Uncle Stacey, he was a likeable man, annoying, slightly manipulative, but if he found out that he had been killed years before, he knew he would head for the soda shop to find out just what had happened.
He came back to his senses as he felt Jo take him by the hand and lead him out of the kitchen and over towards the staircase. He had left his sneakers and socks in the utility room, not wanting to bring the debris from the vacant lot into the house, and the tiles of the hallway were cold on the soles of his feet. The sudden warmth and softness of the stair carpet was welcome and he lingered a little as he dug his toes into the deep pile. Then with a smile he allowed himself to be taken up towards the East Wing, noting from the smile on his wife's face as she turned to look at him that it might be a little while before he got to sleep.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
It was just after four when Steve and Rae arrived at the station, and both of them wanted to be elsewhere. Rae moved over to the coffee machine, poured Steve a cup, put down the new packet of tea bags she had brought in for herself, put a pear and guava flavoured bag into the cup that said there is no such thing as a non working mother and filled it with boiling water. She then moved slowly over to where Steve was standing staring out of the window, placed her hand on his arm and held out his drink for him.
"Hey."
Steve turned a smile on his face and looked down at her. She really was a tiny thing, no more than a little bird, she still had the white pants and blue top on, and he was sure that she was thinner than she had been when Jesse was released. "Rae, thank you. Are you ok?"
"Yeah, why?" Rae was instantly concerned. Maybe she looked rough, a week of nights would do that to anyone, but she thought she had survived them reasonably well.
"Nothing."
"Yeah, right, come on, Sloan, give." Rae looked up at him and Steve could see the determination in her eyes. He had started something, and now it was up to him to finish it.
"It's just that, you look a bit …" Steve considered his words. Even he knew that it was not a good idea to tell a woman she had put on weight, but losing it? He wasn't sure.
Rae ran her finger round the waistband of her trousers and smiled. "Skinny?"
Steve nodded his head. "You know, huh?"
"I have a lot on my mind, and when that's the case I just don't eat very much. I'll sort it, Steve, I just don't know how, not yet any way."
Steve watched as Rae moved over and sat at her own desk. For a moment his eyes rested on two of the photographs on her desk. One was of Eliana and Anneya in their stroller when Anneya was still a small baby, and the other one was of Jesse, the wind blowing through his hair on a day they had spent together at Griffith Park. His best friend looked relaxed and happy, and Steve realised just how much his recent ordeal had affected him. There was none of the laughter in Jesse's face any more. His eyes were unreadable and he was definitely distracted most of the time. Steve shook his thoughts away, just because Jo seemed to have bounced back that didn't mean that Jesse had to, too. It hadn't been that long since the kidnap and dismemberment case had been solved, and if he was honest with himself Steve found his mind wandering back over it quite often too. With this thought cheering him slightly he sat down in his own chair, picked up the phone, and put a call through to Community General.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Mark walked through the reception area of the ER a sheet of paper taking his almost total attention. It was the duty roster for the following week, and the pleasure of seeing Jesse's name back there was marred slightly by the fact that Alex's was missing.
The young doctor had received a call a few nights earlier at the beach house, and Mark had come in from his regular walk along the shore to find his lodger and friend sitting, a wooden ornament from his fireplace in his hands, and he was just turning it over and over.
"Alex?" Mark had been instantly concerned about the man sitting on his sofa. There were the tracks of tears on his cheeks and he could tell that he was distressed. "What is it?"
"No, it's nothing, I'm sorry." Alex had stood up and Mark realised that he was almost too stunned to place one foot in front of the other to move out of the room. He had hurried over and carefully guided his friend back onto the sofa.
"Alex, something is definitely wrong, why don't you tell me what it is?"
"I … I just got a call." Alex shook his head, "It was from the guy who lives next door to my mom. She … she had a heart attack, Mark. I … I don't know what to do."
Mark had understood the dilemma immediately. Alex had hesitated when his father had suffered a heart attack a few years earlier, and then decided to stay at work, knowing that it wasn't as bad as it could have been, and that he could go visit for his next vacation. Things hadn't worked out that way though, and his father had suffered a second fatal attack. Now the young man was in a similar situation. "You pack a small bag, book a ticket and go see your mom." Mark hoped that his voice showed that he meant what he was saying, but Alex shook his head.
"How can I do that? Jesse isn't working, we're short staffed, I need to stay."
"Alex, Jesse is due back at work on Monday, and even if he weren't I would still be telling you to go, and stay as long as you need to, so that you are satisfied that your mom is gonna be fine. Now, go pack, otherwise I will have to do it for you, and I have no idea what you would really like to wear while you're there!"
Alex stood up, and this time a smile reached all the way to his eyes. "Thank you, Mark, I'll repay you when I get back, do a double set of nights, something like that."
"And have Shannon on my back? No, thank you! Now, go!"
Mark brought himself back to the present. Alex had flown out of LA the next morning, and the last he had heard his mom was doing fine, probably improving much quicker because her son was with her. As Mark opened the door to his small and excessively crowded office his phone began to ring and he moved over and picked it up. "Doctor Sloan … oh, hi, Steve… That would be great, yeah; I'll bring some wine if you like… Ok, I'll see you then… Can I what..? Sure, hold on." Mark pressed the button for the switchboard, and sent Steve back down the line so that he could be transferred to Amanda's lab. Once he had done that he found that he really needed to go there himself, urgently.
"Doctor Bentley … Steve, I was just gonna call you… Oh, I'd have been wrong then, I would have tried you at home first… I think you should come here; it'll be easier to show you on the body itself… Yeah, I'll see you then." Amanda put the receiver back on its cradle and then a smile flooded her face as she saw her colleague and long time friend standing at the door. "Mark, what a lovely surprise, come in."
"Did you speak with Steve?" Mark sat down in the chair in front of Amanda's desk.
"I did, and he's coming over. I'd rather show him what I've found than just talk about it over the phone."
"Well, I'll go and find something to do, check to see if I have any patients, that kind of thing, and come back in thirty minutes. If I'm gonna miss anything, you'll page me, won't you?"
"Yes, I'll make sure you don't hear anything less than Steve and Rae, ok?" She smiled, unable to help herself. Mark could smell a mystery a mile off, and she knew that he would be as interested in what she had found as his son.
It was just over a half hour later that the discussion began. "Ok, our Jane Doe is about twenty-one years old," Amanda stood at the feet end of the table, her audience listening intently to her, "she was killed where she was found, and I would say that it happened the night before she was discovered."
"How can you be sure, you always tell me that you can't be that accurate?" Rae leant forward as she spoke, the interest evident in her voice.
"Normally I can't, but if, for instance, you get someone who has only just been killed then it makes it easier. If there was no rigor at all, not even in the eyelids, lower jaw or neck, and they are the areas affected first, then you are talking of an hour to about three since the time of death. There was full rigor here, so that means less than about 36 hours dead. The fact that nobody, apart from your dog walker, saw anything means she was probably killed at night. Oh, and I am fairly sure that she was killed where she was found."
"You just said that, but I agree. No blood elsewhere, right?" Steve made it sound like a question, but in reality it wasn't. He was sure of his facts.
"Sorry, and yes exactly."
"How did she die?" Mark had been quiet, standing, his hands through the slits in his white coat resting in the pockets of his pants.
"She was stabbed, ten times."
"And she didn't try to run, or get away … the first wound couldn't have killed her or there wouldn't have been so much blood … so why was she still in the place where the attack took place? If that had been me I would have tried anything to get away." Steve had a slightly confused air as he strove to work out why things had happened the way they had.
"I'll come back to that, if you don't mind." Amanda checked with Steve and seeing him nod in agreement continued speaking. "There was a wound to the arm, the left arm, not that I think that is significant, which severed the main brachial artery. The blood would have spurted from there, very strongly to start with. I guess she may have been rooted to the spot through shock or fear, but the desire to live is very strong, I don't see it happening that way." Amanda shook her head, the girl had been very young, and once her face and hair had been cleaned she had been pretty too.
"Why was she naked, Amanda, had she been raped?" Rae looked down at the body on the gurney, she was an attractive girl, young, and dead way too soon. Rae had been raped herself, and hated to think of anyone else suffering in that way.
"I don't know if she had been raped, the signs are that she hadn't, but she had been to a club and also she'd had sex just before she died."
"And if it had been rape you would have found signs of forced entry, maybe scratches on her body, skin under her fingernails, and you found none of that." Mark too seemed to be captivated by the face of the young woman before them. "How do you know she had been to a club?"
"There was alcohol in her stomach, precious little else, I might add, and she had one of those stamps on her hand that they put on in clubs so that if you go out you can get back in again. It was really difficult to get any idea of what it was; most of it was removed when I wiped the blood away. I'm sorry, Steve, the stamp itself was red and I didn't know it was there." Amanda looked at her friend and could tell that he forgave her.
"She was beautiful wasn't she?" Mark shook his head at the futileness of it all.
"Yes, she was. So, guys, there is one more thing, I have a feeling it is relevant too, but right now, I don't know why."
"Which is?" Steve had been writing down the odd note here and there, knowing that he really didn't need to, because Amanda's report would be more detailed and concise than any other coroner who worked for the department.
"Both her feet had been slashed. The sole of each one has a straight line cut deeply into them. I think that is the reason she didn't run, maybe she tried to crawl away, and he stabbed her in the back, there are two wounds there. Do you want the list of all ten now?"
Steve and Rae both nodded and so Amanda began to read from the folder that was resting on the side of the gurney. "Ok, she had, as I said two stab wounds to the back, one of them punctured a lung, the other nicked the heart, but I don't think it was the wound that killed her. She had a knife wound on her left arm as I also said; it severed the artery and went right through from the back of the arm to the front. Two wounds to the feet makes five, then there were three mainly superficial wounds to the breasts, which again would have bled, a lot, one to the right shoulder, and although we couldn't see it under all the blood yesterday, her throat had been cut."
There was silence in the lab for a few minutes as the four of them thought through the evidence. Amanda went over things in her mind, making sure that she hadn't missed anything important, Steve and Rae looked at the woman in front of them, Steve wondering what type of person could inflict that kind of damage, while Rae tried to rid herself of the image of the young woman spending her final moments on earth in abject terror. Mark was also processing the wounds, wondering which had come first, whether her throat had been cut to kill her before he mutilated her or after he had tortured her. He knew from what he had heard that there had been a lot of blood, she had to have been tortured, repressing a shudder Mark knew that they were dealing with a very dangerous adversary.
"I have the DNA of the person who had sex with her, or I will have. The tests have all been done, and once I get the results back, I will be able to match any blood samples quite quickly should you find him. Hers, too, obviously I have hers as well. There were no skin scrapings under her nails, no hair pulled out of his head, nothing to suggest, as Mark said, that she was raped, or taken further than she had wanted to go. But that's all I can offer right now."
"Her eyes, Amanda, what colour were her eyes?" It was Rae who asked the question, suddenly remembering that they needed it for their missing persons report.
"Green, almost a silvery green. I took bloods from her, and so far nothing has come back to show any hereditary problems, she wasn't pregnant, had never given birth before, didn't have any sexually transmittable diseases, nothing easy to help us identify her, and just to finish the whole thing off, she was O negative." Amanda shook her head. She knew that the information she had given them was of help, they had far more now than they'd had before, but she also knew that in this type of case sometimes the body could give up so many secrets that there was never any doubt who the murderer was. This time though, that wasn't going to happen. The information would be used to set the wheels in motion with missing persons, the pictures Amanda had taken would be attached to reports and folders, but forensically, for the time being, everything that could be done had been done.