Implied Connections
Chapter 7 – Dirt, Doors and Bullets
By: Braidless Baka
Disclaimer: Do we really need to go over this again? @.@;;
~~~
"Are we there yet?"
Catherine sighed, "You're the one with the map, Greg."
"Oh, yeah." Absently Greg turned his attention back to the A-Z in front of him. "Geez… this is so small. You can't even read it…"
"The turning?"
"Oh, yeah, third on your right," he replied, counting through the turns on the map. "This one, right here."
Obediently, Catherine turned the corner and down a long, absent looking street. This had to be where the rich kids lived. Huge houses everywhere. Not that she had an aversion to money, just the attitude that usually went with it.
"What I wouldn't give to live in a street like this!" breathed Greg, looking out of the window. Some of the houses were even so big as to resembled castles you'd see in those English movies. The ones with the knights and horses and stuff. The street was a lot different from Greg's own pokey little apartment, that much was certain.
"It cost someone their life." Chipped in Catherine quietly, now able to recognise the house by sight and pulling up to the driveway. "I know I wouldn't want to give that much."
With a thoughtful nod, Greg agreed. "I guess not, huh?"
There was a momentary silence as Catherine leaned on the steering wheel, the engine idling under her, before she decisively took the key out of the ignition and pushed the door open, her shoes making a crunching sound against the gravel on the driveway. "Come on. We have a crime scene to process." Her actions still decisive, she pulled open the back door of the car and pulled out the large box containing her kit, Greg having followed suit.
"You got the keys?"
"Wouldn't leave without them," she replied, swinging them on a finger.
~~~
"So."
By now they were in the house. The alarm system had been left off when they locked up last, so the four-digit-pin code hadn't been necessary.
"So."
Greg looked around the room, his demeanour quiet. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to be looking for, but if they came up empty, at least he knew it wasn't his fault. This place had already been processed. The room was quiet. Not a soul.
"What're we looking for?"
"Anything that can eliminate Sara, or give us a new suspect."
"So… pretty much anything they missed first time around?"
Greg watched Catherine nod.
"Sounds like a plan," he said, his voice now picking up a little enthusiasm. "Where're we going to start?"
"Well, I'll start in the kitchen, if you want to start in here."
Greg opened his mouth to respond. And then paused. "By myself?" he asked, his voice containing disbelief.
"With your imaginary friend if it makes you happy."
"Uhh, no. No it's fine." Greg was fighting hard to keep the surprise and joy off his face. He was being allowed to go over part of a crime scene unsupervised! "Bob's not getting in on my thunder."
"Bob?"
Greg shrugged, now grinning widely. "Imaginary friend."
"Right…" she said, shaking her head in amazement and taking her leave, setting up in the kitchen.
This was the kind of opportunity Greg had been waiting for. The way this worked, he needed a specific amount of field experience before he could be classed as a "CSI". This was a big step towards that. Besides anything else, lab work didn't hold the same shine as it had done when he was doing his internship. He wanted to be where the action was, and as far as he could tell, that was out in the field. Still thinking about this, he pulled on his gloves.
"So," he murmured aloud, casting his gaze around critically. "If I was evidence that didn't want to be found, where would I hide?"
He turned full circle looking around the room. If he could trace a path the killer might have walked through the room, he might have some luck. The body was actually found in the kitchen, where Catherine was now. But, short of coming in the kitchen window or teleporting their way in, the perp had to have come through the front room. Front door maybe?
But looking at the front door, Greg realised it would be kind of pointless dusting for prints. Door handles are places where people don't realise they leave fingerprints. Don't even give it a thought. But they're the worst places to try, because door handles never get cleaned. Giving it up for a lost cause, Greg turned away. Then he turned back. Doormat?
Quickly he pulled the front door open, and knelt down. Sure enough there was a doormat there. And there was a reasonable amount of dirt on it. Probably the same dirt, he reasoned, lifting his head, that had made the dusty footprints photographed the first time around. It was new to him, but not to anyone else, remembering someone mentioning footprints that fit Sara's sneakers. So, nothing new there, but he didn't know if anyone had thought to take dirt samples. Dirt alone, he realised, couldn't incriminate a person. But it made a case stronger if a perp could be traced back to an area that the dirt came from. Especially if that place wasn't local. Quickly he got a small bag and set to work scraping the assortment of dirt into it.
"You got something?"
Greg glanced up as his blonde co-worker stuck her head around the door at the sound of it opening.
"Dirt," he replied. "Lotsa dirt."
Catherine paused, considering what he'd just said. Then nodded in approval. "Nice catch."
Greg shrugged, scraping up the last of it. "It might not be anything. Or there might be too many different types to do anything with. Call it a hunch, I guess."
"Sometimes hunches pan out," Catherine replied, before disappearing back into the kitchen.
Greg rested on his haunches for a moment in quiet thought. Perhaps they do. Then he spent no time in labelling his bag and dropping it into his box, looking about for some other hunch he could act on. Maybe there'd be something else outside with the doormat? With this thought, the spikey haired tech stepped out of the door, turning his gaze up and down the street. Then, a couple in a house across the road caught his eye. They were peering curiously out of their window, an elderly couple. Greg, being immature as he was, made a big show of peering right back, narrowing his eyes almost hyperbolically. Then he relaxed, realising that there'd just been a murder in their neighbourhood. They didn't really need the trainee pulling faces at them. Sighing, he turned back to the door, which had shut behind him, the lock snapping shut automatically. With an audible grumble, Greg fished the key, which he was hanging onto, out of his pocket and pushed it into the lock, unlocking the front door and pushing. It was stuck? He paused for a second and tried again, this time pushing at the door with his hand. Still no luck.
Now, he thought, stepping back for a moment, this was interesting. A stuck front door. Catherine had done this thing with her hips as she'd unlocked the door, a trick taught to her by the vic's husband apparently. "She took the key like this…" he murmured, inserting the key into the keyhole. "Then she took the handle… like this…" again he commentated himself, this time grasping the door handle. "Then she nudged the door… like this…" as he spoke he turned, pushing his hip sharply against the door, jarring it open.
He held it open for a moment, looking thoughtful. "So, this means our perp might have had a key…"
Hurriedly, he grabbed the doorstop, holding the door open, and began the task of dusting the door for prints. The only people, he reasoned, who would press the door in the same spot as he had, were people who weren't used to the stickiness of the door. Catherine hadn't touched the door, going straight for the 'handle and hip' trick. So, if the murderer had indeed had a key, and didn't know the mechanisms of the door, there was a good chance that they'd touched the door in the same place that Greg had only moments ago.
He finished that, lifting the prints and again labelling them, before suddenly having another brainwave. Would the perp've kicked the door? If they had then there might be footprints. Granted they'd be Sara's size, and Sara's shoe, but you never knew. With that thought in mind he crouched, staring intently at the woodwork. There was a small print there. Nothing amazing, like the full shoe print they pulled off the lino in the kitchen. Only about four centimetres of the toe. However, from just looking at it he couldn't tell if it was the sneakers or not.
"You're busy."
With a squeak of surprise, Greg looked up to see Catherine towering over him, looking down at what he was doing. "Don't do that!"
She shrugged in amusement. "So, what've you got?"
"Full hand print, partial shoe print, our dirt, and maybe even a theory."
Catherine blinked, obviously surprised by Greg's level of success. "A theory, huh? Let's hear it."
Pushing himself off his knees, Greg nodded. "Okay, so, I'm a guy here to kill Ms. Hodgeson. I want into her house. I know her husband's not home. What's the easiest and quietest way to enter a house?"
Catherine paused. "With a key?"
"Exactly. With a key. I think our perp had his, or her, very own key to this front door."
"So, the victim knew her murderer?"
Greg held up a finger, shaking his head. "Ahh, I think not. You see, the perp didn't know about our sticky door." He beckoned Catherine outside and let the door swing closed behind him, then taking out the key and repeating the steps he'd gone through not moments ago, but this time pressing the door with his palm and kicking lightly at the door. "So," he concluded, "That's how I think our murderer got in. With a key."
By this point the blonde CSI was looking thoughtful. "Where would they get a key from?"
In response to this, Greg gave a light shrug. "Buried in the back garden maybe? Stole it from a friend or relative? Borrowed it long enough to get a copy cut? Who knows?" Having tired of holding the door open, Greg now stepped inside, holding it open for Catherine before letting it swing shut. "So," he continued, "Perp's in now. The vic probably heard them when they kicked at the door. So she puts down what she's doing in the kitchen-"
"Peanut butter and jelly sandwich."
"My favourite," said Greg, nodding slightly with a grin. "So, she puts down her PJ, and goes to see what's up. The killer walks along like this…" Trailing off, Greg walked along, putting his feet where "Sara's" footprints had been found.
"Killer's shorter than you," Catherine pointed out suddenly.
"How'd you figure?"
"You're taking small steps. You have a longer stride than the killer. You're legs are longer, and that makes you taller." She paused. "At a guess."
"Nice," he murmured in slight awe.
"More than just a pretty face. Anyway, you were saying?"
"Right, so, killer's walking along in Sara's shoes, and stops about… here." Greg paused, now standing beside the fireplace. "He sees her there, wrapped in her towel from the bath."
Catherine nodded, aware that they'd found the body naked with a discarded towel in the living room. "Go on."
"He hadn't expected her to hear him. Maybe he'd hoped for something quiet and bloodless. So, in desperation, he turns to the first blunt object he sees." Turning to his left, Greg mimicked grabbing something off the mantel. "And voila! Chalk up one murder weapon."
"Okay, so, he hits her; she drops her towel, and stumbles into the kitchen? Then collapses?"
Greg nodded. "Killer left the way he came in, through the front door. Leaves her for dead. It didn't look like a crime from the outside, so nobody would be suspicious."
Catherine nodded for a few moments. "We still haven't got motive, or even a suspect aside from Sara."
"Well, maybe the handprint or the shoeprint'll do something. Or even," he added after a pause, "the dirt." He paused again. "Wasn't there any fingerprints on the weapon?"
"Smeared. We tried with them, but it kept spitting them back at us."
"Shucks," murmured Greg, looking around again, as though looking for something else to inspire him. "Criminals shouldn't be so cryptic. Don't they ever get tired of leaving trace evidence? It's so cliché, don't you think?" He smirked a little. "Maybe a sign saying, 'I was here' would be a little more original?"
"I'm sure the days of 'calling cards' were great," agreed Catherine with a laugh. "Less work for us."
"What did you come up with anyway?" asked Greg, realising Catherine hadn't related anything to him.
"Not a lot," she admitted. "Although I do think the killer was in the kitchen at some point. Maybe checking he'd really killed her."
"How'd you figure?"
"I found some hair caught in one of the cupboard doors. Not the vic's colour."
"Husband's?"
"Catherine shook her head. They're both redheads. It's blonde. Short and blonde. Probably a male's."
Greg made a thoughtful face at this. "So the killer's a guy?"
"Maybe. Remember we have that female blood."
"This is true…" murmured Greg. He paused then, breaking off and looking up at the sound of tires burning rubber. "Hey Cath," he murmured slowly, taking a step towards the window, "d'you hear-"
"Down Greg!" screeched the blonde, hitting the deck herself. She could feel them rather than hear them, the shots ringing out around them. Someone was driving a car past the house, and shooting it to bits. A drive-by shooting, something Catherine had seen dozens of times. So this was what it felt like… She buried her face in her arms in a desperate attempt to shield herself from stray bullets and sprinkling pieces of glass… Then, eventually, it was over. The shots died away in something which must've been seconds, but seemed like millennia. Cautiously, and carefully, she raised her head in an attempt to assess the damage.
The house seemed to have been transformed. It was a mess, chips, dust and downright destruction everywhere.
Then her eyes fell on her charge. Greg, as yet hadn't moved, his head still buried in his arms as he had dived for cover. She could see him shaking where he lay, trembling. And she could see blood staining the carpet under is head…