A/N: Beta-ed again by LibraryLady61. I couldn't have done it without you.
Summary: The team is trying to connect the dots in the case, in the meantime the killer has picked his latest victim.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Come on, you know them probably better than I do.
CHAPTER FOUR
Grissom returned from the morgue, rather disappointed. The bullet retrieved from this victim wasn't a match to the other cases. Even worse, none of the bullets from any of the crime scenes matched up.
Greg had already processed the belongings of the possible suspect Mike Mander and found blood evidence on his clothing and also gun shot residue. He certainly had pulled the trigger of the murder weapon at some point. All probative facts. But taking the similar cases into consideration he was not longer sure about the results of his examination.
The team got Grissom's page to meet again to exchange their findings and update the facts. Catherine reported about the similarities and what they thought to be possible M.O., and they started comparing the actual case with the signature of the others.
Grissom nodded. "Seemed that we've overlooked certain aspects. Why didn't we even consider cross-checking M.O.s and other cases? What's a database good for, when we don't use it."
"Well, Gris. There were several teams of officers and CSIs involved, not even to mention that we have cases from at least two states." Nick stated. "But this is certainly something which we should consider for the future. Every case teaches us something about the next, right?"
"Yeah, Nicky." Gil nodded and looked up when Sam Starck and Detective Vega arrived.
"We just finished with the interviews of the convicts." Sam explained pouring herself a coffee.
Greg opened his mouth to protest, because it was his favourite brand this woman was going to drink. Sam noticed and went over to him whispering something in his ear, inaudible for the others. Greg leaned back and smiled pleasantly.
Grissom furrowed his brow. This blonde was hopefully not going to blow up his team, he thought, watching that dopey look of Nicky's eyes and Greg obviously falling into some worship like attitude. Even Vega seemed to be quite intrigued by the presence of this woman, when he reported the interrogation results. The only people immune seemed Catherine and himself, Gil mused.
Sam started recapitulating. "From the description we know, that Mystery Man is well-groomed, Caucasian male, thirty to forty years old, sometimes with beard, moustache or without facial hair. Probably even wearing wigs to hide his hair. Friendly character, soft voice, polite."
"Well, that would probably make up to forty percent of all north Americans viable suspects, Miss Starck." Grissom said sarcastically. "Any chance to narrow that down?"
"Thirty seven percent to be exact. Sir, may I have a word in private?" She looked at Gil seriously. The other felt the tension rising between them and tried to ignore it.
"Sure." He stood up and asked her to follow her in her office.
Sam closed the door behind her slightly louder than she intended to. "What's the matter with you, Dr Grissom?" She asked formally. "Either you ignore me or you go sarcastic on me. If I call you on your cell, you don't answer. You know what? I'm fed up with it. If you don't want me do my job why don't you just take me off the case?" She really got steamed up, her green eyes glared at him.
Grissom watched her without any expression. As always when he was confronted with emotional outburst he had problems to deal with it. So he tried to explain it his way. "Look, Miss Starck, um Sam, this isn't actually my case, it's Catherine Willow's. It hasn't been my decision to bring you in so I'm not the one in charge to put you off the case."
"Well, thanks for that." Sam scoffed. "You have a way to put someone at ease." The look in her eyes still furious. Sam gathered herself, reminding her of the task on hand. You're here for a reason, she thought.
She took a deep sigh and said "Look, Gil. It is not about you or me or anyone in the team. Why can't we simply have a truce and work the case while it's hot?" She paused suddenly realizing his deviant behaviour. "You are afraid of me. Come on, Gil. I'm not going to profile and analyse you. Really, too much work." Sam added with a smirk.
Grissom cocked his head slightly. "It's that obvious, huh? Sorry, it's just that I…um…well… let's… call it a truce." He stammered. I'm simply as nervous around Sam as I am around Sara. What are these women doing to me? Reading my mind? Gil thought, mad at himself.
He simply took her arm and said, "Come on let's return to the others. They might already think…"
"What?" Sam wanted to know.
"Um, nothing." Gil shrugged and felt a slight feeling of embarrassment rising.
"Hey, Brass. Wake up!" Sara gently touched his shoulder. Jim startled and smiled apologizing.
"Sorry, wasn't much of an entertainer, I guess." He said contritely.
"Well, you were snoring form time to time, I mean, when you weren't talking in your sleep." Sara grinned.
"I… Did… Not… I mean I don't talk while I'm sleeping." Brass prompted.
"How would you know?" Sara asked quizzically. "You keep a tape recorder in your bedroom? Or no wait. Somebody there to tell the contrary?"
"Sara, let's just not go there. You know that I do live alone, so there's actually no witness of… oh, now you got me." Jim laughed and nudged her playfully. "So what did I say?" He asked a bit timid.
"Nothing in particular." Sara answered with an enigmatic smile.
"Right, you are going to leave me out in the rain now." Jim said.
"Yeah, probably leaving you actually in the desert if you wanna mind to take a look around. I guess that will bother you all day." She snickered. "Come on, we have to have a look at Warrick's car."
They stepped out at the Arizona highway patrol station, reported to the officer on duty and headed to the garage where Warrick's car had been towed in. When Sara and Brass took a closer look at the interior she mused. "Hm, the wallet was left open, but nothing had been taken out except one credit card. Take a gander at the badge. It seemed that somebody threw it on the floor and stomped on it in some rage. Weird. I'll bag it and let it send back to the lab perhaps trace can find something viable."
"Car is covered in red dust and with some remainders of mud on the tire profile." Brass stated. As far as I'm informed it rained further down south yesterday. So I guess we have to follow the road down to Cameron and find out who was paying at the gas station."
Sara gave the evidence they collected to the officer and asked him to dispatch it immediately to Las Vegas Crime Lab. He nodded and confirmed to have it delivered within a few hours. Sara thanked him and returned to Brass.
"Yeah, Jim. Let's roll. Can you drive for a while? I'm pretty tired by now." Sara asked.
"For sure I can. Thought you would never ask, tough lady." Brass said.
"Lady? Well that's a first. Nobody ever named me that." She smiled at him.
"Come on, Sara. Fishing for compliments now?" Brass got in the car and revved up the engine.
With Brass driving Sara also went immediately in a quick nap. With her asleep it was easy to watch her, to watch over her. Jim corrected himself. He stole a side glance from time to time, torturing his mind what the hell he could have said while he was sleeping.
The slender woman beside him was wearing a black tank top and black jeans, not hiding her beautiful appearance. She laid back relaxed in her seat, her brunette hair slightly messed up. Jim took the bait to strike a strand of hairs away with his right hand. His hand stopped in the middle of its gesture when suddenly his cell went off.
Startled he picked up and answered. "Um, Brass." Jim said distracted. He cleared his throat and continued in a hoarse voice. "Yeah, Gil. We are fine. And no you're not interrupting anything. What's with the question anyway? We're headed south in direction of Cameron. We'll keep you informed. Bye."
Sara woke up and stretched out uncovering a tiny bit of white skin of her waist. Brass gritted his teeth and forced himself to concentrate on the road.
"What's up?" She asked.
"Daddy called. Wanted to make sure that his girl ok, I guess." Brass said with sarcasm in his voice.
"You mean Grissom? You think so? What could happen anyway?" she shrugged.
Everything could have happened while you were sleeping. If you would only know, Sara! Jim Brass thought. You would have probably kicked my ass or worse. And Gil must have grown some instinct to call me exactly in that very moment. I was going to touch you, Sara. Hell, what was I thinking anyway. No wait, I wasn't thinking at all.
A second call interrupted the turmoil in his mind. Catherine just came back with news about Warrick and Brass accelerated beyond speed limit.
Warrick woke up when the he heard a key turned in the lock. He felt better now although still a bit woozy.
Fat cop waved him to step out of the cell. He seemed not very happy.
"I checked your ID back with your department." Gus seemed to have shrunk in the last couple of hours. "Your lady boss ripped of my balls, literally spoken. Whatta bitch. But well then, Mr Warrick Brown, you have not been cleared but I have been advised to hand you over to the arriving officer."
Warrick looked at him in disbelief. "You can't be serious. Gus. First you kick my ass, and now you release me as if nothing had happened? Believe me, I'm definitely going to file a report against you. The way you treat your suspects guilty or not, is inappropriate. Can I at least make my phone call now?" He added sarcastically.
Gus shrugged. "Um, yeah. Somebody is going to pick you up soon. A Sara Sidle and Captain Brass are on their way to get you."
"Fine, glad to hear that. So tell me where did patrol bring the body and the car? Which department is responsible for investigation and examination?"
"Dunno." Gus shrugged. "I bring in the suspects. That's what I do."
"Well, than it's time you find out, don't you think? I wanna know what I've been involved in and I can probably describe the real killer." Warrick scoffed disregardful. "Don't you have procedures to follow? I so can't believe it."
Then Warrick called Sara on her cell phone. "Happy to hear your voice. I was pretty worried. No, we were really concerned, Warrick." Sara said relieved. "We are with you in a couple of minutes."
"Rick is fine I guess." Brass said.
"Yeah, sounded shaken up a bit but ok." Sara answered.
When they arrived at the county police station Warrick was already waiting outside, waving at them. Sara gave him a big hug and he released her quite reluctantly.
"Missed me that much, huh?" Sara asked.
"No, yes. I mean. Yes. I was pretty awful to be treated like a suspect. I'll have to make sure that this won't happen again. This fat guy was really a pain in the ass." Warrick pointed at Gus who was briefing Brass on the whole situation.
They didn't understand everything, but Brass expressed in very drastic words to the officer that his days with law enforcement would be counted.
"He missed me too." Warrick smirked. "Didn't know that this would happen."
When Brass returned Warrick simply raised a hand, and made a fist. Brass got it, made a fist too and they punched them together playfully. "Thanks, man." Warrick said in a low voice.
And Jim smiled. "I probably owed you anyway, Rick. If not, well than you'll owe me now, right?"
"We can count on the courtesy of Arizona Law Enforcement." Grissom reported. "Due to the obvious similarities to our case they'll fly in the body and our lab will do the examination and we get the lead on the whole big case until FBI gets involved. The car in which Warrick was found will be towed in as well as Warrick's car itself. So we have a couple of hours for rest and we'll get paged as soon as the evidence arrives."
Catherine looked pretty relieved now. She just got back from a more private call with Warrick. He had borrowed Sara's cell to tell her about the incident. It was without a doubt the same M.O. Now she handed her mobile over to Sam Starck. Warrick have her a full description of the suspect, his character and his attitude. Sam asked some further questions, made some notes and frowned. Than she handed the phone back to Cath, supposing her wanting to say good bye to Warrick. Her guess was right, because Catherine left the break room again her voice sounded rather soft at the end. Grissom caught Sam smiling, raised an eyebrow and shook his head. "Don't even think about it." He mouthed to her and Sam winked at him.
"Hey Grissom." Greg said. "I don't know if it's important but the tire tracks and the drops of motor oil might lead to some exclusive car. It's Goodyear profile and only used on high end cars, same goes for the oil, synthetic makes it high end too. May be used for one Porsche Cayenne. Nice one that is."
It wasn't over yet.
In Arizona and Nevada four girls had been killed, four innocent people had been arrested and accused for murder, three of them already convicted based on misleading evidence. Ecklie and certain other PD directors would certainly go through the roof. Media would be all over it if this would leak out. They would have to review all the cases and go back to court.
And there was still a hit man on the loose.
The girl was pretty upset and felt weary. She had been fighting with her boyfriend the whole trip from the east coast, about money, about the fucking car, about sharing the weed. Finally he got so pissed that he just dumped her at the diner and drove away. She was broke and angry.
She needed to sort out some serious family issues. Concerning her father. She snorted while thinking of that asshole. Not father! The man who claimed to be her father, until her mother told her the truth. Furiously she threw her backpack on the ground, creating clouds of dust.
"Hi, young lady. My name is Robert Stelter. You in trouble?" A friendly voice asked from behind. She turned around and looked into some trustworthy soft brown eyes of a man in his late thirties. "I'm headed to Vegas." He said. "Can I give you a lift?"
The girl nodded satisfied with the first impression she got from that well-groomed man, glad to have found such an easy solution for her problem.
She reached him her hand, and said. "That would be great, Mister. By the way my name is Ellie. Ellie Brass. WOW, you got yourself a nice ride!"
T.B.C.?
