Chapter 4
Warrick and Nika followed the pound employee down a row of cages, chain link separating them from a large collection of barking dogs awaiting a new owner or euthanasia, whichever came first. Both of Nika's arms were wrapped tightly around Warrick's elbow, and she plastered herself against his side, shuffling along next to him as he followed the guy to the end of the row.
"She's been pouting all day," the man said, fishing through his pockets for his keys. Nika jumped a little as he yanked on the chain holding the door to Shasta's pen shut, metal clanging against metal and echoing, mixing with barks and chains rattling as other dogs leapt at the fencing. "Looks happy now though," he added with a shrug. Warrick noticed that Shasta was, in fact, anxious to see Nika, standing still, tail waggling, mouth hanging open as she panted, tongue flopping out the side and dripping to the ground. She let out a single bark, prompting a smile from Nika, and Warrick unwound his arm from hers, flattening a hand against her back to guide her into the small pen. He threw a quick thanks to the guard, who swung the door closed behind them and wrapped the chain loosely around the post of the door and main fence, securing but not locking it. Nika let go of Warrick, stretching out an arm to feel for a link of fencing to steady her as she sat on the ground, Shasta calmly draping herself across Nika's lap. A touched smile slipped onto Warrick's lips as Nika buried her fingers in the dog's coat, leaning over to plant kisses on her head as she clung to the canine, taking a silent moment to catch up.
"Did she behave for you?" Nika asked, turning toward Warrick. "When you found her, I mean?"
"Well, she scared the crap outta me when she jumped out of the bushes, but once I said her name, she was fine," he said, crouching next to Nika to give Shasta a friendly scratching. Nika nodded, leaning forward to rest her head on Shasta's back.
"You think she's okay here?" Nika asked after a while.
"Oh, yeah," Warrick said. "They take pretty good care of everyone here. Clean out the pens every day, and all." Nika nodded, turning her attention back to her companion. They sat there in silence for a while, probably a half-hour before Nika stood, reluctantly letting go of Shasta. "I want to go to a store," she said, leaning over sideways to pet Shasta some more as the three of them stood there. "Wal-mart or something. Check out the smells."
"We can do that," Warrick said, checking his watch. Nick hadn't called yet, probably still buried under the mountain of evidence bags they'd collected from Nika's house.
"I hate to keep you longer, but I figured one of you would want to go with me. You can trade me off to your partner if you'd like to," she said with a small smile.
"Well, I'm here now," Warrick said with a shrug. "No sense dragging you all the way back to HQ to interrupt him."
"Evidence?"
"Yeah," Warrick said. Nika nodded, reaching out for Warrick. He took her hand, waiting until she had a grasp on his arm before pushing the gate open.
"Bye, Shasta," Nika said, receiving a small whine. "I'll see you tomorrow." Another whine, and the guard closed up, Warrick and Nika leaving him to chain and padlock the gate behind them.
xxx
"It was more like this one," Nika said, replacing the cap on a bottle of shampoo. "Not exactly the same, but close to it." Warrick nodded, turning back to the shelf of merchandise to look for something similar. "What is this?"
"Uh…" Warrick glanced over her shoulder. "Pantene."
"Any special formula?"
"Nope. Just Pantene." Nika nodded, running her fingers over the bottle with her free hand.
"Try the shampoo and conditioner kind. Maybe that's what it was," she suggested, tucking her hair behind her ear as he took the bottle from her, replacing it and handing her another. She searched out the cap and removed it, holding the opening a few inches from her nose to sniff. With a sigh, she shook her head, replacing the cap.
"It could be a specialty type," Warrick said, taking the bottle from her and looking it over. "Salon."
"Could be," she said with a shrug. "This isn't working," she sighed, rubbing her eyes. "Maybe it wasn't shampoo."
"Laundry aisle?" She grinned.
"Laundry aisle," she said with a nod. He took her hand, and she let him lead her around the store to the laundry detergent. A half hour later, she still hadn't picked out the scent. Finally, she shook her head, burying her fingers in her hair. "It's not here," she said, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly.
"It's okay," Warrick said gently. "We'll find it. I mean, it's not like there's a database of smells we can search through to find this guy." He got a quiet snicker and a tiny smile, but that was it. "We'll find him, Nika." She nodded.
"Can we go now?" she asked quietly. He looked her over, obviously disappointed in herself for not being able to isolate the scent she couldn't put her finger on.
"Yeah, we can go," he said, nodding a little as he reached for her. "What's next?"
"Can I go home?" He stopped walking, turning to look at her. She blinked a few times before looking up at him, her eyes somehow finding his. Pale green, bright but tired, stared back at him with almost a deer-in-headlights expression. "If I'm there, I might remember better."
"I'll have Brass meet us there," he said after a moment. She nodded, and Warrick made the call as they walked out to the parking lot.
xxx
Nick could barely see straight, exhaustion getting in his way as he went through the evidence for the umpteenth time. DNA wouldn't be back for a couple more days, most likely, and Warrick wasn't around to help him. He'd called a while ago, telling Nick he and Brass would be at Shaughnessy's place to go over it with her, and Nick had hoped he'd be able to give them some kind of clue as to what to look for, but he hadn't found one yet. After the fingerprints checked out, though Noble was still a suspect, he wasn't sure what to look for. The hairs they'd found in the hallway were still with Greg, awaiting DNA profiling, and one of the lab techs was working on identifying some of the partial prints they'd found weren't a match to Noble or Shaughnessy. The swath of material he'd pulled from the doorjamb was flannel, but he didn't have anything to compare it to. Warrick had been the one to go through Shaughnessy's closet, and he said she didn't have any flannel – just jeans, solid colored shirts of various sleeve lengths, and a few jackets, none of which were flannel. He sighed, pausing to rub his eyes. Footsteps in the hallway drew his attention, and he looked up, smiling warily as Warrick entered the room.
"How goes it?" Nick only shrugged, watching Warrick pick through the array of evidence bags strewn around the table.
"Techs are working on unknown prints, DNA's still in limbo, and I don't have anything to compare that flannel to," Nick said. "But… footprints in the back yard came back to Doctor Martins, pretty popular style. There's some wearing on the heel of the left shoe, so if we get a suspect and a warrant for his shoes, we might find something there." Warrick nodded. "How's the vic?"
"She's frustrated," Warrick sighed, dropping into a chair. "Couldn't narrow down any more than the Ivory soap."
"Shampoo maybe?"
"Smelled every bottle in the damn store," Warrick said with a quiet chuckle. "And laundry detergent, conditioner, soap, dish detergent, anything soapy." Nick clicked his tongue. "Yvette's still working on the sketch?"
"Yeah, she called a while ago," Nick said. "Said she'd probably be done the day after tomorrow." Warrick nodded. "I did a background check."
"On Nika?" Warrick asked.
"Yeah," Nick said, ruffling through papers. "Lives alone, parents deceased a few years ago, driver's license expired in 1995 and was never renewed." Warrick did some quick math – she certainly didn't look 31. "Went to a school for the blind, took a couple of classes at the community college, financial support through a number of foundations for the blind and disabled," Nick continued, "Job at a Braille bookstore, regular stops at the corner store for groceries, makes visits to schools for the blind with her dog…" he trailed off with a sigh. "Nothing to suggest a previous problem or any real reason for someone to want to hurt her."
"What about her parents?" Warrick asked.
"Both immigrants, mother was Russian, father was Irish. Naturalized back in the 50's as kids. Other than that," Nick said with a shrug, "nothing."
"Could be random," Warrick suggested. Nick nodded absently. "Talk to Grissom?"
"Yeah, do that," Nick said, his eyes meeting Warrick's. "See if he can come up with something." Both looked up as footsteps pounded down the hallway, an intern appearing in the doorway, breathless.
"Fingerprints. The partials," he gasped. Warrick and Nick glanced at each other, both turning back to the intern simultaneously. "All four of them are a match in AFIS. Same person. Priors."
"What priors?"
"Breaking and entering, assault, rape, and attempted murder," the intern huffed, hooking a thumb over his shoulder. "Come take a look." Both Nick and Warrick launched from their chairs, following the intern down the hallway. An angry face stared back at them from the computer screen, its border flashing red to indicate that AFIS had, indeed, matched this person to the partials recovered from the scene.
"How many points of reference?" Warrick asked, printing the screen to give a copy to Brass.
"Three of the four partials had six points in common with this guy," the intern, Joe, said. "But one had eleven." Both CSIs looked at him in surprise. "Yeah. It's definitive."
"I'll find Brass," Nick said, already heading out the door, printout in hand.
"I'll call Yvette," Warrick said. "See if we can put a rush on that sketch." And to the intern: "thanks, man." Joe only nodded, printing a copy for the casefile.
"I still have to have the boss check it by hand," he said, "but when AFIS matches 11 points of reference, it's pretty much in the bag."
"No mistakes," Warrick said, waiting for Yvette to pick up. "We don't have much else." Joe nodded, just as Yvette picked up. "Yvette, Warrick Brown. Can I put a rush on that sketch? We've got someone to compare it with." Joe noticed a tiny smile tugging at the corners of Warrick's lips. "Great. Tommorrow would be perfect." He snapped his phone shut. "Thanks, Joe," he called over his shoulder, ducking out of the room to find Nick and Brass. He caught them just as they were about to open the front doors of the building.
"You get a hold of Yvette?" Nick asked.
"Yeah, she's bringing the sketch tomorrow morning," Warrick said. "Do we know where this guy is?"
"Got an address. We were getting ready to head over to the courthouse for a warrant," Brass said.
"Where is it?"
"4315 Thorndale," Nick said. "Corner of Torrey Pines and Spring Valley." Warrick nodded.
"Want us to sit on it and you meet us there with the warrant?" Brass asked.
"Could you do that?"
"Sure. See you there." The three took off, Warrick splitting off toward the courthouse as Brass and Nick climbed into Brass' Taurus and pulled away. Not twenty minutes later, Warrick pulled the Tahoe in behind the Taurus and hopped out, holding a sheet of paper through the window for Brass, who glanced over it, nodded once, and exited the car.
"Doesn't look like anyone's home," he said, tucking the warrant into his inside jacket pocket. "But we can find out for sure." Crickets chirped in the evening air, the sunset slowly darkening over the plateau behind them as they crossed the street, the sky bright orange and pink. Brass knocked, rung the doorbell, and turned to the CSIs with a shrug. "I'll put a uniform on it," he said with a sigh. "You all head back to HQ and wrap this thing up. I'll wait here until patrol gets here."
"You got it," Nick said, heading toward Warrick's Tahoe. As they steered out of the neighborhood, Nick turned to Warrick. "So what's she like?"
"Who?"
"The vic." Warrick glanced at Nick quickly before concentrating a little more than usual on his driving.
"You've met her," Warrick said after a beat.
"Yeah, but just for a little while. You've spent the whole damn day with her." Nick's voice held a lilt Warrick wasn't sure how to interpret.
"She's trying," he said. "She's convinced she's missing something, or forgetting something that's crucial."
"I doubt that," Nick said. "She seems pretty on top of things." Warrick nodded, his mind returning to all the things she'd done so far to push this case along – saving the blood in her mouth, her description of the guy, going through the feature reference models for a sketch, sniffing every bottle of suds-makers in the store, and returning to the house. "Casey said she was a sharp cookie."
"She was right," Warrick said with a nod.
"Think she's disappointed she couldn't just tell us who did it?" Nick asked after a long pause.
"I think she just wants her life back," Warrick said quietly. "She strikes me as the kind of person who needs her independence, and she doesn't have that now." Nick turned to him. "Not without Shasta, and not staying with Casey, where she doesn't know the neighborhood as well as her own." He shook his head a little. "I think she's just frustrated that it's more difficult for her to tell us who it was, not that she can't."
"Warrick, I'm not sure about this sketch," Nick admitted. "There's big difference between seeing someone and feeling someone, and I'm not sure the DA will go for it."
"We'll see," Warrick said. Nick nodded, turning back to his window.
"She's pretty for a Russian," Nick commented.
"For a Russian," Warrick repeated, snorting. "What's that supposed to mean?" Nick just grinned, shaking his head.
xxx
"Casey?" Nika heard her friend stop milling around the kitchen, the apartment suddenly silent. "What's Warrick look like?"
"You haven't seen him yet?" Casey asked, referring to Nika's adopted sense of sight, through her fingers.
"Well, yeah, but just once," Nika said, scooting over a little as Casey sat next to her on the couch. "At the hospital."
"How'd he take it?"
"Well," Nika said with a shrug. "I think it surprised him a little, maybe." She took a breath and paused, holding it as she turned toward Casey. "What's Nick look like? I haven't seen him."
"Jock. Frat-boy type." Nika smiled a little. "Dark hair, brown eyes, square jaw. He has really intense eyes, Nika," she said. "Dark chocolate."
"And Captain Brass?"
"He's older," Casey said, "Maybe late forties. Balding a little, round faced, and he looks as sarcastic as he seems, you know?" Nika nodded a little. "He just looks like he has a dry sense of humor. But he's pleasant." Casey sighed, reaching for a glass of water on the end table. "What do you think Warrick looks like, based on what you saw?"
"I think he's handsome," Nika said quietly, fighting the blush creeping into her cheeks. "But, you know, it's harder to tell. I mean, spending so much time with him, you know, he's nice. I like him and all." She took a breath, pausing, and Casey let her think. "They say people you like for their personalities seem more physically attractive. Do you think that's true?"
"Maybe," Casey said with a shrug. "But you're right." Nika smiled a little. "You know, you notice things about people the rest of us don't," she said gently. "You have a gift with people, seeing them for who they are because you can't see what they look like." Nika's smile fell, but she nodded, silently agreeing. She knew that. "But your fingers don't lie, sweetie. If you're asking me because you're second-guessing yourself about working with that sculptor, you shouldn't. Second-guess yourself, I mean." She sighed, taking Nika's hand. "You know that even sighted people can be wrong about their descriptions. So if this sketch doesn't pan out, well… you didn't get a good feel, you were being attacked. Christ." Nika nodded.
"I know."
"All that matters is you did the best you could."