8/31/05
BROTHER GRIMM
Chapter 4
"Oh, man, this is just beyond creepy," Greg commented, looking down at the child lying on the stainless steel slab, still in her little yellow gown and tiara.
"Welcome to my world," Robbins said. "Let me know when you three are done with the preliminary exam and I'll take over from there."
Nick and Sara both nodded and the coroner turned and walked away, heading back to his autopsy backlog. Greg was still staring at the child, a troubled expression on his face. Seeing this, Nick put a hand on the younger man's shoulder.
"You want to bow out?" he asked quietly. "Look, man, these kinds of cases are rough on everybody. Sara and I will understand."
"No, no, I'm good. I can do this," Greg said firmly. "What do you want me to do?"
"Why don't you go over her dress?" Sara suggested. "She's got some leaves and stuff on her. Maybe they can tell us something about where she was before she was dumped in the park."
Sara herself had moved to the head of the metal table and was carefully removing the tiara and combing through the girl's hair. Nick was at the foot of the table, gently removing the girl's shoes, white, patent leather slippers, just like Samantha's.
"So, why do you suppose our guy dumped her in the park?" Greg asked as he carefully pawed through the many ruffles on the dress. "I mean, I understand the stage setting for Samantha, but what's with the woods? Is there something symbolic about that?" He looked up at Nick as he asked this question.
"Why are you looking at me?" the older man asked.
"Well, you seem to be the fairy tale expert, Mr. Beauty-and-the-Beast-is-Not-a-Brothers-Grimm-Story. That and you're the one with the freaky dreams..."
Nick sighed and rolled his eyes. "Look, my sisters used to read fairy tales to me as bedtime stories, okay? And yes, forests are featured prominently in many of the stories. They represented danger, the unknown. Only the foolish wandered into the forest alone and unprepared."
"You mean like you did?" Sara asked quietly, not looking at him.
Before he could respond to this, the moment was interrupted by Greg. "What the hell is that?" the former lab tech said, gesturing to something in the folds of the girl's dress.
Sara and Nick moved to stand on either side of the younger man and leaned in closer to see what he was pointing at. Nestled beneath the layers of translucent material, was a large beetle of some kind. It was about an inch long, with very distinct black and white striped markings and very long, curved, black antennae.
"Oh, I know what that is," Nick said, reaching down and gently plucking the insect up between his gloved forefinger and thumb. He held the immobile, and obviously dead, bug up for the others to get a better look at it. "It's a cottonwood borer."
"And how do you know that?" Greg asked. "Did you dream this too?"
"Would you shut up about the damn dream, Greg!" Nick snapped. "I'm from Texas. These things are fairly common there. As the name implies, they live in cottonwood trees, which we have all over our family ranch. My sister Allison and I used to catch these things and put them in my oldest sister Julia's bed... You never heard anyone scream so loud..."
"Remind me never to get on your bad side," Sara said.
He flashed her an evil grin.
"Did we find something interesting?"
All three jumped slightly. They had been so intent on the strange-looking bug that none of them had noticed Grissom's approach.
"Uh, yeah, we found a bug," Greg said.
Nick dropped the insect into Grissom's outstretched hand. The entomologist examined it for a few seconds. "Hmmm, plectrodera scalator, a cottonwood borer. A very nice specimen, too. They're not very common in Nevada. May I keep it for my collection?"
"It's yours," Greg said. "We found it on the victim's dress, but actually Nick already told us what it was."
"Really?" the supervisor said, turning his intent blue gaze onto the Texan. "May I have a word with you please, Nick?"
Without waiting for a response, the older man turned and left the autopsy room. Nick glanced at his fellow investigators for a second, before following after his boss. Out in the corridor, just outside the autopsy room, he found Grissom standing staring at the floor, apparently deep in thought.
"Look, Gris, I know I disobeyed orders by running off alone, but I-."
"That's not what I want to talk to you about," Gil interrupted.
"It's not?"
"No, I promised Brass I'd let him have the honor of conducting that lecture. No, I want to talk to you about how you found the body."
"What do you mean?" Nick hedged.
"Well, Catherine tells me that you had a dream about it?"
The younger man sighed and grimaced. "No, not exactly, I mean, I didn't dream about the exact location of the body or anything like that. It was... Why does it matter? I found her, isn't that enough?"
"Nick, if or when, this case goes to trial, there's a very good chance that you're going to be sitting on the witness stand and the defense attorney is going to ask you exactly how it was that you managed to find the body of a 6-year-old in the middle of a wooded lot, in the middle of the night, so quickly and easily. I want to know how you plan on answering that question."
"I don't know yet. Don't you think you're jumping the gun a little bit? We don't even know who our guy is."
"Nick, just tell me what happened. What led you into those woods?"
"Okay... I thought I saw something, something that reminded me of the dream I'd had earlier. I was just following what I thought I had seen."
"And what did you think you saw? Ashley?"
"No... Tiffany. I thought I saw Tiffany Metcalfe in the woods."
Grissom sighed and nodded. "That's what I was afraid of."
"What do you mean?" Nick asked, frowning.
"Janine warned me about this," Gil said, referring to the department psychologist who had treated all the members of the team immediately following Nick's crisis.
"Warned you about what, that I might have hallucinations?"
"That you might start identifying with the victims too much. That you might even have trouble separating yourself from the victims."
"That's what you think this is, that I'm seeing what I want to see because I'm identifying too much with Tiffany?"
"Well, she was abducted, without warning, taken from her own comfort zone, from a place where she was supposed to be safe... That does sound familiar, don't you think?"
Nick sighed and nodded, suddenly very uncomfortable with the entire conversation. "Are you going to take me off the case?" he asked softly.
"No, but I want you to promise me that when this is over, you'll go and see Janine."
"Okay, I promise... when it's over."
"And no more running off alone."
"I won't run off alone again," Nick promised.
"Alright, get back to work," Grissom said. He turned and left the morgue, headed back to the lab.
Nick stood for a moment in the corridor, thinking about the other man's words. Was that all his dreams were, by-products of his trauma and a low-grade fever? But they seemed so real. And when he'd seen Tiffany in the clearing, she hadn't seemed like a hallucination. She'd seemed to be made of flesh and blood... His head was beginning to ache. Giving the bridge of his nose a pinch, he returned to the autopsy room.
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"Okay, Tommy, we know that you've had a rough time lately. Wife left you, took the kid with her. That must be really frustrating for you," Brass said, leaning his elbows on the table of the interview room.
Sitting beside the detective was Warrick Brown and across from them was Tommy McCormick. LVPD had picked him up at a bar about an hour earlier. The man appeared not to have slept for several nights. His longish, dark hair was lank and dirty, his eyes bloodshot. He hadn't shaved in a couple of days. He stared at the detective apathetically and completely ignored Warrick.
"So, what do you do for your jollies now that you're a single man again?" Brass asked. "You get off looking at little girls?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Tommy rasped in a voice as dry as the desert.
"This is about three little girls who were kidnapped from the Indian Springs Subdivision, two of whom are now dead. Does that ring any bells?"
"Yeah, I heard about that on the news. But why would I know anything about it?"
"Well, you made deliveries to all three of their houses this past year. Did you like what you saw? Little girls you could play dress-up with and fulfill your sick little fantasies?"
"Hey, I'm no short eyes!" the man snapped, showing some emotion for the first time. "I got a daughter of my own. I would never hurt a little girl."
"Yeah, right... Where were you earlier tonight? Where were you last night?"
"I been at that same bar where you picked me up, all night. Ask the bartender, I was slipping her some pretty hefty tips. I'm sure she'll remember me."
"And last night?"
Tommy had to think about that for a few minutes. Eventually, he said, "I was with some blonde I picked up at the High Roller."
"Does this blonde have a name?"
"Not one that I remember... Oh, wait, hang on..." The man rummaged in the pockets of his leather jacket. After a moment, he turned up a scrap of paper. He slid this across the table to the detective.
Brass picked it up and read the name 'Connie', along with a local phone number.
"Did you and Connie enjoy each others company all night?" the detective asked.
"'Til about 2 in the morning. That's when I have to go in to the bakery. You can ask the other employees. I was there right on time."
"Alright, tell you what, I'm going to go make some phone calls and verify whether you're telling me the truth about any of this. You're going to stay here. While you're waiting, Mr. Brown, here, is going to take a DNA sample from you. You got a problem with that?"
"Knock yourself out," Tommy said with a feral grin.
Warrick and Brass glanced at each other. It was never a good sign when the suspects gave up their DNA so quickly and easily.
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Later, the team was gathered in the breakroom, discussing the case. Brass told them that Tommy McCormick's alibis checked out. They were still waiting on the results of his DNA test, but he wasn't going to hold his breath on that. It appeared that Tommy was not their guy.
"Which lands us back at square one," The detective concluded. "We got nothing... Did Ashley's autopsy turn up anything new?"
"No, she was raped and asphyxiated, just like Samantha," Grissom said. "The only clues we got from her body, were a few leaves and a dead bug."
"Can you tell us anything from the bug?"
"Not really. It was a cottonwood borer, so at some point, she was probably near a cottonwood tree."
"Oh, that's helpful," Brass said dryly.
"Well, it might be at some point, but right now..." He gave a vague shrug.
"Well, I still say our two best leads are the landscape company and the bakery," Catherine said. "Hell, they're our only leads. They're the only things all three families had in common."
"It could be that our guy has nothing in common with the families. These could simply be random hits," Grissom pointed out.
"If that's the case then we'll never find him," Catherine said.
A long, uncomfortable silence followed this comment, as everyone digested the possibility that these cases could possibly go unsolved.
"I think we should go back to the bakery," Nick said abruptly.
Catherine glanced down at her watch. "Michael McCormick said that he went in to the bakery at 4 every morning. It's about that now, so he should be there. I think I'd like another chat with him. Care to join me, Nick?"
"I'd love to," he responded with a smile.
"Alright, in a couple of hours, I'll start leaning on Cheryl Pender again," Brass said. "Maybe another dead girl will give her the incentive to give up a list of her employees and a sample of their DNA. I'll also have my people dig into the backgrounds of the rest of Clan McCormick."
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Arriving at the bakery, a non-descript, squat, one-story building made of white-washed cinderblock, Nick and Catherine found the front entrance locked. The building was obviously not open to visitors yet. Seeing a buzzer beside the door, Catherine pressed it. After waiting nearly ten minutes and ringing the buzzer two more times, the door finally opened. Carla McCormick stared at them with tired brown eyes.
"What do you want?" she demanded.
"Mrs. McCormick, do you remember me? Catherine Willows, from the Crime Lab? I spoke to your husband and you the other day. This is Nick Stokes."
"Oh, yes, I'm sorry, I remember you now. It was about those missing girls. Why are you here now?"
"We'd like to ask you and your husband a few more questions, if that's alright?"
"Uh, I'm sorry, my husband's not here right now."
"Do you know where he is?"
"No, I'm afraid I don't. He was gone when I woke up this morning."
"Gone?" Catherine repeated. "Your husband left and you didn't hear him?"
"My husband and I don't actually sleep in the same room," Carla said uncomfortably. "I suffer from fibromyalgia. I'm in pain most of the time. I don't sleep well. I toss and turn a lot. It disturbs Michael, so he started sleeping in another room."
"How long has this been going on, that you and your husband haven't been sleeping in the same room?"
"Oh, for about five years now."
"So, it's entirely possible that your husband could leave the house in the middle of the night and you'd never know," Nick stated.
"Where would Michael go in the middle of the night? My husband is a good man. He doesn't keep secrets from me."
"Then where is your husband right now?" Catherine asked gently.
"I'm sure he's at the store. Something must have come up," Carla said in a small, plaintive voice.
"Does your husband do this often, not show up for work?" Nick asked.
"There are two locations. He usually comes here first, but sometimes he'll go to the store first. I'm sure there's a very good reason why he's not here. He'll be at one of the two locations. He doesn't need to check in with me. I trust my husband."
"I'm sure you're right. Thank you for your time, Mrs. McCormick," Catherine said.
Climbing back into Nick's SUV, the female investigator said, "I don't know about you, Nick, but I'm feeling a little peckish. What do you say we go and get some coffee and bagels?"
"That sounds like a great idea."
It was still too early for the store to be open, of course, but after knocking on the glass door for a few minutes, they finally managed to draw the attention of one of the employees. The boy appeared to be in his late teens. He was tall and painfully thin, with scruffy, dark hair and a bed case of acne. When they identified themselves, he told them to wait while he went and got Mary.
A few minutes later, the young woman Catherine and Warrick had spoken to the other day came to the door and allowed them inside. She dismissed the boy back to his duties and asked how she could help.
"We'd like to speak to your brother, Michael, if we could," Catherine said.
"I'm sorry, Michael's not here yet. He's probably still at the bakery."
"We just came from there. Mrs. McCormick said she thought he was here," Nick said.
"Um, I don't know what to tell you," Mary said with a slight shrug. "Maybe he's en route."
Thanking the woman, the two investigators returned to their vehicle.
"Interesting," Catherine said. "It seems that if McCormick doesn't show up to one location, everyone simply assumes he's at the other one. It doesn't appear that anyone ever actually checks up on him."
"How convenient," Nick commented.
"Yeah, isn't it?"
"Hey, Cath, can we make a detour on the way back to the lab?"
"Sure, where do you want to go?"
"Wallace Park. I want to check something at the site where we found Ashley's body."
By the time the two investigators arrived at the park, it was past dawn. Most of the sky was still a dark gray-blue, but the pink-orange glow from the east was starting to assert is dominance. The woods were still heavily shadowed, so they were still relying on their flashlights. Finding the spot where the body had been found wasn't difficult. The lot wasn't large and there was still yellow crime scene tape surrounding the perimeter of the location.
"Okay, what are we looking for?" Catherine asked.
"Cottonwood trees," Nick replied, training his flashlight on the ground, looking for the saw-toothed, triangular-shaped leaves that would indicate the presence of the tree. He saw nothing. More importantly, he saw no evidence of the cotton-like fibers that the trees shed copiously at this time of the year. If there was even one tree nearby, the ground would be littered with the fibers. There were none.
"Find anything?" the senior CSI asked.
"Nope and if there aren't any cottonwoods here, then the cottonwood borer we found on her dress didn't come from this location. It had to have come from the place where she was being held."
"And this helps us, how?"
"Well, cottonwoods like water. They tend to grow where there's a water source nearby, like a stream or something. How many streams can there be in this area? Maybe if we can locate all the streams or other water sources in the area, we narrow down our search."
"Maybe," Catherine said, suddenly feeling exhausted and discouraged. They had so little to go with this case, that she was having a hard time keeping her focus. Remembering her partner, she abruptly asked, "How are you feeling, Nick?"
"I'm fine," he said quickly. They had arrived back at the vehicle and he busied himself with fishing out his keys and unlocking the doors, conveniently avoiding Catherine's eyes.
"Honestly, would you tell me if you weren't okay?" she asked once they were both settled into their seats, with their seatbelts fastened.
"Probably not," he admitted, giving her a sheepish grin.
"Yeah, that's what I thought."
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Back at the lab, they reported their findings to the rest of the team. Nick asked Brass if this was enough evidence for them to get a warrant to search McCormick's house. The detective said that he very much doubted it.
"But it is enough for me to justify doing some very serious digging into his background and to have a couple of uniforms check up on him from time to time."
"Alright, we're all tired," Grissom announced. "I want everyone to go home and get some sleep. That means you too, Sara. There's not much more we can do right now. We'll start fresh again tonight."
That night, Nick dreamed again. As in his previous dream, he found himself lying in his clear, plastic coffin, in the middle of the woods. As he lay, staring up at the sky, he noticed that it wasn't the same clear blue as before. It was now overcast and gray, a dark, uniform gray, that seemed to indicate impending rough weather.
Within minutes, he saw the snow coming, big, fat, fluffy flakes, like chunks of white cotton candy, floating lazily on the slight breeze. He felt no cold. Hell, he felt nothing at all, until he gradually became aware of the snowflakes brushing against his cheeks and nose, like light, feathery kisses. Abruptly, a face appeared above him. Tiffany leaned over, smiling down on him. The hood of her cloak, which was pulled up over her head, was already liberally coated with snow.
Once again, her light, chaste kiss freed him from immobility and she urged him out of the coffin. Taking his hand, she pulled him out into the clearing. Laughing and humming her strange song, she began twirling around, reveling in the novelty of the snow. He couldn't help but smile at her youthful abandon and her utterly unself-conscious joy. She urged him to twirl and dance with her, but he felt suddenly old and awkward beside her. He felt a strange sense of loss and sadness as he watched her...
When he awoke moments later, he found that his face and pillow were damp.
To be continued...