Chapter 9
Brass, along with a couple FBI agents, made sure the motel room was clear before Catherine, Grissom, Sara and Nick entered. The motel room was small, dark and dirty. It was probably known as seedy on its best day. But today it was at its worst and seedy was giving it too much credit.
The carpet, if it could even be called that, was yellowed and stained. The chair in the corner was faded and uneven. The bed had a clear dip in the middle, not so much from wear but from lack of care. The dresser and nightstand were chipped, with a couple drawer handles missing. And the bathroom was mildewed, the toilet ran and the shower leaked. The room had definitely seen better days.
The first thing Grissom noticed was that even though the room was dirty, the objects in it were organized. The bed was made. Clothes were hanging in what passed for the closet. There was a pad of paper and a pen on the nightstand, arranged so that the pen was perfectly perpendicular across the pad and the pad was squarely in front of the telephone. In the bathroom, his personal items were arranged in perfect order by size. When the drawers were checked, all the clothes were folded neatly.
"This guy has issues," Nick observed.
As the CSIs processed they room, they collected fingerprints, hair and blood samples and everything else they found. Grissom had been drawn to the note pad. He looked at it carefully and noticed there was still some indention on the top sheet, although there was no ink. He got out a pencil and started shade over the indention. It was a partial address from the old business district.
"Brass," Grissom called him over.
"What'd you find Gris?" Brass asked as he approached.
"A partial address. Write this down," Grissom proceeded to give him the partial address.
"You know there's probably twenty buildings this address could belong to," Brass was being realistic.
"It's a start," Grissom said.
Brass started to call headquarters to get a few patrol units to check out the buildings when Thompson came over.
"What are you doing?" he demanded to know.
"We're going to sent some patrol units to look for an address," Brass answered.
"Let me see that," Thompson said, pulling the pad of paper out of Brass's hand. His facial expression changed.
You would be a shitty poker player, Grissom thought, noting Special Agent Thompson's lack of facial control.
"What do you know that you're not telling us?" Brass insisted.
Slowly, the pieces clicked in Grissom's head. "You used her for bait, to draw him out. How long as he been in Vegas?"
Thompson looked pissed at being so transparent. "We've known he was here since last week." He quickly added, "She was assigned a tail."
"Then how did he get her?" Grissom could feel the anger rising.
"The tail was following her that night," Thompson got defensive at Grissom's anger. "But they got a flat tire. They knew where she was headed, they figured they would catch up to her."
"She never made it," Catherine stated, although she knew everyone was aware of that fact.
"It was fifteen minutes," Thompson offered. "The only thing we can figure is she took the wrong exit and got lost. Martin must've been following her too."
"So what's the address?" Grissom seethed, trying to contain himself.
"One of our contacts had mentioned that Martin was spotted in that neighborhood. We searched a lot of the buildings, but didn't find anything at the time," Thompson was making excuses.
"Just answer me this," Grissom asked, as they gathered their kits and evidence to leave. "Did she even know he was in town?"
"To the best of my knowledge," Thompson answered, "No."
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
"What's the news?" Martin answered his cell phone.
"They just left the motel room," the voice on the other end answered.
"Then I'd better get to work," Martin responded.
"Why not just move?" the voice offered.
Martin hung up. He didn't want dignify the question with a response. Obviously his rat didn't know anything about catching mice.
He turned the phone off; he didn't want any distractions. He would know when he was out of time.
He knocked on the door, "Can I come in?"
"If I said no would it matter?" Alex yelled back through the door.
Sean just laughed and opened the door. Alex had dried blood on her cheek from their earlier chat, but a look of determination in her eyes.
"Awww, you still think there's a way out of this, don't you?" he said playfully. Then his face contorted into an evil grin. "We can change that."