THOSE WHO HUNT THE NIGHT
10/23/05
Chapter 6
--We interrupt this previously established 1st person story, to give you the Other Side of the story.--
It was with an ominous sense of deja vu that Gil Grissom approached the small house, his kit in hand. The normally quiet neighborhood was filled with people, despite the lateness of the hour. Cops moved about on the lawn and neighbors milled around, many still in their pajamas, held back by the bright yellow crime scene tape. It was a scene just like a hundred others Gil had been called to over the years, but this wasn't just any crime scene. This small, quaint house belonged to Nick Stokes, one of Gil's team members, one of his guys.
With a deep, calming breath, Gil lifted the yellow tape and ducked underneath it. He saw the stocky figure of Capt. Brass moving purposefully towards him, as he approached the ruined front door.
"Gil, why don't you let someone from Days handle this," the detective said, laying a hand on the investigator's arm.
The scientist said nothing, just fixed his long-time associate with a steady glare. The detective immediately backed down, giving a slight shrug, knowing that look.
"Okay," he said, in a resigned tone. "But it's pretty bad in there. It looks like a war zone. Something very bad went down in that house."
Gil pursed his lips for moment, a look of profound distaste crossing his face. He gave a slight sigh and seemed to mentally brace himself before stepping through the splintered door frame and into the house.
Setting his case down, he simply stood for a long time, just inside the doorway, looking into the living room and mentally cataloguing the evidence before him. Quite understandably, his eyes moved to the strangely, and illogically, desiccated corpse lying in the center of the room, first. It was with more relief than he cared to admit, that he noted the body was entirely too tall to be Nick.
But of course it wasn't Nick, Gil told himself sharply. The younger man had been alive only a few hours ago. This body had obviously been dead for several months at least. Gil gave himself a mental jab and forced himself to continue with his observations.
The furniture was all askew, as if it had been pushed aside during a struggle. Several spent shell casings lay scattered across the floor. The upper part of the wall and the ceiling opposite him were spattered with blood. On the wall beside him was a faint red smear, presumably more blood, although less definitively so. Many more blood drops littered the floor like red confetti. Completing this inappropriately festive analogy, fragments of glass lay everywhere, glittering like tiny gems in the overhead light. The front window had been smashed from the outside in and with considerable force. Brass had been right. Something very bad had happened here. And Nick had been right in the middle of it.
Turning abruptly on his heel, Grissom walked back out of the house. He found Brass speaking with one of the uniformed officers. The investigator waited until the detective was finished before he moved closer.
"Who made the 911 call?" Gil asked.
Brass consulted his notes. "That would be Ruth Neussbaum, Nick's neighbor to the east. She reported hearing shots fired around 1 am."
"I want to talk to her."
"She's right over here."
The detective led the entomologist over to where a tiny woman in her early sixties, wearing a shapeless, purple dressing gown, stood chatting with a young, female officer.
"Mrs. Neussbaum, this is Gil Grissom, from the Crime Lab," Brass said, making the introductions.
"Oh? Do you work with Nicholas?" the older woman asked in a nasal Long Island accent. Despite the hour, her short, white hair was perfectly coiffed and Gil noted that she was even wearing lipstick.
"Yes, ma'am, I do. I'm his supervisor," Grissom answered.
"I just don't understand it. Why would anyone want to hurt Nicholas? He's such a nice young man. He helps me with my yard work whenever my arthritis is acting up, helps me carry in the groceries if he happens to be around when I come back from the store... He's good boy. Why would anyone hurt him?"
"I don't know, Mrs. Neussbaum," the investigator said gently, touched by the genuine concern in the older woman's voice. "Right now, we're not really sure what happened to Nick. I'm hoping you can help shed some light on that. Can you tell me everything you heard before you called 911?"
"Well, I was having trouble sleeping, again. I tell you, Mr. Grissom, I haven't had a decent night's sleep in five years, since my Irving died. I still haven't gotten used to sleeping alone. Anyway, I was watching one of those late night talk shows. I don't really enjoy them, but they're the only thing on at that hour that isn't all sex and violence, so what're you going to do?
"Anyway, the show had just ended and I was just thinking about going to bed, when I heard these loud bangs, like firecrackers going off, but much louder. And it sounded like it was coming from Nicholas' house. Well, as I'm sure you understand, after his little... mishap a few months ago, I was very concerned about him. I started to go to the window, to check on him, when I heard him scream."
"Scream?" Gil repeated.
"Yes, Mr. Grissom, scream. It sounded like he was in pain. Well, that's when I called 911. While I was still on the phone with that operator-person, I heard this tremendous crash. For a minute, I thought Nicholas' house was going to collapse. Then I heard sounds, like a fight, and finally I heard the sirens approaching. That's when I heard the other gunshot."
"How many shots did you hear the first time?"
"Oh... three, no, four... Yes, it was definitely four."
"And there was only a single gunshot the second time?"
"Yes."
"Thank you, Mrs. Neussbaum, you've been very helpful."
"Mr. Grissom? Please, find Nicholas. He's a good man. Oy, and so good looking! It's a pity he's not Jewish. I have some nieces I would love to introduce him to... He doesn't deserve all these bad things that keep happening to him. You find him!"
"We will, Mrs. Neussbaum. We've done it before."
As the investigator turned away from the woman, Brass stepped up to detain him.
"Sergeant Collins, over here, saw something I think you need to hear about," the detective said, leading the other man over to the uniformed officer he had been speaking to earlier.
He was a large, African-American, in his early forties, with closely cropped, dark hair, heavily salted with gray. He stood in the standard cop pose, feet set wide, hands resting comfortably on his gun belt. He nodded politely to Grissom when Brass introduced the two men.
"Sergeant, please tell Mr. Grissom what you told me a few minutes ago," Brass prompted.
"When we arrived at the scene, I was ordered to secure the perimeter of the house. I had just given out assignments to my men, when I saw someone running away from the house, carrying a body over their shoulder. The suspect ran to a dark-colored SUV that was parked out front. The suspect dumped the body in the vehicle then climbed in. My men and I ordered the suspect to exit the vehicle, but they drove away.
"I'm sorry, sir, I should have had someone secure the vehicle right away, but with all the activity and confusion, I didn't even notice it until I saw the suspect running toward it. I take full responsibility for the suspect getting away."
"Don't beat yourself up," Brass said softly. "I didn't notice it either. We were all too focused on the house. You didn't screw up any worse than the rest of us did."
"Could you see the faces of either the suspect or the 'body'?" Grissom asked.
"No, sir, it was too dark and they were too far away," the sergeant responded.
"Could you tell if either was a woman?"
"A woman, sir? Uh, the 'body' wasn't wearing a shirt. I remember that, so it was definitely a man. Since the suspect was carrying the other male, and fairly easily, I assumed it was another man. It seemed a little big for a woman, but I couldn't definitely say that it wasn't."
"Thank you, Sergeant," Grissom said and started back toward the house.
"What was that about?" Brass asked, dismissing the officer and jogging to catch up to the investigator. "Why did you ask about a woman? What are you thinking?"
"Well, didn't you say on the phone, when you called me, that Agent Trudeau abruptly left the nightclub in a hurry? Did she come here? If she did, then where is she? And if she didn't, then where did she go?"
"Good questions," the detective said, reaching for his cell phone.
While he attempted to reach the missing FBI agent, the rest of the team arrived, ready to work.
"Where do you want us?" Catherine asked simply.
"Catherine, you and I will be working inside the house. Warrick, Sara, I want you two to take the perimeter. Greg, I don't want some new hire to be handling the DNA we collect tonight, not on this case. I want you to test all the DNA evidence we collect here."
"You got it," the younger man said without hesitation.
"Thank you, until we have something for you, why don't you look through Nick's SUV. I don't really think there'll be anything probative, but check anyway... Okay, let's get to work," Gil said softly.
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"I can honestly say that I have never seen a body in this condition before," Doc Robbins told Grissom several hours later, while the two men stood in the morgue, examining the shrunken husk that had been removed from Nick's living room. "It's almost been mummified, but not quite. See how well preserved the skin is? Generally in a case of natural mummification, the internal organs would be in roughly the same shape as the skin, but there's almost nothing left here, except for the heart. For some reason, it held up reasonably well, aside from the hole in the middle of it."
The shriveled body lay on the stainless steel slab, looking like something dredged up from a swamp. The skin had that same wrinkled, leathery look of the bodies that had been recovered from bogs in Britain and Europe. All of the victim's hair was still present, including the eyelashes and eyebrows. Beneath the still open Y-incision, it was another matter. The inside of the body looked almost gutted, as though everything had been removed, except for the blood vessels and the heart, as Robbins had pointed out. It looked shriveled and brown like a giant raisin.
"So, what does all this mean?" Grissom asked.
"I don't really know. This body wasn't embalmed and yet it shows no evidence of insect or bacterial activity. Do you know how the body was stored, before it was dumped at Nick's house?"
"We don't know for sure that it was. As far as we know, this man was alive last night."
"That's not possible," Robbins said without hesitation. "There is no way this level of mummification could happen in a few hours."
"Well, can you tell how old this body is?"
"Not precisely. At a rough estimate, I would say a few months at least, but it's hard to say for sure without knowing how the body was stored or buried."
"Can you tell me how this man died?" Gil asked.
"Well, you've got a couple of options. I found four 9mm bullets in the chest cavity, all in the vicinity of the heart." The coroner produced a small plastic bag with four bullets in it, which he handed to the investigator.
"Your second option is the before mentioned hole in the heart," Robbins continued. "Something pierced the chest, just beneath the breastbone and went right through the heart. I found a few black splinters embedded along the edge of the sternum. I already had them sent to Hodges in Trace."
"You can't tell which of these actually killed him?"
"Not at this point, but any one of the shots or the stab wound would have been fatal."
Gil sighed heavily. "Have a tissue sample from the body sent to Greg in DNA. He's going to be handling all the DNA for this case."
"Not taking any chances on a new person screwing anything up?" Robbins asked.
"Not when Nick's life could be on line."
"So, you really do believe that Nick could be in danger?"
"He's missing. I have to believe that if he was physically capable of it, he would have called one of us, to let us know if he was alright. That hasn't happened."
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The team, along with Jim Brass, had gathered around the large break room table and was discussing the evidence they had gathered so far. It was early afternoon. Nick had been missing for over 12 hours. Grissom began the meeting by sharing Doc Robbins' findings about the condition of the body.
"I gave the bullets Doc Robbins recovered from the body to Bobby Dawson," Gil continued. "He matched all four bullets to Nick's gun... Who printed the gun?"
"I did," Catherine spoke up. "I found two sets of prints. I matched one set to Nick. The others are unknown. They're not in any of the databases.
"Now, I found those same prints all over Nick's house, including the bedroom. Personally, I think we can assume they're Mercy's."
Catherine turned to Brass. "As an FBI agent, shouldn't her prints be in the system?"
"You know, Warrick and I found those same unknown prints on the outside of Nick's house as well," Sara spoke up "including on the sill of Nick's bedroom window."
"Really?" Catherine asked.
"Yeah. Look, what do we know about this Special Agent Trudeau? I mean, do we know for sure that she really works for the FBI? How many FBI agents work alone? Don't they always work in pairs at least?"
"I spoke with someone from the field office in New Orleans," Brass said. "But their files and offices are in such chaos after Hurricane Katrina that they couldn't tell me anything about her. They directed me to someone at Quantico, who was very unhelpful. They claim that because Mercy is assigned to 'special' cases, her prints, and DNA, by the way, are off limits. They cited something about national security."
"Did you explain that we have a missing investigator and Agent Trudeau could possibly be involved in his disappearance, that at the very least, she may have information which could help us find Nick?" Grissom asked.
"Yes, I did. They told me it wasn't their problem. Not in those words, of course, but that was the gist of the conversation."
Gil sat back in his chair and passed a hand over his mouth, obviously struggling to keep his temper in check. After a few seconds, he seemed to master himself and he turned to Greg.
"Greg, why don't you tell everyone about your interesting DNA findings?" the supervisor suggested, his voice tight.
"Okay, I got three separate DNA samples from the blood that you and Catherine collected from the house," the younger man spoke up. "The blood smear on the east wall was Nick's. I matched it to the toothbrush you brought me. The rest of the blood you collected is where things get kinda funky.
"The blood spatter from the west wall and ceiling contains at least four identifiable DNA strains. There were others as well, but I couldn't identify them."
"What?" Catherine said. "Was this from transfer? Whose DNA was identified?"
"I don't see how it could've been from transfer. I identified Nick's DNA, the first victim, Daniel Rosen's, the second victim, Michael Preston's, and Jimmy Vero's. His DNA was on file from an earlier rape conviction. There was also this strange, mutated DNA present which wasn't like anything I'd ever seen before.
"I found this mutated DNA present in the third sample collected as well. The blood drops from the floor. Again, it contained lots of different DNA strains. The only one I could identify was Nick's."
"So, Nick's DNA was present in all of the blood samples?" Catherine asked.
"Yes."
The redhead groaned and threw her hands up in frustration. "Nothing in this case makes any sense! I mean, unless at some point, Nick has bled on every surface of his house, including his ceiling, how is this possible?"
"What about the torn sweatshirt found in the bedroom?" Grissom asked. "It had blood on it as well."
"The blood around the neck was Nick's. The smear on the front was the Vero mixture," Greg answered.
"Well, the bottom line of all this, is that Nick was bleeding. So, he sustained some sort of an injury during the altercation," Warrick said softly. "He could've been shot. There's still one bullet from his gun that's unaccounted for."
A heavy silence followed these statements as everyone's thoughts drifted to their missing team member. After a minute or two, Grissom pulled them all back to the present.
"Did anyone talk to Hodges? Doc Robbins sent a splinter, collected from the body, to him?" Gil asked.
"Uh, yeah, I did," Sara said, shaking herself out of her reverie. "He identified the splinter as wood, white oak, to be precise. He said the black stuff on it was carbon. Apparently at some point the wood was charred."
"Well, that's not very helpful," Warrick commented, discouraged.
"Greg, did you get a chance to test the tissue sample from the body that Robbins sent over?" Grissom asked.
"Yeah, the body in the morgue is definitely Jimmy Vero."
"Well, how can that be?" Brass asked. "How can that shriveled corpse be Vero? We all saw him at the nightclub just a few days ago."
"Did we?" Warrick asked. "We didn't see anything. Mercy claimed she saw Vero. None of us have ever seen him. We've seen a shadowy image on a security tape, but we've never seen him."
"What are you saying, Warrick?" Sara asked. "That Mercy's known all along that Vero was already dead? That she faked this whole thing? That maybe she's the killer and she's just been carting Vero's dead body around?"
The African-American sighed heavily. "I don't know what I'm saying. But it is a possible explanation."
"Yeah, but it doesn't explain Vero's DNA at the scene," Greg pointed out.
"Or his fingerprints," Sara added. "Remember, we found his fingerprints around the broken window in the spare bedroom of Nick's house."
The other man gave a slight shrug, conceding these points.
"Okay, forgetting about Vero's body for the moment, which is just giving me a headache," Sara said. "And assuming that Mercy was present at the house, which I realize, thanks to the FBI we can't even confirm, and assuming that she was the one who took Nick, why would she do that? I realize that Nick was injured. Maybe she thought to get him medical treatment right away. But we checked all the local hospitals and medical centers. She never took him to any of them."
"Is it even possible for her to take Nick?" Greg asked. "I mean, assuming that Nick was the 'body' the sergeant saw being carried out of the house, would Mercy be strong enough to carry Nick like that?"
"Well, Nick may be buff, but he's still pretty skinny," Warrick said. "I mean, he probably weighs, what, 160, max. Mercy isn't a small woman. She's probably the same height as Nick and probably weighs a good 140-150 herself. I don't see why she couldn't carry him like that."
"Okay, so we've established that she physically could do it, but we still don't know why she did it," Sara persisted.
"Maybe Mercy suspected that Vero wasn't working alone," Brass suggested. "Maybe she thought Nick was still in danger and she took him for his own protection."
"But there's never been any evidence to suggest that Vero had a partner," Grissom said. "And, strange DNA samples aside, there's nothing to indicate that there was a fourth person at that house."
"Maybe we're looking at this the wrong way," Catherine spoke up. "Maybe Mercy taking Nick had nothing to do with Vero. Maybe this is personal. I mean, after everything we've all witnessed of the two of them, I think we can safely assume they've slept together. But now, with Vero dead, her job was done. Maybe Nick was happy to let the relationship remain the temporary fling it was, but Mercy didn't want it to end."
"So, you're saying that she might've pulled a 'Fatal Attraction' on him," Warrick said.
"Sure, why not? I'm sure it's very lonely for her, working on her own all the time. Nick's a very handsome, charming guy and, as the saying goes, 'Hell hath no fury, like a woman scorned.'"
Warrick gave a slight nod and glanced away, looking distinctly uncomfortable with this concept.
"Unfortunately, that doesn't help us explain Vero's body," Sara said, with a sigh.
"I've got an explanation," Greg volunteered.
As all eyes around the table turned to him, the younger man began to look a bit sheepish. "Okay, you all have to hear me out for a minute... Okay, what if Vero, and Mercy, were vampires?"
As the others immediately began to protest, he continued speaking in a louder voice, overriding their denials. "Think about it, it answers all our questions. It explains the mixed DNA samples. It explains why Nick's blood was present in both samples. At some point in time, they both drank Nick's blood. It explains the mutated strain. Maybe vampirism is some kind of a virus that causes the DNA to mutate, causes the body to mutate.
"It explains why Vero's body looks the way it does. Assuming he's been a vampire for about a year, which by the way, is roughly the same amount of time he's been out of prison, then when he 'died' again, his body simply returned to its 'natural' state. It explains the four bullets in the chest. Bullets don't kill vampires. But a wooden stake does, which explains the wood splinters on the sternum.
"It also explains why the FBI is being so uncooperative about giving us Mercy's fingerprints or DNA. They might prove what she is, which could also explain why Mercy took Nick. He saw more than he was supposed to."
"Greg, half of your assumption is based on the idea that the FBI is knowingly hiring vampires," Catherine pointed out.
"Yeah, to hunt down other, more dangerous, vampires."
"I'd say you've been watching too many 'X-Files' marathons on TV," Grissom said.
"Maybe," Greg said calmly, "but unlike all of your theories, mine explains everything."
Another heavy silence followed, as everyone tried to think of some concrete piece of evidence with which to refute this ridiculous theory. The silence stretched uncomfortably.
"How are we coming with the search for Mercy?" Gil asked, turning to Brass, deciding to simply ignore the current discussion for now.
"Oh, uh, Archie and I contacted her cell phone provider. They say that her phone has been inactive since well before Nick's disappearance. She's probably turned it off, possibly even ditched it. I did manage to get her government-issued credit card number from the car rental company where she got her SUV. The credit card company is tracking the number. They're going to get back to me on what her most recent purchases are.
"In the meantime, I've got a state-wide BOLO out for the SUV. If, or when, it's spotted, I'll be contacted, but these things take time," Brass said.
"Alright, everybody, let's go back to the evidence. There's got to be something there that will help us. We just have to find it," Grissom said.
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Roughly an hour later, Brass returned to the lab. He rounded up the team and had them follow him to the AV lab, where they all converged on a surprised Archie.
"I think we just got a break," the detective informed them. "I got a call from Mercy's credit card company. About an hour and a half after the 911 call this morning, she stopped at a 24-hour Wal-Mart on the north end of town and went on a bit of a shopping spree. I contacted the store and they faxed me a list of the things she bought. I also had a uniform go down and collect their surveillance camera tapes."
The detective handed a VHS tape to Archie, so the technician could cue it up, while Brass read the list of items Mercy had purchased, to the team.
"She bought several bottles of water, several bottles of Pedia-Lite, whatever that is."
"It's a glucose-electrolyte solution that you give to kids when they're throwing up," Catherine explained. "It's kind of like Gatorade, but it absorbs into the blood stream faster and more effectively. Sounds like she could be trying to re-hydrate Nick. Maybe he lost more blood than we realize."
"Could be," Brass agreed. "She also bought several containers of orange juice, bandages and antiseptic, a sleeping bag, two men's large sweatshirts and a pair of men's jeans... What do you think, clothes for Nick?"
"Or herself," Sara said. "She could be trying to change her appearance somewhat."
"What's with the sleeping bag? Is she planning on roughing it?" Greg asked.
"Could be," Catherine mused. "It could also mean that Nick's in shock and she's trying to keep him warm."
"Okay, I think I've found her on the tape," Archie spoke up and everyone turned to look at the monitor.
The camera showed a blurry image of a woman entering the store. They could tell that she was tall and had short, dark hair, but the face was strangely obscured. The woman shown was wearing a dark pant suit much like the one which Mercy had been seen wearing earlier.
"That's got to be her," Catherine commented. "But what's with the image? Can you clean it up, Archie?"
"Nope, we had the same problem with the image of Vero before. I don't know what it is."
"She's alone. Nick's not with her," Warrick commented.
"Well, according to Sergeant Collins, Nick wasn't wearing a shirt," Sara said. "He probably wasn't wearing shoes either, so, no service for him."
Warrick flashed a weak grin at his colleague, acknowledging her attempt at humor.
"Look at her shirt," Catherine said. "She's got it buttoned all the way up to her neck. When I saw her earlier, she was showing a bit more skin. And she's got her jacket buttoned up as well."
"Well, maybe she didn't escape from the altercation completely unscathed either," Grissom said. "Maybe she's trying to hide her injuries, or blood stains."
"Which would also explain the new clothes," Sara said.
"Did anyone talk to the cashier that waited on Mercy?" Grissom asked the detective.
"Yeah, I had the uniform interview her. She said that she remembered Mercy, largely because she seemed very 'antsy', but that was about it... Anyway, what we know, for sure, is that an hour and a half after the 911 call, Mercy was on the northwest end of town. Where was she headed? Further up state? Or was she planning to turn west and head into California?"
"Well, if she was heading to California, with her head start, she's already there," Grissom said.
"Yeah, I've already notified California Highway Patrol. They're going to keep a look out for her SUV," Brass said. "But if she's smart, she's already ditched the SUV and switched to a different vehicle. Just to be on the safe side, I also notified the Arizona and Utah State Police."
"Did she use the card again after the War-Mart stop?" Gil asked.
"Yeah, she stopped at an ATM and made a large cash withdrawal," Brass said. "She's not going to use the card again. She knows we can track it... Unfortunately, we seem to be at an impasse. Until we get a tip from one of the Highway Patrols, we have no idea where she took Nick."
To be continued...