Note: another chapter...hope you like!
Sunday 3:00 a.m.
Nick's coffee cup was empty; he needed more. He closed his eyes and slowly rolled his neck, hoping to relieve the tension that continued to mount the longer he read through his past case files. For nearly four hours he had sifted through papers, hoping to be blindsided by a suspect. So far nothing was hitting him. And for the life of him, he couldn't get the image or the sounds for that matter, of that crying child out of his mind.
He needed a break.
He got up to refill his coffee cup.
"Hey man, you think an IV would work better?" Warrick asked walking into the break room as Nick topped off his cup. Tonight the coffee would stay black. "You haven't stopped since we got back from the field."
He could have responded, could have been a real smart ass about it, but he just shook his head.
"What's up?" his friend asked.
"I've been through every case file I've had since I was a rookie. I can't, for the life of me, figure out who this guy is," he said crossing the room and taking a seat on the sofa. "This guy looked right at me the other night, he knew me."
"Maybe he's not from a past case," Warrick shrugged.
"He's gotta be," Nick shook his head. "It doesn't make sense," he leaned his head back on the sofa. "I can't explain it. I know this guy's voice."
"Hey guys," Greg said breezing into the room.
"Hey, anything on the shoeprints?" Warrick asked.
"Well, I've successfully matched every person in the store to a foot print. I have two prints that don't match anything, well except each other."
"Could be our robbers," Warrick shrugged. "You have any specifics on the prints?"
"Male sizes ten and twelve. They're both the same shoe, just different sizes. I'm running a comparison of each through a database now."
"Twenty bucks says they were left by two pairs of Nikes," Nick said taking a drink of his coffee.
"How do you know that?" Greg asked leaning against the cabinet, his own cup of coffee in hand.
"I saw their shoes. White shoes bottoming out a solid black wardrobe, an easy spot," he said standing up. "Let Griss know. I've got to check in with ballistics."
"These guys are giving us a run for our money," Warrick said watching Nick walk down the hall.
"You think we're chasing geese?" Greg asked taking up Nick's place on the couch.
"I don't know, man."
"Hey Bobby," Nick said walking into the ballistics lab, "anything on my bullets?"
"I was just finishing them up," the ammunitions analyst, Bobby Dawson, said in his own southern dialect. "I was taking a look at the bullets you brought in from the fourth robbery, take a look at the striations," he pointed to the scope.
"It looks like something in the grooves," Nick said, his nose down the scope. "There's some sort of powder residue."
"Weird, huh?" the lab tech smiled. "I sent a sample over to trace. Now take a look at this," he said pointing to a computer monitor. "I've lined up a sample from each crime scene. On the right we have a bullet from the first crime scene, and then the second, third, and fourth."
"Striations are identical," Nick said a slight puzzled look on his face. "There were two guns at the first scene."
"Well, all these bullets came from the same gun. From what I've been given I'd say only one gun was fired." Bobby said heading over the to gun locker. "I'd say you're looking for a Colt .45 semi-automatic." He handed the gun model to Nick. "You find that gun; you find your murder weapon."
"Well, it's a start," Nick said looking the weapon over, the events of the night before flashing in his mind.
"Get this, there are only 50 of these babies registered in the greater Las Vegas area," Bobby said leading Nick to another computer.
"It'll take while to whittle that list down," Nick sighed scanning the list of registered gun owners. "Wait a second…" he trailed off, his eyes holding on the computer screen.
"What?" Bobby asked craning his neck to get a better look at the names. Nick pointed at the screen. "Cynthia McCallum?" he asked reading the name commanding the CSI's attention. "You know her?"
"Of her. Thanks Bobby," he said rushing out of the lab.
"You want these reports?" the lab tech asked holding up the files, but Nick was out of earshot.
"Hey Nick," Sara said coming out of the evidence room.
"Not now," he waved walking down the hall.
"What was that about?" Sara asked as Catherine joined her from the DNA lab.
"Who knows," she shrugged. "What did you get from the car?"
"Well, I'll tell you what I didn't get," she sighed as the two of them walked to Grissom's office. Frustration was mounting the further they got in the case.
Greg and Warrick were already in the supervisor's office.
"Where's Nick?" the boss asked.
"He took off down the hall in a hurry," Sara pointed over her shoulder.
"So, what have we got?" Grissom asked shaking his head, getting back to business.
"We're still waiting on DNA to get us the results on the blood. Could be another day on it," Warrick said, he was leaning against a filing cabinet, his hands in the pockets of his jeans.
"I have two sets of shoe prints," Greg chimed in. "They don't belong to any of the witnesses or victims," he handed Grissom a copy of the prints he'd made. "I ran them through a database; they were left by a Nike shoe, a Nike Cortez, to be specific, sizes ten and twelve."
"Nicely done, Greg," Grissom said looking at the photos. "Now we just need to find the shoes and the feet they belong to."
"I've got calls in to Nike retailers in Vegas to see if they carry that shoe and records of who bought them within the last year," the CSI continued.
"What did you get from the car?" Grissom asked turning his attention to Sara.
"Not much. Some fast food wrappers, some soda cans a couple beer bottles. I'm having it all tested for DNA, it'll be a while. I'll have it compared to the DNA from the crime scene."
"I just got back from trace," Catherine added. "There was a powder found in the bullet striations. It was cornstarch."
"Cornstarch?" Warrick asked, beating Grissom to the punch.
"Maybe our suspect has a rash?" Greg shrugged.
"Maybe," Grissom nodded. "Follow up on it. Go back to the scene if you need to," he said to Catherine. "Make sure you take someone with you," he pointed a finger. He looked back down at the files on his desk, a signal for the team to disperse, to continue the investigation. He'd have to check in with Nick, it wasn't like him to miss a head-banging session.
Warrick beat him to the punch, again. Walking through the halls of the lab, he found his partner in the hole-in-the-wall they had the nerve to call an office. He was buried deep in case files.
"What's up, bro?" he asked knocking lightly on the door jam. "Not like you to miss out on a team meeting."
"I had something to follow up on," he said briefly looking up from the file in front of him. "Hey, you remember that case we got a few years back? The one where the kids were pulling the "Jackass" stunts?"
"Yeah," Warrick nodded, "Bamboo Russian Roulette."
"Bobby matched all the bullets from the scenes to a Colt .45. Turns out Cynthia McCallum is one of fifty registered owners of a Colt."
"Cynthiana McCallum…"Warrick said thinking back to the case. "She was the mother of the victim."
"Yeah. Remember I told you the guy in the robbery knew me?"
"You think the robber…"
"Is Timothy McCallum's older brother," Nick nodded.
"Guess we should catch up with the family. You thinking an early morning wake-up call?" Warrick smiled.
"I'll call Brass," Nick nodded reaching for his cell and following Warrick back down to Grissom's office. Time to fill in the boss.