CHAPTER TWO - Investigation Begins
October 14, 2005. CSI headquarters. NYC. 10:20 am.
Mac took a deep gulp of coffee, waiting for the stimulating effect of the caffeine to set in. He'd spent half of last night racking his brains for any possible way to narrow down the time frame for the death of their John Doe, should the FBI not come up with any valuable information. But Mac knew Jack Malone, who was heading the Missing Persons Department, and held the man in high esteem. Malone cared for the people he tried to find - not for the sake of success that might help him in his career but for the sake of the missing persons and their families alike. That was probably the secret of his success; Malone's department solved about ninety-five percent of their cases.
Therefore Mac still had not given up the hope that the FBI might dig out something useful.
His hopes were fulfilled ten minutes later, when his phone rang.
"Taylor," he answered.
"Dito," said a man's voice on the other end of the line. Laughter crackled through the phone wire, and Mac frowned.
"Excuse the joke, Detective," the man continued, now serious. "This is Agent Danny Taylor, Missing Persons Department. Your colleagues consulted us yesterday as to the identification of a John Doe."
"Yes?" Mac was suddenly wide awake. The prospect of progress was more stimulating than any amount of caffeine he could consume.
"It took us some time to find the right person," Agent Taylor explained. "See, we got a new computer system a little while ago, and the older data have not yet completely been transferred. But now we finally found a match. Dental records, as you reckoned. You got something to write?"
"Fire away." Mac already had his pen ready.
"The dental records match those of one Garrett Chase," Agent Taylor dictated. "Salesman, forty-seven years old at the time of disappearance. His wife called him in missing when he didn't return from a nightly walk. The case has never been solved."
"When was that?" asked Mac.
"Been quite a while," Agent Taylor informed him. "He was last seen on April 8, 1999."
Mac nodded, only belatedly realizing that Agent Taylor could not very well see him. "That matches our time frame perfectly."
"Yeah, your detectives said we didn't have to go back further than '97," Agent Taylor agreed. "Still it took very long, sorry for that."
"No problem," Mac assured him. "Thanks for your help, Agent Taylor. My regards to Jack."
"I'll tell him," Agent Taylor promised. "Good luck, Detective Namesake." He hung up while Mac was still smiling.
xxx
12:56 pm.
"God, how I hate this!" Aiden sighed and slid onto the passenger's seat of Danny's car.
Uncharacteristically quiet, Danny circled around the car and crawled onto his own seat. He put the key in the ignition but did not turn it yet.
"You know what, Aiden? I hate it, too." His own sigh matched hers. "But I guess that's just the flipside of being a cop."
"I think, however, that it was also a relief of some sort for Mrs. Chase," Aiden mused. "I mean, for six years she's had no idea whether her husband was cold and dead or alive and kickin', screwing some chick down in Vegas. Now at least she knows that he didn't leave her. He was taken from her."
"Do you think that's a relief?" Danny asked. "Knowing that some asshole ran over her husband and not only left him for dead but got rid of him?"
"She can bury him now," Aiden said. "Finally she knows for sure where he is now. Of course it's horrible that someone did this to him, but I still think that there's some relief in it." She turned and looked at him, a sad half-smile playing around the corners of her mouth. "I'd certainly prefer certainty over doubt, even if it means losing someone for good."
"So you'd rather see me in a grave than in Vegas screwing some chick?" Danny teased, his usual gallows humor returning to him.
Aiden grinned. "Well, you're a special case. It's certainly easier to imagine you the other way round..."
"You think I'd go to Vegas engaging in sexual activity with a showgirl rather than stay with you till the day I die?" Danny pouted. "Very shocked I am. Influenced by abysmal human nature Detective Burn's mind has been."
"Detective Burn will be influenced by the abysmal urge to kick Master Yoda's not completely unattractive ass if you don't start that car, Danny," Aiden countered. "I wanna get back. Don't you?"
Danny blew her a kiss. "At your beck and call."
He turned the key and revved the engine a few times. "Arrr," he growled, echoing the sound this produced, winking at his friend and colleague in the passenger's seat.
Aiden pursed her lips, vainly trying to suppress the laughter that bubbled up inside her. In the end, she turned her face to the window and allowed herself a wide grin.
With Danny, everything was a little bit easier to bear. Even delivering a message as sad as this one.
xxx
01:44 pm.
When Danny and Aiden returned to the CSI headquarters, Mac was already waiting for them. He waved a few computer printouts.
"Stella was so kind as to check the archives for all red Corvettes that were stolen in the week of April 8, 1999." He gave Danny and Aiden each a copy.
Danny quickly scanned the printout for any figures. "Seven?" He whistled. "Geez, I didn't even know that some people still actally own Corvettes, let alone have them stolen from them. I thought the times of these cars were over."
"Well, seems as if you were wrong." Aiden looked through the list. "So two were found again a little while later, one was recovered by the police when someone tried to sell it, one was involved in an accident in Jersey and was completely ruined, and three never turned up again." She smirked. "So where do we start?"
"That accident in Jersey was in the afternoon of April 8," Mac pointed out. "Garrett Chase was called in missing about six hours later."
"Oh, great, so we can exclude that car." Danny crossed out the entry on his list. "Another hint, Mac?"
"What would you do when you kill someone with a stolen car?" Mac asked back.
"Get rid of the car as fast as possible," said Aiden.
"You think we should look first at the two cars that were found again?" Danny asked.
"That depends on the cold-bloodedness of the thief," Aiden pointed out. "Maybe he just got out of the car and left it behind. But he might as well have tried to sell it. Or he sold parts of it to street gangs and illegal car dealers. That would explain why the car never turned up again."
"Let's try those first that did turn up again," Danny decided. "Then we can take samples right away and examine the cars."
"Good plan." Aiden turned to Mac. "Are you coming with us?"
Mac shook his head. "I've got loads of paperwork to do. But keep me posted on everything."
"Of course, boss."
Aiden and Danny left the room, and Mac looked after them for a moment. He had once been warned to employ Danny Messer, whose reputation as a stubborn, obnoxious and complicated person preceded him. But although Mac and Danny sometimes had their differences, Mac had never regretted his choice.
With a slight tinge of amusement, he congratulated himself for his wonderful team.
xxx
05:08 pm.
"Thank you, Mrs. Marshall," Danny said. "Please excuse our intrusion, but I'm sure you understand the importance of the matter..."
Aiden, hidden behind his back, uttered a strange noise which she quickly disguised as a coughing fit. He, however, looked unflinching at the tall woman before him. Her round blue eyes opened a little wider, her painted lips parted slightly, and she ran a hand carefully over her blow-dried peroxide hair.
"Of course, officer," she crooned. "I am always happy to help the police. I'll tell my husband to make a donation next time you have one of your tombolas. But I hope that this donation won't be spent on donuts." She giggled like a little child that had just told her favorite joke.
Danny curled his lips in the polite imitation of a smile.
"Well, I'll make sure that this won't happen," he assured her. "And now we really have to go. Thanks for your generosity, Mrs. Marshall."
"Oh, why don't you call me Gloria..."
"Goodbye," Aiden interrupted firmly and cast the blonde a blazing look. "Take care that your car doesn't get stolen again."
She all but pulled Danny down to the car.
"Geez, what a woman!" Danny commented as soon as they were on the way to the next Corvette driver.
Aiden made a growling noise in the back of her throat. "I really hope you mean this in a pejorative sense rather than an admiring one," she remarked darkly.
"A little bit of both, probably," Danny replied. "I don't think I've ever met a woman who was more stupid than this one. But she managed to marry a millionaire, so she must be at least a little clever."
Aiden heaved an exaggerated sigh. "Danny Messer, what planet did you say you're from? Let me go there; it must be Utopia if men actually still believe that intelligence or cleverness is attractive." She patted his arm in a mockingly consoling gesture. "Poor baby... Nevermind, Danny. But let me assure you one thing: Cyrus Marshall certainly didn't marry big-breasted Gloria for her intellectual qualities."
Danny laughed. "I was joking, Aiden," he said. "No need to get jealous. You know you're my number one."
Aiden couldn't think of an appropriate reply, but she smiled. That was Danny - stubborn as a mule, insubordinate and easily enraged, but also charming and easy-going, with his sometimes slightly macabre sense of humor and casual manner. God, she didn't even want to imagine how work without Danny would be, without their constant flirtation and affectionate teasing.
"So our car was neither Gloria Marshall's nor Hank Crenshaw's," Danny was saying, bringing Aiden back to the present. "Who's next?"
Aiden looked through the list. "Roy Malcolm," she said. "Film producer." She looked at her watch. "We have fifteen minutes to get to the Upper West Side. His secretary said we should come before five-thirty."
"Well, then I suggest we hurry up." Danny slammed the accelerator down to the floor and the car sped up.
Thirteen minutes and a few red traffic lights later, they pulled over in front of a large town house near Central Park.
It took them another valuable two minutes to convince the housekeeper, who opened the door, that they were indeed detectives, not journalists, and that Roy Malcolm was informed about their visit. But finally the lady was satisfied and led them through a labyrinth of corridors until she stopped before one of the doors and knocked.
"Mr. Malcolm? The police are here..."
"OK."
The housekeeper cast a last distrustful glance at Aiden and Danny, then she opened the door for them and let them pass into Roy Malcolm's private office room.
"Wow," said Aiden involuntarily.
The walls were completely covered by shelves that reached from the floor to the ceiling. Only one wall was shelfless, but that was because it was not a wall but one large window. Malcolm's desk, covered in computer printouts, folders, a half-eaten turkey sandwich and two notebooks, stood facing the window, so that Malcolm could look out over Central Park whenever he lifted his eyes from his work.
The shelves were crammed with a curious concoction of books, more folders, DVDs, bottles and all sorts of electronic devices, old and new. Music was playing, Metallica's "For Whom The Bell Tolls," and in one corner, CNN was on, but mute.
Roy Malcolm looked not at all the way Aiden had imagined him. Instead of the slick yuppie she had expected, he turned out to look more like a hippie who had ended up in the wrong decade. His long hair was flaming red and looked disheveled, but not neglected. He wore blue jeans with a hole above the right knee that was so large that Aiden suspected he had torn it on purpose. His leather belt had a silver buckle in the shape of a snake winding around a stick, and his scarlet shirt was half open and revealed a thin, light-skinned chest covered with tiny liver spots. Freckles spread over his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. He didn't look a day older than twenty-six, perhaps.
"Detectives Messer and Burn?" He looked from Aiden to Danny.
"Burn and Messer," Aiden corrected, pointing her finger first at herself and then at Danny. "Roy Malcolm?"
"Aye." Malcolm noticed her astonished expression and grinned, which made him look like a schoolboy. "Scottish ancestry," he explained.
"Hence the hair," Danny remarked.
"Aye, and the accent." Roy Malcolm looked around, discovered a chair buried under a pile of paper and made as to remove the stack from its place. Aiden, who saw the skepticism in Malcolm's face, quickly stopped him.
"We don't need to sit down," she assured him. "We won't be long."
"Verra good," Malcolm said. "I have a meeting in twenty minutes. I s'pose someone told ye that, aye?
"Aye," said Danny involuntarily, causing both Malcolm and Aiden to burst out laughing. He blushed slightly. "I mean, yes," he corrected belatedly. "As my partner said, we won't be long. We have a few questions concerning the theft of your car six years ago."
Malcolm looked incredulously from one to the other. "What, ye must be kidding! What car theft?"
Aiden and Danny exchanged a confused glance. "Didn't you report a red Corvette stolen on April 7, 1999?" Danny asked after consulting his list.
Realization dawned on Malcolm's face like the sun over Hawaii.
"Oh, that," he said. "Why could that possibly be of interest now? The car turned up again two days later."
"That's true," Danny said. "But the thing is, it's possible that a man was run over and killed by the thief during these two days."
Malcolm's bony face fell slack with surprise. "Oh," was all he said.
"Do you still have the car, Mr. Malcolm?" Aiden asked.
"Call me Roy," he said, making an effort to pull himself together. "Mr. Malcolm sounds so official."
"Well, this is an official investigation," Aiden pointed out. "It's what we call a cold case. New informations makes it necessary for us to take up investigation where we let off six years ago."
"Cold case, eh?" Roy Malcolm had obviously recovered his good humor. "Always makes a good movie. Though thrillers and crime stories are not my area of expertise."
"You didn't answer my question," Aiden said. "Is the car in question still in your possession?"
"Technically, it is," the producer confirmed. "I havena used it meself for years, though. My da thought it was a good idea to buy me a Corvette for my twenty-first birthday, ken, but I never really liked the car. Too pompous for my taste."
Aiden secretly agreed. A Mini Cooper would suit the scrawny redhead much better.
"My da died in 2000," Roy continued, "and after that, I no longer felt the moral obligation, so to speak, to cruise around in the Corvette. So I started to lend it out to someone else every now and then - a friend who wanted to impress his crush, or my wee brother for his first big cruise down the East Coast. It's been in one of my movies, too."
"But you still have it," Danny stated. "Where do you keep it?"
Roy shrugged. "Right here. In the garage."
"We'd like to have a look," Aiden said. "If we're allowed to take samples from the paint, we can determine whether it was your car that was involved in the accident back then or not."
"Sure ye can take samples. The car's past its prime, anyway." Roy grinned. "One scratch more or less really wouldna make any difference."
"Was the car in good condition when it turned up?" Aiden asked while Roy was leading them out of the office and through the corridors.
"Well, depends," Roy said. "Almost out of gas, broken windshield, and a wee bit damaged round the front. But it was still usable, nothing was amiss, and even the stuff from the gloves compartment was still there."
Danny and Aiden exchanged a glance. Broken windshield? Damaged round the front?
"Broken windshield?" Danny asked. "Do you remember what exactly it looked like?"
"The windshield?" Roy cast the detective a confused glance. "Broken, as I said. Looked as if someone had used a basball bat on it."
Roy opened a back door and led the detectives to another building right next to the town house. He pushed a button on a remote control he'd carried in his pocket and the gate opened, revealing a dark green Chrysler Grand Cherokee, the red Corvette - and, to Aiden's amusement, a yellow Mini Cooper, just as she'd thought might match him. One door of each car was adorned with the logo of Roy Malcolm's production company, Roy Ruaidh Productions - the sketch of a boy's face in black and white, but with a shock of flaming red hair. It reminded Aiden a little bit of Sin City, Frank Miller's graphic novels, which were mainly in black and white but with strategically placed spots of color every now and then.
"Ruaidh is the Gaelic word for 'red'," Roy explained without being asked. "My da founded the company and named it after me. I had red hair even when I was but a wee bairn, ken?"
"I see," Danny murmured, his eyes already on the Corvette. He made the necessary measurements and compared the results with his list. They matched. Then he took samples from the paint and the bumper.
"How often has the car been washed since it was stolen?" Aiden asked.
Roy stared at her. "Ye dinna expect me to remember how often in six years this car has been washed, do ye?" he asked incredulously. "But I daresay often enough to remove any traces of whatever ye're looking for," he added apologetically. "When we made the movie, it's been washed between takes, maybe two or three times a day."
Aiden sighed. "Nevermind, Roy," she said. "I didn't really expect anything else. Why should we be lucky, after all?"
"Hey, Burn, cut the depressions," Danny said sternly, looking up from his evidence bags. "Never say die."
"I think we can do without the phenolphtaleine," Aiden remarked when she saw Danny prepare the bottle.
"But it won't do any damage," Danny replied. "And maybe it'll work a miracle."
Of course it didn't. The car simply had been washed too many times; there was not the slightest trace of blood detectable - provided that this really was the car they were looking for.
Danny had quickly scanned in the sample and sent it out to the lab, waiting for the results to come back.
"Uhm, detectives..." Roy Malcolm said, a little uncomfortably. "I gotta get going in five minutes. How long are ye gonna take?"
"Depends," Danny said curtly.
"A few more minutes." Aiden felt sorry for the producer, who seemed like an eager little boy to her - despite the fact that he wasn't much younger than herself. "Our technicians in the lab are checking the digitalized sample Danny just sent out and compare it with the sample collected from the victim. If they match, we know that the man was run over by your car here."
"And if that's the case?" Roy seemed younger still, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other. "What kinda consequences..." He trailed off.
"Well, if I were you, I'd try to remember where I was on April 8, 1999 between, say, 8 pm and midnight," Aiden recommended. "But I wouldn't worry too much, that's just routine. You reported the car as stolen, and the accident happened well after that. Unless we suppose that you knew Mr. Chase and took great efforts to construct a murder plan including the scapegoat - the thief - you're on the safe side."
Roy relaxed visibly. "Maybe my next movie should be a crime story," he remarked. "I'd just consult ye when I do my research."
"Does that mean our names would be in the credits?" Danny joked.
"Aye, of course."
Danny did not reply, for his cell phone started to ring.
"Messer." He listened for a while. Then he nodded. "Aye... errr, I mean, alright. Yes. Thanks."
He flipped the phone shut and turned to Aiden and Roy.
"The tests have proven that Garrett Chase was run over by this very car. Mr. Malcolm, we have to take the Corvette with us."