A Child's Drawing

'What can you tell me, Alexx?' Horatio asked. They were in the mortuary and the body of the latest victim was laid out on the table.

'No different to other victims, Horatio,' she said. Pulling back the sheet to reveal the head and neck, she pointed to the mortal wound. 'Throat cut, one straight, deep cut with a serrated blade. Point of origin and directionality indicate that it was a left handed cut.'

'Two of the others were right handed,' he said thoughtfully. 'You said that two out of the six were done with a right hand.'

'That's right, Horatio. And both as neatly cut as the others. Your killer is probably ambidextrous.'

'Interesting,' he said. 'Ambidexterity isn't all that common.'

'A lot of people are adept at using both hands for simple tasks,' Alexx said. 'But this kind of ambidexterity isn't very common, no.'

'Could be an identifying feature of our killer, then. Can you tell me anything else?'

'No, Horatio. There were some black fibres under her nails. I sent them to trace, they could be from the killer's clothing.'

'But we know he'll have ditched the clothing,' Horatio said. 'We'll have to be very lucky to find it. Any sign of other injuries?'

'Yes,' she said, moving the sheet to reveal the dead woman's head. 'A bruise on the side of her head. Not serious, but probably enough to stun her.'

'He probably hit her to stop her struggling,' Horatio murmured. 'Long enough for him to cut her throat, anyway.'

'What are you thinking, Horatio?' she asked, watching him.

'I'm thinking this is unusual,' Horatio said thoughtfully. 'I'll got and see if Calleigh and Ryan have managed to find out anything from the daughter.'

'Had any luck finding a murder weapons?' she asked.

He stopped by the door. 'No. Either he's disposed of it somewhere we haven't yet found it, or he uses the same weapon every time. We may have to find him before we find the weapon.'

'Did you manage to get anything off of Alice's clothes?' Horatio asked Calleigh later, in the lab.

Calleigh shook her head. 'Nothing, or at least nothing that we can use.'

'Probably because she hid herself as soon as her mother knew there was something wrong and stayed there until Wolfe found her,' Horatio reasoned.

'We processed her room,' Eric said. 'But it was all tidy and nothing out of place. I don't think the killer went in there – presumably he didn't know she was in the house so he had no reason to go in there. Remember, the neighbour said that the girl went to stay with her grandmother that weekend of the month. She should have been there, but I spoke to her grandmother. Alice didn't go there this weekend because her grandmother was unwell.'

'And obviously our killer didn't know that,' Horatio mused. 'Is Wolfe still at the hospital?'

'Yes,' Calleigh said. 'He called and said the girl had been taken for yet another psychological evaluation and to see a counsellor. She seems to trust him so he's stayed there.'

'We may need him back here soon,' Horatio said.

'That may be difficult,' Calleigh said with a small smile. 'Alice likes him, she trusts him. Unless her grandmother gets there, she might not want him to leave.'

'The grandmother is going as soon as she can,' Horatio said.

'Are we any closer to finding out who the killer is?' Eric asked suddenly. 'Is this investigation still going nowhere?' He sounded angry. 'Have we got anything more than what we had before?'

'We have a live witness,' Horatio reminded him gently.

'A kid,' Eric pointed out. 'A traumatised kid. And do we have anything solid? And evidence?'

'We're still awaiting DNA results,' Calleigh said, more calmly than she felt.

'Did you manage to retrieve anything from the garbage?' Horatio asked Eric.

'I wouldn't be in here if I had and you would already know about it.'

'A simple no would have been adequate, Eric,' Horatio said dryly.

'Your results are back,' Valera said from the door. 'I'm sorry, Horatio, but all the blood is your victim's. I ran all the samples you gave me, I triple checked everything. All of the blood is the victim's and the other samples are all from her or her daughter.'

'All right,' Horatio said quietly. 'So at the moment DNA is a dead end.'

'I'm sorry,' she said.

'It's not your fault,' he said absently.

'So we're back at a dead end,' Eric said.

'Not quite. Calleigh, how did the news report we got the reporter friend of Ryan's to broadcast?'

'Hoax calls and genuine calls that can't actually tell us anything,' Calleigh said.

Horatio nodded again, still very calm. 'Okay. Perhaps someone will eventually ring up with something useable.'

'I wouldn't bet on it,' Eric muttered in a wry tone.

Horatio heard but chose not to comment. His phone rang. He answered it. 'Horatio.'

'Horatio, it's Ryan.'

'Is everything okay?'

'As well as can be expected,' Ryan said in a wry tone that was so similar to Eric's tone that Horatio almost smiled. 'I think I might have something interesting here, Horatio.'

'Something related to the case?'

'Yes.'

Horatio thought for a moment. 'All right. Are you still at the hospital?'

'Yes, I am.'

'I'll come down – no, I won't. I'll send Calleigh and Eric down. Half an hour, maximum. All right?'

'Yeah. Horatio, get her to bring a portable scanner and laptop.'

Horatio sounded startled. 'Really?'

'Yes.'

'Well, all right. Bye, Wolfe.' Horatio turned to Calleigh and Eric. 'He wants you to go to the hospital, and take a laptop an scanner in the car with you. He says he has something that might be of interest to us.'

Calleigh looked at Eric who shrugged. She said, 'I wonder what that could be.'

'Go find out, please,' he said amiably.

'Hey, Ryan,' Calleigh said, meeting him in the corridor outside the room where Alice was.

'Hey,' Eric said.

'Hey,' Ryan replied.

'Where's Alice?' she asked.

'She's having something to eat,' he said. 'Her grandmother is coming to take her home later today, so I'll be back once she's gone home.'

'She's been to see all the psychologists and so on?' Eric asked.

'Yeah, she has and finally it's all over.' He shook his head. 'Not that they've found out anything we didn't know,' he added in a dry voice.

'What was she saying?' Eric asked.

'Did they get anything about the killer from her?' Calleigh asked at the same time.

'Well, they didn't have much luck finding out anything about the killer,' Ryan said. 'We got more information about what happened out of her.'

'Which wasn't much,' Calleigh admitted.

Ryan waved that aside impatiently. 'But she has been drawing – '

'Aside from playing building games?' Eric asked, smiling.

The joke was lost on Ryan. He just scowled and said, 'She's been drawing. She did a couple of her home and her mum – and she did this one.' He waved a couple of pieces of paper at them, drawings. 'You should take a copy back to the lab, which is why I said to bring the computer equipment.'

Calleigh and Eric exchanged glances.

'Ryan, it's just a picture,' Calleigh said.

He shook his head with impatience at their slowness today. 'Look. This is a house, right? I guess you could see it's like her house, right?'

'Ryan, all kids draw houses,' Eric said.

'Just shut up both of you, for a minute.' He brought out another sheet of paper. 'Look. This another one she did. It's of her and her mum outside their house. Note the use of black and red, and the fact that the figures are both crying.'

'Okay,' Calleigh said. 'What's different about the other one?'

'There's this third figure,' Ryan said. He was clearly growing irritated with their lack of understanding. 'It's a man, see? With blond hair.'

'The father?' Eric suggested.

'No. The grandmother says she never knew her father, he died when she was a baby. And he was dark haired. And look, this figure is covered in blood.'

'You think he might be the killer?' Calleigh said, suddenly excited.

He nodded, looking pleased they finally understood. 'Yes! I think maybe she caught a glimpse of him and now she's drawn this!'

'It's not much to go on,' Eric pointed out. 'It'll never hold up as evidence in court.'

'It doesn't have to, once we find him,' Ryan pointed out. 'This gives us a very sketchy idea of what he looks like, if nothing else.'

'But it's something,' Calleigh said. 'Ryan, Horatio will want to see this. This is the closest thing we've got to a description of the killer.'