Moving On

The rooms stank. The air was filled with the stench of copper. One police officer had already left, retching. The body of a woman was sprawled across the bed, eyes closed and her arms flung out as if she were asleep. She was not. There was a wide gash in her throat and arterial spray across the wall. There was blood everywhere on the bed, sprayed across the sheets and soaking into the mattress, staining her night clothes red.

Grissom examined the scene silently. Anyone who didn't know him might have thought that the CSI's clinical and detached manner was emotionless, even callous, but that was far from the truth.

He crouched down and very carefully pulled back part of the blanket that had trailed off of the bed and hung down on the floor. The hem was marked with blood, but there was none on the floor.

'Thorough clean-up,' he observed. 'No blood visible on the floor, he cleaned up well.' He examined the floor. 'No dirt, no dust. He cleaned the entire floor.' He sniffed the air thoughtfully. 'With bleach,' he added. Straightening, he turned around, meeting Sara's eyes. She looked angry but composed.

'I'll get the ALS in here,' she said.

'This is pine flooring,' Grissom said. 'We should be able to get some blood trace off of it with ultraviolet light.'

'Okay.' Sara left, passing Greg on her way out. The other CSI looked into the room and Grissom saw him visibly wince.

'This is bad,' he said.

'I'd agree with that,' Grissom said. He looked around again. 'Start dusting for prints, Greg.'

Greg undid his field kit and brought out finger-print powder and a brush. Keeping quiet, so as not to disturb Grissom, he began to dust for prints.

There were footsteps on the stairs and Catherine appeared on the landing outside.

Grissom frowned when he saw her. 'I thought you were taking the night off.'

'I was,' she said. 'But Lindsey went to a friend's house for the night, a birthday party, and I heard about this on my police scanner. Figured you could do with all the help you could get.'

'Thank you,' Grissom said.

'What's everyone doing?' she asked. 'What can I do?'

'Sara's bringing up the ALS,' he said. 'Nick and Warrick are outside checking the parameter and Greg, as you can see, is lifting prints.'

'No, looking for prints to lift,' Greg corrected. 'Grissom, I can't find a single useable print. Hell, I'm just having trouble finding a print.'

'Keep looking.'

'What can I do?' Catherine repeated.

'You can go and help Brass interview the neighbours,' he said.

'Is that all?' she asked.

'It's a pretty big all,' he pointed out. 'You're a people person, Catherine, and you wanted to know what you could do.'

She lifted her hands and smiled. 'Okay, I'll go. You need me here, let me know.'

'We may need you if the ALS picks up any unusual blood patterns,' he called after her by way of a peace offering.

'That is my field of expertise,' she replied, almost bumping into Sara on the way up.

'Isn't this Catherine's night off?' Sara asked.

'She came in. We need all the help we can get,' Grissom said, not looking around.

'But still.'

'But still wouldn't you come in if this was your night off?'

She considered. 'Point taken.'

'All right, Sara, direct the light over there. Greg, pulled the curtains, will you?'

Greg did so and Grissom closed the door. Sara shone the ALS beam onto the floor around the bed. There was the residue of a large blood pool on the floor, which had clearly been cleaned away very thoroughly, and with bleach.

'Have a look in the bathroom,' Grissom said. 'He might have cleaned himself up in there.'

She took the ALS with her.

'Grissom,' Greg said, 'there is not one single useable print in this room.' He held his hands apart in defeat. 'He's cleaned every surface, even one's he'd probably have no need to have touched. The whole place has been wiped clean.'

Grissom nodded, a slight frown betraying how frustrating that was. 'Okay. Sara, found anything?'

'There's blood trace in the sink and bath,' she called. 'All scrubbed down with bleach – I can smell it and there's an empty bottle here.'

'Bag that,' Grissom said to Greg. 'Print in there, too.'

'Okay.' Greg went in with the powder and brush. 'No,' he said a few minutes later, 'I can't get any prints in here, Grissom.'

'We go over this entire house with a fine tooth comb,' Grissom said. 'We leave no corner unprocessed, understood? If there's any evidence to be found here, we'll find it.'

'Okay,' Grissom said later, when the whole team was back at the lab and meeting to discuss the case. There were mugs of coffee and sandwiches and the team looked set to be there the rest of the shift, the rest of the day or even the week until they had this case solved. 'What have we got?'

'Or not got,' Warrick observed.

'Thank you, Warrick, you can go first,' Grissom said.

Warrick smiled slightly. 'Okay. Nick and I went around the entire house on the outside. Last night was dry, so the ground was also dry and we couldn't lift any footprints or get any tire treads.'

'The killer may not even have come by a vehicle,' Nick put in. 'He could have walked.'

'We found that one of the panes of glass in the front door was broken,' Warrick continued. 'Not recently, because we didn't find any broken glass. But one of the neighbours told us that it got broken a few days ago, the victim didn't know how and she had the window tapped up until it was repaired. The glazier was coming in two days to fix it.'

'So that's probably how the killer got in,' Nick added. 'It's likely that he broke the window originally and then used it to get his arm through the door and opened it from the outside.'

'Door wasn't very secure,' Warrick added. 'Easy to unlock once he got his arm through the broken window – we tried it. No prints, though. He wiped them all down or he wore gloves. Or both.'

'Maybe he cased this house, and saw her lack of good security,' Catherine suggested.

'Maybe,' Grissom said. 'Anything else, guys?'

Nick and Warrick shook their heads. 'No litter, no cigarette butts, nothing in the trash,' Nick said. 'We went through everything, nothing except some thrown out food and paper, which was the victim's.'

'Okay. Sara, Greg?'

'I got not one single print out of the bedroom or bathroom,' Greg said. 'Nothing off of any door handles, same as Nick and Warrick. The only prints in any of the other rooms were the victims and one other unidentified set. The other set turned out to be her sister's, as she was staying there last week but she's been in New York for the past five days so we could eliminate her. The killer wiped down every single surface that they might have touched, in the bedroom and the bathroom. And nothing off the empty bleach bottle we found.'

'He cleaned up really well,' Sara said. 'The entire floor, cleaned with bleach and vacuumed, same in the bathroom. He was very, very careful.' She gave a brief smile. 'He wasn't quite careful enough. I got a single hair when I took a look in the pipes in the bathroom. He used the bath to wash down and although he used bleach, I managed to get a single hair that does not match our victim's colouring. Mia's analysing it now.'

'I went around the neighbours with Brass,' Catherine said. 'No one saw anything, no one heard anything. One person mentioned that the window got broken but again, no one saw anything. No one heard any vehicles, heard any disturbance. As far as witnesses go, no matter how vague, we've got nothing.' She looked at Grissom. 'What about the autopsy?'

'Died of blood loss,' Grissom said. 'From the cut throat. The doc says that she had a large bruise on the side of her head, indicating that she was knocked out, probably unconscious or at least unable to fight back when she was killed. Since she wasn't restrained by any ropes or anything, and the wound is a single, continuous one, this might be a logical assumption. Although,' he added, 'An assumption is all it is at the moment. Be aware of that. The doc says the directionality of the wound suggests the killer is right-handed, and the wound was caused by a serrated blade.'

Everyone winced.

'Exactly,' Grissom said. 'The killer immobilised the victim, she was probably unconscious or close to it, and he also used a weapon that's painful. He probably immobilised her to stop her from struggling – '

'But she wasn't gagged,' Sara cut in. 'So, he probably killed her before she regained consciousness or her senses enough to scream.'

'Why?' Greg asked.

'Could be several reasons,' Grissom said, frowning in thought. 'Killed her quickly, quietly to keep her from alerting anyone to what was happening.'

'Which he could have done if he had gagged her,' Catherine said.

'Or he wanted it to be over quickly and as painlessly as possible,' Grissom said.

'Unusual,' Sara said.

'He killed quickly and cleanly,' Grissom said distantly. 'Torture tends to be personal, causing a victim pain tends to be personal. This isn't personal. It's detached, quick and he knocked her out beforehand. Maybe to prevent her from feeling the pain and screaming, begging him not to. Because that would make her human. Easier to kill her before she has a chance to beg for her life, or to scream.'

'Man, you are cheerful,' Nick said.

Grissom looked up but didn't say anything. Before anyone else could say anything, the door opened and Brass came in.

'I just got some interesting news from Ecklie,' he said.

'You going to share or do we have to guess?' Catherine asked.

Brass smiled. 'He just got a call from the police department in Miami.'

'Miami?' Sara said.

'Why is the Vegas Crime Lab getting calls from Miami?' Nick asked.

'Apparently, this murder isn't a lone incident,' Brass said. 'Eckley spoke to the head of the Miami Crime Lab, one Horatio Caine. He says that there have been six murders in the past three months in Miami that exactly match your current case.'

'Six?' Greg exclaimed.

'Six?' Sara echoed.

'Six,' Brass said grimly. 'Ecklie told him to let us deal with this now, it's passed into our jurisdiction but this Horatio Caine wouldn't hear of it. He's sending two of his best CSIs here to help us.'

'What?' Catherine said. 'What, they think we can't handle it?'

'We're more than capable of dealing with this,' Sara protested.

'They haven't caught him in three months?' Nick said.

'Guys, calm down,' Grissom said. 'They might be able to help us.'

'Sounds more like we might be able to help them,' Catherine said dryly.

'We don't have a choice now,' Grissom reminded them. 'But the more help we get, the better, now we know this is a serial killer.' He looked at Brass. 'When do they arrive?'

'Later today,' Brass replied. 'Better get to it, team. We can't afford to hang around with a killer like this on the loose.'

'You know what would be great?' Nick said as everyone got up and started to leave. 'If we caught the killer before the guys from Miami even arrive.'

'You think that's going to happen?' Sara said.

'No, but it would still be great.'

Well, I've finally got the guys from Vegas in! Thanks for your reviews everyone! Next chapter will be up as soon as possible!