"Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take."
T. S. Eliot
(H/C)
Calleigh swept into CSI with the determined tread of someone bent on atoning for the grave sin of having been sick the day before. She checked into Ballistics first, glancing through the work and determining easily what hadn't been touched since Friday, what had been handled by Horatio, and what had been handled by others. If only everyone were as efficient as he was. She straightened out three misfiled reports in progress, squared up a disheveled stack, then headed for Horatio's office to find out if anything urgent was waiting there. She would simply have to be both of them today.
She nearly mowed down Alexx on the stairs, and the ME quickly flattened against the railing as Calleigh trotted up them past her. "Whoa, honey. What's the rush? Trying to make up for being gone yesterday?"
Calleigh sighed and stopped. "Why should I do that? Everybody gets sick sometimes."
"But it still annoyed you."
"Alexx, do you ever get tired of being right?"
Alexx only smiled at her, then looked up to the still-darkened office. "Where's Horatio?"
"It's his turn to have the flu today. This is one of the joys of having a child that nobody told me about in advance; they share their bugs with you."
Alexx nodded in sympathetic amusement. "Tell me about it. Well, the family that's sick together sticks together."
Calleigh laughed. "You should have seen Rosalind this morning. Horatio spent the whole night on the couch after he got sick, just to let me sleep." Alexx sighed in familiar exasperation. "Anyway, of course, that meant he was right in the middle of us getting ready, and he tried to get up and do his part helping me out this morning, so I asked Rosalind to watch him and not let him move. She took me a bit too literally."
Alexx grinned. "I would have loved to see that."
"She's amazing, Alexx. Everybody always told me kids go through this selfish stage early on and don't think of anybody else for the first few years, but she isn't like that at all."
"She is something special," Alexx agreed.
Calleigh abruptly remembered her mission and glanced at her watch. "I'd better get on with the day. I'm being two people."
Alexx nodded. "Have fun," she said.
"That isn't the point of this job." Calleigh trotted on up the stairs, forcing her short legs to take them two at a time.
(H/C)
Calleigh had just finished sifting through the paperwork that had sprouted on Horatio's desk overnight when her pager went off. Dispatch. So much for catching up in the lab today. She wondered if criminals ever got sick.
Speed and Eric met her at the elevator. "Where's H?" Speed asked.
"Sick. I'm in charge today."
Eric grinned and stepped back as the elevator door opened, letting her enter first. "Well, from what I heard, it's a shooting."
"Speaking of shooting, Speed, what were you doing in the ballistics lab yesterday with my paperwork?"
"Looking for a report. How did you know I'd been there?"
"All the files in that stack were left askew for the first two-thirds. Somebody fished through, found what he wanted, and didn't straighten them back out. Even the non file straighteners in CSI know that I like files straight, so it was either deliberate, which isn't likely, or it was somebody who didn't notice they were straight to begin with, which leaves Speedle."
Eric flashed his grin as the elevator door opened again, letting them out. "Give up, Speedle. The evidence is too good."
Speed shrugged. "If you arrest me, though, who's going to do trace at the scene?"
Calleigh marched ahead of them toward a CSI Hummer. "Just stay out of Ballistics when I've not there, okay? Send Horatio, or at least send Eric."
"Yes, Your Highness," Speed replied, drowning out Eric's retort of "Gee, thanks." In friendly banter, the three CSIs piled into the Hummer.
(H/C)
Tripp was already at the crime scene, and all banter died as the CSIs exited the Hummer and went to join him. Already, trained minds were gathering evidence. The house was a small but well-built brick style, one of those houses in a cookie-cutter neighborhood where all were built from the same pattern. Some effort had been made to individualize this one. The landscaping of the small yard was quite well done, almost professional, and a birdbath was in the middle. The mailbox had a sailboat painted on the side. The homey effect was shattered by the yellow crime scene tape. Tripp stood in the front door, and a bustle of activity could be sensed behind him. He took inventory and raised an eyebrow wordlessly as the three approached.
"He's sick," Calleigh replied. "What have we got?"
"Vic's name is Angelina Mitchell. Her husband had been off on a long weekend and just got back this morning, and he found her dead. Bullets all over the bedroom. Not pretty in there. Whoever took her out went way past what he had to."
"Or she," replied Eric, remembering yesterday's beach case.
"Or she," Tripp admitted. "Winslow Mitchell, the husband, says he got back from his trip about 10:00 a.m., went in, didn't see anything wrong until he got to the bedroom. We're checking with neighbors. There are messages on the answering machine from Sunday. Calleigh, you okay?"
Calleigh's professionally efficient air had slipped into almost daydreaming. "Um, yeah, sorry. I knew somebody named Winslow Mitchell once. It can't be the same one, though."
"Why not?" Speed asked.
"The one I knew is dead."
"Good reason."
Calleigh shook off the cloak of memories. "All right, do we have a TOD?"
"Alexx isn't here with the van yet, but the vic seems room temperature, and rigor has worn off."
"Over 30 hours, then," Eric commented.
"Right. We're guessing Sunday, but that's your job."
"Wrong," Calleigh replied, echoing Horatio. "We don't guess." She pushed past Tripp into the house. The living room was neat but lived in. She traced a finger across a slightly dusty surface. "Wonder if she always did dusting on a specific day. This is too clean to be neglected or hit and miss, but it does need dusting. Might help us with TOD."
"Her husband would know," Eric suggested.
"Let's see if we have anything else to ask him first." She walked around the room slowly, scanning, wishing for Horatio's ability to spot anything out of place. This wasn't the crime room, but that didn't mean it couldn't give clues. Nothing seemed wrong here. Calleigh glanced at the books in the bookcase at the end of the room. Military, sailing, and landscaping, as well as a few murder mysteries tucked on the end of the bottom shelf, like the reader felt guilty about this concession to pleasure instead of useful books. She advanced on into the kitchen, which gave the same impression of a neat housekeeper but not a fanatical one. Finally, she headed to the bedroom, marked by the officer standing guard in the doorway.
Even with Tripp's preparation, she jolted to a stop briefly. This wasn't murder; it was slaughter, almost like an animal. The body was riddled with bullets, mostly in the head and upper torso. The face was obliterated. Calleigh swallowed and made herself approach the bed, careful where she stepped to avoid destroying evidence. She reached out toward the pillowcase with a gloved hand, noting the spatter and the tiny holes. "Shotgun," she said. "He used a shotgun at close range. No, wait." She studied the woman more closely, trying for clinical detachment. "Small caliber handgun."
"And a shotgun?" Eric raised an eyebrow. "Why not just one or the other?"
Speed, jolted out of sarcasm, said, "There are casings at the end of the bed. Can you tell range on the shotgun, Calleigh?"
"Close, but not point blank. Figure 3 feet average length for a shotgun." She retreated to the end of the bed and lined up the shot with her arm. "I'll have to run tests, but probably not far off. If it was a pump action, there should be ejected shotgun shells, too." She bent and explored under the edge of the bed with her fingers. "There you are." One, two, and finally three shells emerged. "But why under the bed. They would have been ejected to the side of the killer. Why leave the casings from the handgun in plain sight and kick the shotgun shells out of the way? It's not like he needed to conceal the murder. This is a strange one."
"Wish we had H." Eric echoed her earlier thought.
Calleigh straightened up, looking at that faceless body again. Other than the bed, it could have been straight from Horatio's nightmares. "I'm glad he's not on this one," she said softly.
"What?" Speed, thoughts firmly on the present crime, glanced at Eric, unsure that he had heard right.
Calleigh instantly snapped back to professionalism. "Okay, Speed, you start processing in here. Alexx should be here soon. Eric, run the rest of the house thoroughly and see what you can find. Be sure to look at the answering machine. I'm going to go find the husband and get more details from him." She whirled around so quickly that her hair fanned out like a curtain as she left the room.
Speed stared at the bed and looked away. "Trade you," he said to Eric with only the ghost of his usual sarcasm.
"No way." Eric turned away in relief and went back into the rest of the house. In spite of Calleigh's opinion, he still wished that H were here. He had a bad feeling about this case.
(H/C)
Calleigh knocked on the door of the house three doors up the street, and a police officer opened. She flashed her badge. "I need to speak to Mr. Mitchell for a minute." He had been temporarily put here, in the house of his best friend.
The cop nodded and stepped back, letting her in. As she passed him, he spoke soto voce. "I've been listening. No weird conversations." Calleigh nodded almost imperceptibly. While the police tried to be as compassionate as possible, they also tried to avoid giving a witness a chance to create, change, or alibi a story until he could be thoroughly interviewed. The guard was also required to be an eavesdropper.
The front door opened directly into the living room, just like the Mitchell's house and probably like every other house in this subdivision. Only the furniture was different. At one end of the room was a couch, and on the couch sat a black man, head buried in his hands, flanked protectively by an older man and a woman. "Mr. Mitchell? I'm so sorry for your loss. Could you answer a few more questions, please? It might help us find her killer."
He raised his head and stared at her through red-rimmed eyes. They took her in and widened slightly. "Calleigh? Calleigh Duquesne?"
Calleigh's knees abruptly went weak, and she dropped into a recliner. "Winslow Mitchell. I thought you were dead."
He nodded. "I was . . . detained for a month while I was on a mission. I can't tell you where, though."
She knew he had been in the military, with many details classified. She closed her eyes, still remembering the letter that had come from his mother in reply to one of Calleigh's increasingly infrequent letters from college. "Winslow is dead," it said simply, three words that echoed around the gaping chasm of parental grief. His mother hadn't been able to write more, probably had taken days to write that much. Calleigh had never written again, never asked for details, and shortly after, she had moved on to join the PD. She opened her eyes again and noticed that the police officer on guard had moved closer, obviously eavesdropping now. She glared him back into his corner. "So, how are you doing? Wait, I'm sorry, stupid question." She glanced down at her badge. "What a way to meet you again. I am sorry, Winslow."
The woman cleared her throat, curious but respectful, and Winslow jumped. "I'm sorry, Mattie. This is Calleigh Duquesne. I knew her back in Louisiana, and she was my prom date. Calleigh, this is Mattie and Bob Stewart, my best friends." Manners and habits supersede tragedy, and the introductions might have been from any social gathering.
Calleigh managed to catch herself before saying she was glad to meet them. "Thank you for helping Winslow out here. I'm glad he has friends who care. Actually, Winslow, it isn't Calleigh Duquesne anymore. I'm married, and I have a daughter."
He half-smiled, remembering the thought from long ago that a daughter of Calleigh's, the beauty and charm without the hurt, would be almost magical. "What's her name?"
"Rosalind."
"Is he good to you?"
It took her a minute to realize what he was asking, and then she followed his eyes to her wedding ring. "He's wonderful."
"I'm glad. You deserve it." He looked down at his own wedding ring and twisted it on his hand, drawing Calleigh back to the purpose of this interview.
"Winslow, I'm really sorry we had to meet like this, but I do need to ask you some questions." He nodded without meeting her eyes. He couldn't use social chitchat any longer to avoid the mental image, as much as he would like to. "Tell me about this morning, please."
"I'd been gone on a long weekend, and I came home about 10:00. I went inside, and when she didn't answer me right away, I went into the bedroom." He flinched and shut his eyes again.
"How far did you enter the bedroom?"
"I went up to the bed to check for a pulse. I know it sounds crazy, but I was still hoping. I bent over and called her. She didn't answer." He choked back a sob, and Mattie tightened her arm around him. Calleigh changed the subject to give him a minute.
"Winslow, did she do housework on any specific day? Dusting and vacuuming?"
He raised his head then. "Yes, she did. Sunday afternoons, always. Why?"
"The furniture wasn't dusted."
"So that's probably when she died?"
"Or before then." Calleigh widened the questions to include the Stewarts. "When did you last see her?"
"Saturday morning," Bob replied. "She was out in the yard, mulching bushes. We were taking a walk, and we stopped to chat for a minute."
"She was the landscaper, then?" All three nodded. "She was good. Between Saturday morning and this morning, especially Sunday, did you see anybody over there? Any strange cars in the neighborhood? Hear anything?" They shook their heads in disjointed unison. "Did anything seem to be bothering her Saturday morning?" Another head shake. "Winslow, did you call her this weekend while you were gone?"
He shook his head. "I was sailing. I like to just get alone with the ocean sometimes."
"Never with her?"
"She didn't like the water. Wanted firm ground under her feet." He realized suddenly that if she had been with him, she wouldn't have died, and the thought crumpled him.
Calleigh stood up. "Okay, Winslow, that's all for right now." She hesitated, then went over to him and opened her arms, and he stood up to hug her, clinging to her for support even though he was much larger. They stood that way for several minutes. His shoulders were shaking.
"You find the bastard that did this," he whispered finally into her hair. "You find him."
Calleigh straightened up, and her voice was fierce with mission. "I will, Winslow. I'll track him down myself. I promise."
