Chapter Fifteen – Storm Chasers
"Hey Super Dave," Warrick nodded as he sauntered into the morgue. "What have you got?"

David Phillips, the assistant coroner, stood beside the center metal slab. The body of the still unidentified girl lay lifeless atop the cold sterile surface. Her hair was wet, matted in a thick disarray of curls to her forehead. Her eyes closed, she looked as if she were only sleeping. The ashen color of her skin, though, told the story of her death; the dark bruises covering nearly fifty percent of her upper torso were a stark contrast to the paleness of her complexion. Night and day.

"COD is asphyxiation," David informed, "she was smothered."

"Ligature marks around the wrists and ankles," Warrick carefully picked up the girl's left hand. "She wasn't tied when I got to the scene."

"No," the coroner shook his head. "Maybe the killer cut the bonds before he dumped the body. I…uh…found these fibers between her teeth."

"White, possibly cotton, fibers," Warrick shook his head upon receiving the small plastic bag of evidence from the assistant ME. "Virtually impossible to trace. I'll get them to Hodges. So what the hell happened to her?"

"Can't say for sure, but check out this bruise pattern on her back."

With a gentleness and care that came from years as a coroner, David slowly turned the girl on her side revealing the dark, prominent markings.

"Damn," Warrick shook his head as his eyes fell on the child's back. He bent at the waist to get a closer look. A large bruise covered the small expanse between the child's shoulders. "That looks like a shoe impression," the CSI cocked his head to the right, his eyes narrowed as he reached for the camera on the side table. "Maybe a size ten or eleven."

"Check out the coloration."

"They're fairly recent. Did you take fingernail scrapings?" The girl's clothes had already been collected and bagged. Warrick would work on processing them once he finished here.

"Already sent it to DNA," David nodded. "Any idea who she is?"

"I've got her photo and prints running through the missing persons database now. It could be a while," Warrick shook his head his eyes still searching the child's face.

"Weren't you working the Harris case?"

"Yeah."

"You guys think the cases are connected?"

"Who knows, man. This whole case is so messed up," he rubbed the back of his neck. "Uh…page me if there's anything else?" he raised his gaze to meet the coroner's.

"You got it," the awkward man nodded watching the CSI exit the swinging doors. Silentlyhe he reached for the shower nozzle andproceeded to bathe the body.

It was a thinking man's game, and right now Warrick wanted to do as little thinking as possible. Walking the halls of the lab he was surprised at how quiet things were, the silence was thick, almost overwhelming. The constant pounding of his head effectively kept beat with the drumming of his feet as he maneuvered through the halls, the humming of the fluorescent lighting adding to the soft melody. It was almost hypnotic. With the rest of the team in the field, and the identity of the newest victim still unknown, there was little for him to do but wait for the still pending DNA results. Sure he had to process the girl's clothing, but he'd save that until after his meeting with the law firm.

The twenty four hours he'd just worked his way through were quickly starting to catch back up with him and he could feel each hour, each ounce of energy lost, bearing down on him, reminding him of the life he used to have. The vibrating of his phone begged for his attention as he rounded the reception area of the crime lab. Looking to his phone he found it flashing a half dozen missed calls.

Probably Tina, he shook his head as he returned the mobile to his hip. If Tina was mad about him working so many hours before, she'd be spitting hell fire by the time he finally closed this case. Sure, he'd managed to catch up with her the few minutes he'd taken to drive home, shower, and change clothes, but it couldn't really count as the effort she'd been pushing him to make as of late. To be quite honest though, he couldn't care much less how pissed off she became. Anyway, it wasn't like she was making an effort to be home more, why should he have to be the one to bend over backward? He'd been doing this job long before Tina had entered the picture, and he'd be doing it long after she was out of it. She knew exactly what she was stepping into the second she'd accepted his marriage proposal, if that's what one would call it. A split second turn into the Fifteen Minute Wedding Chapel didn't exactly count as a marriage proposal. Still, she'd willing taken the plunge, had been just as willing as he had been.

But, now… Thoughts kept tempting him, kept jumping track, kept scaring him. Second thoughts? Not exactly. Regrets? Not really. They were just…thoughts.

The relief he felt upon entering the empty break room, though, was enough to push those thoughts to the back of his mind. He only had one thing on his mind now. With the empty couch beckoning him, and his watch reminding him of his meeting with Chandler and Kao in an hour and a half, he resigned himself to the leather piece of furniture. Thirty minutes. He only needed thirty minutes.

"You know, no matter how many times you flip the switch on and off, I don't think the lights are going to come on. The electricity must be turned off," Brass shrugged as he watched Greg flip the light switch on and off several times in the kitchen. Shifting to catch what little light streamed in through the sliding glass door to his right he sifted through the mail that had been piled on the wooden surface. "There's at least three months of unpaid bills here."

"Well, that would do it," Greg offered as he moved further into the kitchen. Finding the garbage can under the sink he rummaged through the discarded crumpled up papers.

"Electric, gas, cable," the detective listed, "this guy hasn't paid a bill since Christmas."

"Looks like I have a few more to add to your collection," the CSI said pulling out a wad of crumpled papers. "Eviction notices, late payments… Looks like he was being stalked by creditors."

"What's that?" the detective pointed.

"What's what?"

"On the corner of the page. Is that blood?"

"What, are you a CSI now?" he flashed a glance to the man. It was a decent sized stain; how it had escaped his notice he wasn't sure. But, he would have noticed it regardless, he was sure of it.

"Hey, one of us has to get the job done," he shrugged, a twinkle in his eye, as he watched the criminalist pull out a swab and test the sample. A couple drops of phenolphthalein confirmed his suspicion. "It's blood," Greg nodded, his eyes returning to the trash receptacle.

"Anything else?"

"Yeah, I'd say," he nodded pulling out a wadded bunch of paper towels. The white sheets adorned with little yellow ducks had turned a deep shade of red, giving the aquatic fowl a crimson sea in which to swim.

"Now, that's a lot of blood."

"You think it's all his?"

"Hey, now that is your job," Brass raised his hands as he turned to face the living room. The sofa, ratty and worn, had been overturned, it's back now lying on the floor. The seat cushions had been thrown to the floor and now rested near the sliding glass doors. The entertainment center against the far wall had been emptied. The shelves contents, of which mainly consisted of DVDs and a few books, had been piled on the floor, for the most part haphazardly discarded. The only piece of furniture left relatively untouched was the coffee table, which sat nearly center to the mayhem that once was a living room.

Slowly, the detective let his eyes scan the scene. The mess seemed a little too tidy to him. Something was off.

"Hey Sanders, what do you make of this," he threw the question over his shoulder.

Greg stopped his searching and joined the detective, his eyes falling on the living room scene.

"Of what?"

"Well, I've seen houses get broken into and I've seen rooms dismantled. But this…" the detective shook his head, "this just seems a little too clean."

"I…I don't get it. Jim, the room is totally wrecked."

"Yeah, but look at how it's wrecked. When someone's looking for something, they're not thinking about where things go. They're throwin' things like Nolan Ryan, right and left, across the room, behind their backs, you know? I mean, that glass vase over there isn't even chipped."

"Okay, okay," the criminalist nodded picking up on where the detective was leading. "I see what you're saying, but…wait…are you saying you think this scene looks staged?"

"Hey, I don't know," the older man shrugged. "I'm just thinkin'. I'm gonna go check in on the others."

"Well, hey wait a second. Check this out," Greg stopped the man as he quickly turned toward the kitchen, motioning for the man to follow.

"What'd you find?"

"Knives come in a set of six or eight, right?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Well, I was thinking. I don't own a knife set, but I do know there's only one eight inch chef's knife in a set."

"Come on, Greggo. Get me to the point."

"That's exactly where I'm taking you. There's an extra knife here," he smiled as he revealed the opened drawer nearest the stainless steel sink. "And it doesn't match any other knife in the drawer. And like Sara says; if something doesn't feel right…well it probably isn't"

"So?"

"So, I swabbed it for blood," he smiled again showing the man the evidence. "We could have our murder weapon."

"Maybe the guy thought we'd never find the weapon if he kept it with him."

He watched then as Greg began sifting through the debris in the living room. Casting a look out the sliding glass doors the detective could see the sun starting to lighten the sky. They'd already been on scene nearly an hour. Slowly he made his way around the detritus of Ted Goggle's life and headed toward the back of the house where the bedrooms were located. Whether the chaos was Goggle's attempt to throw the police for a loop, or whether it was the doing of a second suspect, he wasn't sure. He just knew he was dizzy from the circles in which the case seemed to be sending him. He also knew if he didn't get out of that house soon, he'd most likely suffer his first real psychotic break.

"Hey, Gil," he stopped in the doorway of the master bedroom. "I'm headed out to talk to the neighbors. Cops are posted at the door."

The criminalist nodded intent in his own search for evidence. The room in which he stood hadn't escaped the whirlwind of activity that had breezed through before they'd arrived on scene. The full-sized bed, positioned on the far right wall of the room, was disheveled, the sheets rumpled and thrown to the floor, the mattress itself sat helter-skelter on the box springs. The closet was a mess of abandoned and emptied shoe boxes and clothes ripped from their hangers. The dresser of drawers sat catawampus in the corner opposite the closet near the left side of the bed. The drawers had been dumped of all their contents and sat half open in their place.

"Hey Gil, I've got some bloody clothes," Catherine said interrupting the silent chaos consuming the man, her eyes glued to the bag in her hand. "Looks like arterial spray if I've ever seen it," she held up the paper bag in which she had stuffed the garments. Receiving no response from the man, she quickly scanned the room, finding the man deep in stare down with the chest of drawers across the room. "Gil?"

"Come here and look at this. This is all wrong."

Carefully stepping over the debris, she joined her partner across the room.

"What is?"

"What?" he asked responding with a slightly skittish jump. When had she crossed the room?

"What's all wrong?" she furrowed her brow in concern.

"The drawers, they're all wrong. Look at them. Who would take the drawer out, dump the contents, and then put the drawer back on its track?"

Together, the two stood silent, their eyes never leaving the object in question.

"You wanna throw me a bone here, Gil? 'Cause, I'm not seeing it."

"When you open a drawer and use your hands to empty it, all the clothes wind up piled haphazardly, most of them coming unfolded, right?"

"Okay..." she leaned into the words.

"Look at the clothes, at least half of them are still folded, and evenly stacked. It's like the drawers were just turned upside down," he demonstrated.

"Well, if that's the case…" Catherine nodded in understanding.

"Why would someone take the time to put the drawers back in place? It doesn't make sense."

"Did you find any prints?"

The man nodded. "Found plenty, but the chances of them belonging to anyone other than Ted Goggle? And we'd expect to find his prints."

"Yeah, I guess there's no crime against ransacking your own house."

"What'd you find?" Grissom pointed to the paper bag still hanging in the female's hand.

"Clothes… from the bottom of the hamper? They're covered in blood. Come on, Gil."

"Hey guys," Greg entered the conversation from the doorway. "We missed something outside."

"What's that Greg?" Grissom diverted his attention from the woman beside him.

"Brass found a pair of gloves in the bushes," he held up the plastic bag. "I'll get them to Wendy have her swab the insides for epithelials."

"Good," Grissom nodded turning to collect his kit. "What else did you get?"

"Found some bloody paper towels in the garbage," he shrugged stepping aside as Catherine crossed the room and attempted to pass by. He watched her head toward the front of the house, waiting for the right moment to spring the news. "I also found a knife." He smiled as the news brought her to a dead stop and forced her to turn sharply in order to face him. "It'd been washed, but there was definitely blood on it. Found evidence of blood in the sink drain, too."

"So he cleaned the primary scene, but got sloppy when he got home?" Catherine raised the rhetorical question.

"Well, we don't know for sure it's the Harris family's blood on the blade. Hey Catherine," Grissom poked his head into the hallway, "I'm sorry, I need your eyes again."

Slightly taken aback by the man's apologetic nature, she strode back into the bedroom joining him in gazing into the closet.

Greg, letting his curiosity get the better of him, joined them.

"What are we looking out? These clothes thrown around too neatly, too?" she turned her gaze to Grissom.

"No, it's not that," the entomologist shook his head. "It's that blue shirt," he cocked his head stooping to pick the garment from the pile.

"Wow," Greg responded with wide eyes as he took in the name on the tag, "that's a really nice shirt."

"Kind of sticks out like a sore thumb in the ensemble of white and khaki," Catherine looked over the garment. "Paul Fredrick."

"Those shirts are like sixty bucks a pop, at least," Greg shook his head shifting his attention back to the closet. "Most of the shirts here are shirts you can buy at any department store," he shrugged. "Paul Fredrick's like that one have to be custom ordered."

"What is Ted Goggle doing with such a nice shirt?" Catherine raised the question.

"He took it from Frank Harris's closet," Grissom spoke matter-of-factly. "He had a full Paul Fredrick wardrobe."

"So, is this another one for your self actualization theory?" Catherine asked. "Maslow's hierarchy of needs was it?"

"What Ted Goggle wants to become Frank Harris?" Greg knitted his brow.

"How close are Nick and Sara to being done?" Grissom asked as he bagged the shirt for evidence.

"Well, I checked in with them about an hour ago, and then just before I came in here. They were in the same place both then and now. The office is a real mess. They'll be a while," Catherine shook her head.

"Greg you've got everything?"

Silently the young man nodded, his eyes still taking in the closet. "Uh Grissom, he pointed. "Did you notice those pants?"

"What pants?"

He watched as Greg crouched and picked up a pair of custom tailored black slacks. It was another garment in stark contrast to the pale browns and khaki that comprised the social worker's wardrobe.

"Another pair of Frank Harris's?" Catherine asked.

"Well, Ted Goggle hasn't paid any of his bills for the past three months, I have a feeling he's not the kind of guy who can really afford to blow his paycheck on a two hundred dollar pair of pants," Greg shrugged.

"Frank Harris, on the other hand, wouldn't have a problem dropping that kind of money," Grissom nodded.

"This guy is proving to be one giant sick-o," Catherine shook her head.

"Yeah, well let's hope we find him before he makes anymore rash decisions," Grissom nodded gathering his kit and what little evidence he could gather. "I'll meet you guys at the car," he stopped in the hall motioning toward the room in which Nick and Sara were busy sifting through the knee deep stacks of paper. "Hey guys, we've got what we can."

"Well, we're nowhere near done here," Sara shook her head, her eyes trained on the papers in her hand. "We'll stay here and finish?" she cast a questioning glance toward Nick then back to their boss.

"Yeah," Nick nodded turning his own attention to Grissom. "What'd you guys get?"

"Well, Greg found a knife, could be our murder weapon; and Catherine found a set of bloody clothes," he shrugged.

"That's convenient isn't it?" Sara lifted her eyes to meet her boss's gaze.

"You guys getting anything?"

"A lot of bank statements, a lot of case files…" Nick shook his head. "Nothing overtly suspicious. Everything you'd expect to find in a social worker's office."

"Well, I'll see you guys back at the lab," he nodded leaving them to their search.

The office was left in shambles like the rest of the house but on a grander scale. It was a mess in every sense of the word. Similar to the office Frank Harris had, though on a much smaller scale, book cases lined the right hand wall. A sofa sat propped against the wall nearest to the door, the cushions of which had been thrown across the room. Papers were scattered, covering the floor. Books from the shelves were strewn across the room. Nick quickly got back to work busying himself at the desk sitting parallel to the far wall.

"So, I haven't heard," Sara spoke up from her seat in front of the sofa, breaking the silence, yet keeping her focus on her own search.

"Hmm?" Leave it to Sara to want to chit chat.

"What'd you get from Emily Harris?"

Yep, leave it to Sara.

He didn't answer right away. In all honesty, he wasn't sure how to answer, seeming as the blockage that was a softball sized lump seemed to pop up in his throat and chest at the mere mention of her name preventing the formation of words. Silently, for what felt like an eternity, he sifted through papers, hoping to find the answer to the question or to just ignore it completely.

"Nick?"

Yeah not that easy when Sara Sidle's on the case, he grimaced realizing he'd need to answer now.

"Oh…uh…not a lot really," he managed to say. "She was…pretty tired."

"Oh," she nodded.

"Yeah, they're…uh…keeping her on some pretty hefty pain meds," he nodded making his way around to the front of the desk. Crouching down, using the desk for support, he began sifting through more of the detritus. "Hey check it out," he held up the object of interest.

In his hand he held a wooden picture frame holding a single photo of Emily Harris. It was the only photo, let alone anything of personal value and unrelated to business, to be found in the room.

"Well, I think I just found the case files for the Harris adoptions," Sara said crossing the small room to stand by Nick. "I thought we had everything? Didn't you look over them? You know, he was charging an arm and a leg for his services. Way above the average adoption fees. What do you think he was doing with all that money?"

"Yeah, I don't know," Nick shrugged turning his attention to the paper shredder sitting atop the trash can just to the right of the desk. It had been the only thing that had managed to stay upright in the fiasco of papers and books. "Hey, Sara, you think he was trying to get rid of something?" he lifted the machine from plastic trash bin.

"What, trying to cover his tracks? Who isn't?"

"True," he nodded. "Our document guys will have a load of fun piecing this stuff back together," he rifled through the shredded mass. "Hey, check this out."

"What?"

"I think I've got part of a check stub here," he took a closer look at the machine. "Damn, the thing's jammed. Hand me my multi-purpose tool, would ya? I need a Phillips."

Sara quickly complied, handing her partner the needed tool from his kit. Carefully, Nick unscrewed the top cover of the machine revealing the inner workings of the device and with relative ease managed to recover the crinkled piece of paper.

"It's not shredded," Sara knitted her brow.

"Nah, the thing got jammed before the check hit that part."

"So, what'd you get?"

"It's a check made out to Ted Goggle, signed by a Cathy Hampton," he shrugged handing over the document. "It's for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars."

"That's a lot of money."

"What kind of person throws away money like that?"

"Someone with blood on their hands?"

"Maybe he was running a bogus adoption program through is back yard," Nick shrugged. The idea sounded completely insane, even to him. Still, it really wasn't all that far fetched. He'd definitely heard of things like that going down. Kids being sold in a black market sort of deal, parents unable to pay heinous adoptions fees becoming desperate, paying lower fees to the wrong people, it wasn't unheard of.

"Well, I've got a stack of case files here we can use to confirm that theory," Sara smiled laying the stack of folders on the desk.

"Where'd you get those?"

"Under the couch," she pursed her lips into a sly smile.

"Hiding place of choice these days. You up for some breakfast?" Nick offered a smile in return.

"You buying?" her smile broadened, her eyes exuding an eagerness and excitement.

"Well, since you're supplying the morning paper how can I resist?" he laughed flashing his hundred watt smile. It was a flash, quick as lightning, but he was there. The old Nick.

It'd been a while since Sara had seen him. He didn't come around as often as he used to. Ever since… Old Nick had been harder to bring to the surface. It was at that moment, that brief glimpse into the past, that she realized just how much she missed that Nick, the old Nick, the Nick before.

Silently they gathered their gear, packing their kits, stowing their cameras.

The sun was just breaching the horizon as they walked to the Denali. The air was already starting to warm, to become humid. It was going to be a cloudy morning, the sky threatening rain already.

After securing the scene, Nick climbed into the driver's seat of the Denali he'd driven to the scene, started the vehicle and turned to his passenger. "What are you in the mood for?"

"Pancakes?" she shrugged fastening her seatbelt.

"Pancakes it is," he nodded steering the Denali away from the curb.

They'd found what they needed. The case was almost closed tight.

Now if they could just find their suspect.