A/N: Thank you all for your patience with this story. There are a lot of moving parts, people, and things happening in a short amount of time. Again, thank you and any and all reviews, comments are appreciated.

Ch. 4: Who Was Born in a House Full of Pain

GIL

March 5, 2011

Los Angeles, CA

He'd studied people his entire life. There were three factors that determine behavior: biology, psychology, and socialization. The first: biology. That included genetics and predisposition. He had been predisposed to–

His thoughts broke off as he saw the skyline of the city appear on the horizon. The sun was rising directly in front of him in the east. Coming up over the San Gabriel Mountains. Behind the mountains to the east was the Mojave Desert. To the northeast was the San Joaquin valley. And to the west of the mountains was his destination: Los Angeles. As he approached land, he could make out the tallest peaks, the tallest being Mount San Antonio, or what was commonly referred to as Mount Baldy or Old Baldy. Its elevation was over ten-thousand feet, and it was the highest point in Los Angeles County.

Aiming the bow directly toward the peak, he followed it the entire way toward land, knowing at the angle he was coming in, that it would take him directly to his destination of Marina Del Rey. It was the largest man-made small harbor in North America and home to nearly 5,000 boats. His boat was about to call the port home as he neared the harbor roughly two hours later after first spotting land.

In his hand was a coffee cup and he sipped on the coffee as he easily used one hand to slow the speed of the boat once he approached the marina. It was a no wake zone for obvious reasons, so he had to take it slow through the water as he steered past the other basins to the one that he was going to dock at, which was Basin E, all the way in the back of the marina. He'd been listening to music softly in the background, shuffling through a playlist that Sara had helped him create on the laptop.

As he looked around the marina, taking in the city that he hadn't seen in years, he heard the lyrics of the Marshall Tucker Band's "Can't You See".

~"I'm gonna take a freight train

Down at the station, Lord

I don't care where it goes—"~

It'd been decades since he last moored up a boat in the marina and it had changed over the years. A lot more foot traffic and restaurants and hotels than he remembered, but it felt oddly good to be back. He eased the boat into the slot, reversed the forward motion to halt the boat and then put it in neutral as he headed out of the cabin. As he made his way to the bow he tossed over a few fenders and then grabbed the bow line at the front of the boat and quickly tossed it to hook a dock cleat first. Once he had it wrapped around it in a figure 8 a few times he flipped the line expertly with his wrist to get a one-half hitch around one side of the cleat and then tied it off on the boat cleat.

~"Gonna climb a mountain

The highest mountain

I'll jump off, nobody gonna know—"~

Then went to the aft did the same with two spring lines, and then to the stern to do the same with the stern mooring line. Three points of mooring. He had no idea if that was what it was called or not, but it was what he referred to as the proper way of mooring a boat; once it was done he went through the routine of maintenance check which included the amount of fuel he had, oil, any damage and repairs he'd made or would have to make, turning everything off, cleaning up, and then locking the door behind him as he left with a overnight bag in hand.

~"Can't you see, whoa, can't you see

What that woman, Lord, she been doin' to me—"~

Shouldering the bag, he slipped on his sunglasses and started walking. He knew where he was headed and had walked or biked the way many times in his youth. There were plenty of buses, or taxis, and he could have rented a scooter or bike but preferred to walk it instead. It would give him time to think. Getting to Pacific Avenue, he headed north along Venice Beach towards Santa Monica.

~"Can't you see, can't you see

What that woman, she been doin' to me—"~

There were plenty of places to stop and rest or eat along the way, but he was in no mood to take a break as his legs kept walking as the sun grew higher in the sky. Despite it being a twenty-minute drive, it was almost a two-hour walk, but the sun felt good, the breeze was coming in off the ocean, and he had a lot on his mind and an urge in the pit of his stomach.

It wasn't his usual urge. He wasn't itching to see blood spilled on his hands just yet. It was a new urge, one that had grown over the years and had hit its peak while living a life on the ocean. A need that grew in his gut and gnawed at his control, burned in his mind, and made his hand twitch and shake since it'd been a day since his last drink.

~"I'm gonna find me a hole in the wall

I'm gonna crawl inside and die

'Cause my lady, now

A mean ol' woman, Lord

Never told me goodbye—"~

He didn't need water to drown in because he'd already done in at the bottom of a whiskey crate. Not a bottle, but a whole crate. His supply had run dry a day ago. It was both a blessing and curse. He needed to ease up on his drinking, or stop altogether, but at the same time he'd really done himself a disservice as it was now the only way he knew how to function. He wanted a drink. He wanted one when he awoke in the morning to an empty bed. He wanted one as he drew in his sketchbook. He wanted one as he got lost in thought and paced over the deck of the boat.

And he wanted one when he finally decided it was time to go back to sleep. It was the only way he could sleep anymore. It had gotten better before Sara left but then so much worse after she was gone. Then, the lies started.

~"Can't you see, ohh, can't you see

What that woman, Lord, she been doin' to me

Can't you see, can't you see

What that woman, Lord, she been doin' to me—"~

Lies that his drunken mind had told him was the truth when he knew damn well that they weren't. Lies that he believed due to his own guilt at Sara's distress and the situation she had to put herself in now in order to hopefully gain her life back. He should have never asked her to go on the run with him. It wasn't right. She didn't deserve to live through that fear.

He felt no fear, so he hadn't even realized how bad it'd gotten for her until it was nearly too late. She had her bags packed, hand on the door, and she had been ready to walk out on him. Shaking his head at himself and his own blind ignorance and clearly, ego, he felt a burning ignite as he spotted a bar.

~"I'm gonna buy a ticket, now

As far as I can, ain't a-never comin' back—"~

Putting one foot in front of the other, he passed the bar and then the liquor store, and kept his eyes forward as he kept walking. Pacific Avenue turned into Neilson Way and he knew he was at the midway point. He could cross over to Main Street but decided to take a left and head over to Barnard Way that would turn into Ocean Avenue when he crossed into Santa Monica. It also went along the beach, and he had a yearning to take in the view of the palm trees and ocean instead of the buildings that had been his view for the past couple miles.

~"Ride me a southbound

All the way to Georgia, now

Till the train run out of track—"~

If he had his camera out, he'd be taking pictures as he documented the changes, he'd spotted the changes of his childhood stomping grounds. Cafe's, surfer shops, and a mix between Hispanic, Korean, and Italian cuisines and vegan bars—what the hell was a vegan bar?—replaced the smokey jazz and blues bars, punk rock clubs, roller discos, and the pizza parlors he remembered from his youth. The neighborhood he used to call home was now referred to as "Dogtown" thanks to the rise of the skateboarding culture that had grown in Santa Monica from just skateboarding in the empty backyard swimming pools to abandoned amusement parks and eventually into skate parks.

~"Can't you see, ohh, can't you see

What that woman, Lord, she been doin' to me

Can't you see, can't you see

What that woman, she been doin' to me—"~

Turning back east at Colorado Avenue, he knew he was almost there when he crossed over the old, abandoned train tracks of the Santa Monica Air Line. It'd been known once upon a time as part of the old Pacific Electric of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Now, it was just a train rail that he walked on that led him to the street he grew up on. Balancing on the rail, he walked along it as he headed up past 5th street. Once he got to 11th street, he stepped off the rails and made an immediate right turn.

~"Oh, Lord, can't you see, whoa, can't you see

What that woman, Lord, she been doin' to me—"~

He crossed the street at the light and walked into the neighborhood of what used to be single family homes, some two-story but most were bungalows with patches of green grass in the front yards that were enclosed with white fences, backyards and single car garages. A lot had changed since his parents bought the white two-story house in the late fifties. In the sixties and seventies when he was running around the streets, he remembered more backyards and trees than the current cement and cars. He used to be able to see all the way to the beach from the top window that was his parents' room. Across the street from the window now was a white building that looked as if it housed condos. The same with the building next to that one, and the one next to the house.

~"Can't you see, whoa, can't you see—"~

There were more condos and townhomes, even a business being built right next door, then there were yards. His mother had refused to sell despite the many offers she'd been given for the property. She said that no one was going to build an apartment where her home stood as long as she was alive. Now that she wasn't, and he owned it, he had been renting it out to various families over the years. The last tenant moved out a few months ago and it was now vacant. Walking past the California sycamore and various other plants in the front yard and up the walkway, he took it not to the front door but around to the backyard.

Since his father had been a botanist, the yard was full of vegetation; it was like walking through a bicentennial garden of plants and flowers, trees and hedges. There was a white fence that enclosed the front yard and a gate that he opened in order to walk alongside the house to the backyard. He immediately spotted the overgrown garden where his mother used to plant vegetables.

It looked like the last tenants who had rented the property hadn't taken care of the garden and had let it get out of hand. The same could be said for the brown patches of grass. Looking up, he spotted behind the garage, past the white fence and palm trees, a beige wall with a gated window. It was the back of the apartment building that had been built. He shook his head and went to the backdoor as he pulled out his keys.

~"What that woman

She been doin' to me."~

The tile floor cracked under his shoes as he entered the backdoor into the kitchen. Sliding his sunglasses off, he clipped them onto his shirt as he looked around the room. The window over the sink had no blinds and the sunlight was pouring in. The dust lingering in the air made everything appear in a hazy fog. Running his finger over the kitchen counter, he saw the line in the dust he'd made as he listened to the house. It was quiet.

Despite owning the home, he never stepped foot in it since he left it many years ago for college. Turning around, he shut the backdoor and locked it. It was empty, from the cabinets to the rooms. After his mother's death, he had everything removed and either tossed or donated before he started renting it out. He didn't keep anything for himself. What he'd wanted he'd taken with him when he left. His books, vinyl records, clothes, and everything in the garage; not much else. His father's ties were donated along with his mother's clothes and jewelry, and all the furniture.

Standing in the kitchen of his old childhood home, he was taken back to his thoughts earlier on the boat. Biology and predisposition.

His father Arthur had been a narcissist sadist. That was evident in what he remembered from his childhood and what he knew after his father's death. He'd told Sara that he could be a lot like his father in ways: quiet, orderly, obsessive, and even sadistic.

"You're not a sadist."

He heard Sara's voice in his head as he removed the bag from his shoulder and tossed it on the floor as he pocketed his keys. Maybe he wasn't a sadist in the traditional sense of the word, and he definitely wasn't a sexual sadist, but he couldn't deny that the things he'd done weren't sadistic on some level. He wasn't blinded to his own methodology. He could be brutal and merciless.

"You know, it's not fair, Grissom. You know more about signatures than most of them put together," Nick had told him during the course of the Syd Goggle case when he'd been kicked off it.

They were in the locker room and he was grabbing his stuff out of the locker.

"That may have been the problem," Catherine had interjected as he looked over at his team.

At the time, his team had no idea that the reason he knew more about signature serial killers than anyone else was, even the FBI, was because he himself was a serial killer. He wasn't a signature killer, at least, he never thought of himself as one, but he understood them all too well. And, he had done what they had done without the sexual component. He was never driven by sex to do anything, least of all murder.

He passed through the dining room where there used to be a small table and China cabinet. The China set had been in his family for generations. It ended with his mother. He didn't want it. The entire set wasn't there anyway. There had been several broken dishes over the years. Besides, every time he had looked at it all he remembered were the dinners. Sitting at the dining table between both his parents. Neither spoke a word. Neither signing a word between them.

Silence.

Under the silence was an eerie feeling. Unspoken pain and anger. But mostly, fear.

His father sat in his black or grey suit and colorful tie—a tie his mother had bought him—and his mother in her colorful dress. All he saw was the greys. In his mind, the room was grey. His mother had worn colors, bright colors. Floral prints. The walls held her paintings. All colorful.

He couldn't remember the colors. His father had drained the life out of that room. Drained the life out of both of them. In that room, all he could remember was his father in his dark grey and black suits sitting at the table. Jaw tense as he quietly ate. As they waited for him to eat before they took a bite. That's right. He forgot that. They had to wait. If he was happy with dinner, then they could eat. If not…He remembered waiting. His heart pounding in his chest; holding his breath and looking at his mother.

Her face was tight. Eyes on the food she'd spent hours making for him so that he'd have a hot meal when he got home. Then the relief on her face, her shoulders dropping as the weight left her as she picked up her fork or spoon.

Between them, he looked from her to his father, and still he waited. His heart pounded in his chest. He wasn't afraid. It was from anger. He was angry. Then…he did something. Closing his eyes, he remembered. He broke his plate. He grabbed the knife and stabbed it through the plate. Shattering it.

The sound of it, the breaking of the nice China plate, had startled his father but not his mother. She had no idea what he'd done until his father told him to clean it up and then go to his room. His mother had just looked at him, looked at the broken plate, and went back to eating with tears in her eyes.

He'd made her cry.

He was nine, and that was the last dinner he ate with both his parents. The next day, his father died.

First factor: biology.

Second factor: psychology.

Dr. Philip Kern couldn't rule him a psychopath, but he knew that he had tendencies. Forethought was a mark of a psychopathic killer. Planning. He planned everything. And, he was never sorry. He would never apologize for killing or for his behavior. He knew what he had done. He knew what he was. Had known for an extremely long time.

Going into the living room, he stood and looked at the wall and the space in front of it where the couch had been. The coffee table. The television. There had been a roll top desk in the corner and table with the record player by the window against the far wall. This room had color. He remembered how orange it'd appeared that day his father died. Sunlight mixing with the colors of the room made it all appear orange.

Now, it had no color. The walls had been painted white over the years. The carpet had been removed in favor of the wooden floorboards. Easier to feel vibrations. Looking out the picture window, he saw a car park across the street and a woman got out of the driver's side. She walked around the car and he saw that she was getting a child out of the backseat. Together they walked hand-in-hand up the steps into the building.

Whatever his psychology, it made him what he was today. And he liked the man he was. He was someone he understood very well, though parts of himself were still a mystery, the parts that weren't were accepted. He had accepted this fate of his, this path, decades ago.

How he thought and viewed the world was the only reason why he had no desire to be a killer of innocent people. Like that woman and her child, he could never hurt them while a psychopathic killer could. Whether it had been his faith, or the fact that he could relate to the victims and not the aggressors, his mind and soul, or all of it, all he knew was that deep down he didn't want to hurt anyone who wasn't a bad person.

Then, finally, the third factor: socialization.

Going up the stairs, he entered the hallway and had the urge to hug the walls, pull out a flashlight, and go though it room by room like a crime scene.

Socialization. Life experiences.

He remembered not wanting to kill anyone but his father until after his father's death. His father had died not by his hand but by the heat and a bad heart. He shook his head as he thought about that. Had been denied in his desire to kill his father make him turn that desire onto Father Thomas? Again, he had no idea. Maybe, maybe not. Had Father Thomas not been a child molester and rapist, he might not have ever wanted to kill anyone.

He couldn't say. However, it had been there before his father's death. The stabbing of the China plate and the urge that had filled him was evidence of that. All he knew was that after his father's death, he had become obsessed with death. And, he had seen the change in their lives afterwards. Despite his mother's neglect, their lives were better. Her life was better. The violence had stopped. With his obsession with death came his desensitization to killing as he killed the animals that he experimented on to understand.

Father Thomas's abuse built his desire to kill as he fantasized about killing him for years before he actually went through with it. Once he did, the sense of justification he'd felt afterwards made him want to do it again. It all fed into each other. Life experiences, how he took it all in, made sense of it all, mixed that in with his genetics and he got…whatever he was now.

All three factors make a person. And it was nearly impossible to change.

This wouldn't stop. How he acted, his thoughts, his understanding, wouldn't change. It was too late. He wanted what he wanted.

Coming to the first door on the left was his old bedroom; he pushed open the door and stepped inside. The floorboards creaked under his steps as he looked around the four walls and closet. The closet that hadn't held his clothes, but a dark room to develop his pictures. Pulling the closet door open, he tilted his head at the size. It was tiny, but for a child, it had been huge. Huge enough to step in and close the door.

The door shut behind him and stood for a moment as he looked up and saw a light bulb in the socket. Not having to reach up, he pulled the chain and the small closet lit up. Regretting that decision, he turned it off and stood in the dark.

He remembered that there had been black-and-white photos hanging on clothespins around the closet, pictures of rats and birds, and fish. All dead. Some he'd killed, some he didn't. All victims of his experiments. His search for all the why's and how's he had in the world. He saw the development of the film, heard the dripping of the cleanser from the photos, and the smell of the toner. He had felt nothing as he stared at the pictures. Numb. He had become so numb. He couldn't feel a thing, not even when he killed the animals.

He'd been ignored. Left alone. Denied as he had to close himself off. Shut himself inside a dark room with a red light. Looking at and connecting with death. His art.

Letting out a sigh, he saw a white light of sun coming in from under the door. In his head he heard footsteps. A breath behind him, covered by a shaky hand, as he hid. The footsteps were pacing, up and down the hallway over the floorboards. The bedroom door opened as the footsteps grew closer to the closet door. His other hand joined the one against his mouth and it covered his nose. He was trying to not make a sound.

The door opened and the light shined inside. It was his mother. She frowned; confused and annoyed. Standing in front of him, she signed /Why? Gilbert, why did you break the plate?/

Removing his hands from his face, he signed back /I was angry. It was too quiet. /

/That's no excuse. That was my mother's China set. Why—/

/I wanted to. I hate him. I wanted to stab—/ He stopped signing as the thought entered his head. He wanted to stab his father with the knife. Not the plate.

He reached out and opened the door as the memory faded from his mind as he stepped back out into the bedroom. Shutting the door, he left the bedroom. The second door on the left was the bathroom. He walked past it and stopped at the last door directly in front of him at the end of the hallway. The floor creaked under his foot as he stepped back and then forward, making the noise again. Hearing it echoing in his head and in the hallway. It was loud.

How could his parents not hear him sneaking down the hallway? Or had they? Did they know that he did that often? Most nights when he couldn't sleep from the noise. The yelling of his father's voice. The beatings. Had they not cared that he heard or that he saw?

"I think maybe the alcohol is why you're not sleeping. You know, it can disturb your sleeping pattern, leading to sleep disturbances. Sleep disturbances cause night terrors, which contribute to sleepwalking."

He stopped sketching as he looked up at her over his glasses. He was sleepwalking and having night terrors? Since when? "...What?"

"Gil...you've been sleepwalking," Sara told him as she put the book she'd been reading down on the table. It was a psychology book.

His head wrinkled in confusion. "I have?"

He knew he was tired during the day, having felt like he hadn't slept a wink when he obviously had. Or at least thought he had. He had no recollection of not sleeping.

"Yeah. You have," she told him. "I read that it can be caused by stress. And alcohol is also a contributing factor. Did you ever sleepwalk as a child?"

He shrugged, saying, "If I did, I wouldn't know."

"Your parents never mentioned it? Because, usually it's hereditary or if done in adulthood, it was done in childhood as well."

Pushing the bedroom door open, he walked into the empty room that used to be his parents and stopped in the middle of it as he turned and looked around. He had no memory of ever sleepwalking as a child, but that didn't mean he hadn't. Sleepwalking mostly affected children between the ages of four and eight years of age. There were many reasons for it to happen and most were innocent and didn't mean anything was wrong in the home, but he couldn't help but consider that the reason he'd done it, if he'd done it, was due to an unsafe home environment.

Lack of enough sleep, irregular sleep patterns, and being overly tired due to a noisy sleep environment and stress. All were reasons for someone to sleepwalk. Children who experienced sleepwalking were also more likely to have night terrors. It was rare in adulthood unless it happened in childhood.

Sara had been right. He had been stressed and alcohol was a contributing factor. And he knew it hadn't been the first time. It had only been the first time she herself had been with him when it had happened. He had suffered nightmares, and sometimes night terrors, all throughout his life. Waking with a freight train of pain in his head was when it got really bad. He would wake in a sweat and be unable to breathe with his heart pounding in his chest.

Now, he wondered if the times it happened when he was a child was due to what happened in the room that he was currently standing in. Just because he hadn't been abused didn't mean he hadn't been abused. Witnessing it was enough to cause damage.

"If we study his past," he told Catherine during the Syd Goggle case, "then we can predict his future."

He could study his own past to predict his future. This was his past and he knew where it had led him. In order to get ahead of Nate Haskell, he had to know his past. Haskell had even said so himself as he ranted to the news reporters. Someone had to do what he did in order to understand him.

Well, he did what Haskell did, and he knew how to think like him. Ultimately, it would lead to him finding him. And thanks to the notes they had passed back-and-forth while in prison together, he knew where to start. Like him, Haskell had grown up in Los Angeles. They had the same stomping grounds. Breathed the same air around the exact same time.

Haskell had made so many mistakes already. He had told him about his first victims, because for Nate Haskell, he never forgot his first. And the first kills were always the most damning as they were the most personal. The ones that hit close to home.

His first had been Father Thomas; his old priest. He had a connection to the murder. He could have been found out right then had the right investigation been conducted.

Leaving the bedroom, he went back down to the living room, walked through the dining room and into the kitchen where he grabbed the bag. He locked up the house and left the way he came.

He didn't have to go very far to find a car rental service. On the next block over, at the light, he spotted two. Choosing the first one he arrived at, he walked in and rented himself a car in the name of Robert Waters. His identity as Leonard McCartney had been burned from the moment he left South America. He left nothing behind, not even a bank account. The only thing left that linked him to McCartney was the boat and a P.O. Box.

After showing the man behind the counter his ID and insurance card, and giving him a credit card, he accepted the forms, signed his name, and the agreement was arranged in less than ten minutes. He chose a midsize SUV with the best cargo space available, which ended up being the 2010 Ford Flex. It was spacious, especially once he put the two rows of backseats down flat. There were all kinds of storage built into the side panels. It was perfect. He would need all the space he could get.

Driving first to the post office, he checked the P.O. Box in the name of Robert Waters and removed the package awaiting him. There was no name of the sender or the receiver, but he knew who it was from. Smiling as he took the package, he went out to the truck and got in. After he started it, he pulled the folding pocket knife out of his pocket and used it to open the package. Two items were pulled out: a signed copy of Ray Langston's book and a flashdrive.

He hadn't asked for a flashdrive so he wondered what Heather had gotten for him to review. Tossing both on the passenger seat, he pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward Colorado Avenue and went a few blocks back down to a self-storage facility across from Memorial Park. He'd literally made a circle around five blocks of his house. Everything he needed in Santa Monica was never too far away, one of the reasons he had always enjoyed walking and biking around as a kid. Nothing was ever too far away.

He used the code he'd been given when he'd called on the phone while driving from the car rental to the post office and watched as the gate to the storage unit opened. This was the third storage unit that he had to rent out over the years. The boxes in the unit had started off being in a Los Angeles public storage space until it closed in 1992 after the L.A. riots. Then, in 2002, he had to move the boxes to this unit from a public storage facility a little further north due to the building being bulldozed and rebuilt.

Preferring an outdoor unit so he could just drive up to it, he had gotten the last one available which was also the unit at the very far end of the lot closest to the fence that kept out trespassers. It also offered up the most privacy, which he really didn't need but now it was welcomed. He didn't see anyone around as he pulled up and parked.

Getting out, he opened the padlock using the three-digit code and was rewarded as the lock opened. Lifting the garage door up, he opened the storage unit and stepped inside as he peered over the boxes, looking for a specific month and year. Every case he ever worked from his time as a coroner to a CSI was in these boxes. He made copies of everything, kept photos of everyone he cut open in the morgue and every dead body he investigated the murder of or worked the missing person's case of; it didn't matter. Every case was filed.

The word Sara had used to describe him once was "obsessive". He couldn't deny that fact about himself. He was meticulous and a collector of many things, and the evidence he collected and hoarded was a stark reminder of how obsessive he actually was. The box was marked "Unsolved: D. Haskell, 1976". The words, the name, the box was right in front of his face. Haskell.

"Son-of-a-bitch," he said as he grabbed the box and pulled it free out from under the stack of boxes on top of it. Looking at the year again, he sighed as he tried to remember the case, but he couldn't.

His memory was outstanding, but not superhuman. It had been too long. 1976. He had still been a coroner with the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office. He was twenty years old and in his final year at UCLA. After giving it some thought, nothing happened in 1976 other than the Dodgers losing, again, and him graduating from college. It had been a quiet year.

Taking the box to the truck, he tossed it into the back and then went back into the unit and searched through several more boxes, grabbing every one that had the same year: 1976. It didn't matter if it was a box full of personal items or ones full of case notes, if it had the year printed on it, it went into the back of the truck's cargo area. Eight boxes in total.

Then he thought about Nate Haskell. He had said that his mother had died when he was eight years old. Remembering the words Haskell had written in the note to him, he recalled him mentioning that it was towards the end of the school year, right before summer break when his mother would be off work. The police records showed that Haskell had been born in February of 1960. That would place his mother's death in 1968.

Though he'd been a teenager in 1968, he had boxes from that year full of pictures, notebooks, and newspaper articles and magazines that he'd kept. Searching the boxes, he grabbed all the ones with 1968 and tossed them into the truck with the other boxes. There were only two of those.

1968 had been a hell of a year. Vietnam. The Cold War. The 1968 Civil Rights Act was passed. Both Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated, with Kennedy's death happening not too far away at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Riots and protests and unrest was everywhere. There had been a lot of chaos that year that brought a lot of change that was still being felt today. Even though he'd been eleven, twelve years old, he had been old enough to understand the anger and fear that had literally ignited his city, and the country, into flames.

At the end of one of the most violent years he could remember, he had been captivated by the Apollo 8 launch and listened intently to the coverage of it orbiting the moon on the radio. Then, in a special Christmas Eve telecast that went out worldwide, astronauts Frank Borman, Bill Anders and Jim Lovell read the first 10 verses from the "Book of Genesis."

Borman had gone last, ending with the verse: "And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called the Seas; and God saw that it was good." Borman then added: "And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas and God bless all of you — all of you on the good Earth."

He remembered his mother in tears and he suspected that the whole world had been crying. Though his eyes had been dry, he thought that the good people on the planet Earth would wake up on Christmas morning to something other than fear and violence and anger. They would wake up to hope.

Out from the ashes of 1968 came the counterculture of 1969; if not the year of love, then at least the summer of it. Woodstock. "Love not war." And the year that men walked on the moon. "One small step for man. One giant leap for mankind."

However, the year before, somewhere among all the chaos and flames, had been the birth of a serial killer by the name of Nate Haskell. The killer hadn't been born at birth, because just like him, it took the death of a parent to ignite the killer within and set him loose on the world. Hopefully the answers to finding that killer were in the boxes that were in the back of his truck.

Getting into the driver's seat, he started the engine and headed to a motel that he'd spotted on his walk that wasn't too expensive and got a single room. There was a communal kitchen with everything from a refrigerator and stove to a dishwasher. A laundry room. And his room had an attached bathroom with a standup shower, bed, and a desk with a chair and plenty of floor space. The manager handed him the key after giving him the "tour" and then told him about the pool and the complimentary breakfast for all guests from 6am to 9am every morning directly next door at the attached cafe.

Stuffing the key into his pants pocket he thanked the man before he dropped his bag onto the bed and then once the manager was gone, he headed out to his truck. All the rooms were on the ground floor, so he had no stairs to worry about, only the walking distance from the truck to the room and the ten boxes he had to carry.

As he reached the truck and opened the hatch, he heard someone pull up beside him to park. The driver and three others got out of the car' they were all young college aged students and obviously there for the beach. The license plate was from Nevada.

"Are you UNLV students?" he asked as he pointed to the plate. "Or WLVU?"

"WLVU," said the driver. "You from Nevada?"

"Las Vegas. I used to give guest lectures at Western Las Vegas University." He grabbed two boxes and gestured to the others as he said, "I tell you what, if you guys help me carry these to my room, I'd give each of you a hundred bucks."

"You're on," said one of the college guys who wore a fraternity shirt for Alpha Pi Omega as he reached into the back and grabbed two more boxes.

They followed him to his room and dropped the boxes on the floor. Digging into his wallet, he pulled out four crisp, hundred-dollar bills and handed it over. "Thank you."

The college students left the room, excited by the free money they just received, and he shut the door and locked it. He grabbed the box labeled "D. Haskell, 1976" and used his pocketknife to cut the tape off the side and flipped the lid off top of it. Pulling out the files and a notebook, he placed them on the desk and sat down.

In the first file he saw a photograph attached to an autopsy report. Dismemberment. He looked at the photo of the head that he'd paperclipped to the file as he faintly remembered taking it. Then he read the report that he'd compiled. Douglas Nathan Haskell had been a vacuum salesman and his body had been chopped up and dumped into dumpsters.

There was a notebook, a small one that could fit into a shirt or back pants pocket. Flipping it open, he read notes on the case that he'd taken. Douglas's wife Elaine had reported him missing. She had identified him after seeing his face on the news and in the paper. Elaine had said that he was going out to meet a potential client, a friend. Only note was "A.T. 1pm".

As he reread the report and over the notes, his memory started to wake up. It was starting to come back to him.

Los Angeles

1976

"This is Rodney Bingenheimmer and you're listening to Rodney on ROQ. Hey, I've got a new tune here and I'm giving you the first listen. Strap in your seatbelts kids, this one's gonna be a long ride at a little over seventeen minutes, here's the newest from Pink Floyd called "Dogs"."

His eyes roamed over the sidewalk that led into the LAPD department as Roger Waters' voice reached his mind as he got lost in thought.

~"You gotta be crazy, you gotta have a real need

You gotta sleep on your toes, and when you're on the street

You gotta be able to pick out the easy meat with your eyes closed—"~

Walking out of the police station he spotted the man he wanted to talk to: Detective Paul Logan. He had been assigned the dismemberment case of his John Doe. Getting out of his car, he leaned against the driver's door as he waited for Detective Logan to get near him before calling out, "Detective."

~"And then moving in silently, down wind and out of sight

You gotta strike when the moment is right without thinking—"~

Logan stopped walking as he lit a cigarette and eyed him through the haze of smoke. He sighed and pulled the cigarette out of his mouth as he stepped over to him. "If it isn't the nightwalker himself. I thought you only came out at night, Grissom. Catching some rays to darken up that skin of yours?" he asked as he stuck out his hand.

~"And after a while, you can work on points for style

Like the club tie, and the firm handshake

A certain look in the eye and an easy smile—"~

He eyed the hand extended out toward him like it was a foreign object before he realized the cop wanted him to shake it. Giving a tight grasp, he said, "Got a moment?"

"This about a body?"

"More like a head," he said as he shifted against his car.

That raised the detective's eyes in surprise. Logan took a moment to think before he pointed at him and said, "That's right, you got the poor guy that'd been dismembered. I swear, Grissom, craziest thing I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot in my day. What's your interest?"

~"You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to

So that when they turn their backs on you,

You'll get the chance to put the knife in—"~

His interest was that he wanted to find the man that did it and kill him. But he couldn't tell Logan that; instead, he took out some papers and showed it to him. Logan took the papers and huffed out a laugh before handing them back to him. "You're working on a P.I. license? You think you're Philip Marlowe. I got news for ya, kid, this isn't a book. You could get killed. Are you even carrying?"

He shook his head as he eyed Logan as he told him, "This is a case with no leads. All I want is the opportunity to find you one. Have you already kicked it to the back of your case drawer? It's been a month."

"First off, I got no case drawer. I've got a murder book. And yeah, the leads dried up and I got nothing but five new cases. Cigarette?" he asked as he offered the pack in his hand to him.

"I don't smoke."

Logan really laughed at him then and said, "If you workin' towards being a Private Dick, then you gotta do something to pass the time, kid."

"You pass the time by smoking; I do it by thinking," he told him.

~"You gotta keep one eye looking over your shoulder

You know it's going to get harder, and harder, and harder as you get older—"~

Detective Logan shook his head at him as he stuck the cigarette back in his mouth and took a long drag off it as he gave it some more thought. He was a good detective; having been on the force since he returned from Vietnam a few years ago. He'd been a "tunnel rat" and he's heard the stories and saw for himself the scars the man wore from his time in the war. He hadn't been lying when he said that had seen a lot in his time; and he was only thirty years old. "Alright, listen, this Haskell case—"

"Haskell? John Doe has a name?" he asked as anticipation filled his gut as he pulled out the notebook he'd bought specifically for this case. And a pencil he used for sketching.

"Yeah, and don't interrupt me again. As I was saying, it went cold the moment we realized he had the day off. He wasn't supposed to be anywhere trying to sell any vacuums on the day he disappeared. Yet, his wife said he was meeting a potential buyer. A friend. She had no idea who, other than on the calendar he wrote the initials A.T."

"And they had no clients or potential clients with those initials?"

"Bingo. So, we're assuming he was meeting a friend who was maybe starting a commercial cleaning business or had one. You know how many businesses there are in this county alone?" Logan asked. He went to answer, saying he could find out, when Logan cut him off saying, "That was rhetorical."

"Oh," he said as he shut his mouth. Thinking over what Logan had told him, he asked, "What did the phone records say?"

"If he was calling this A.T., it wasn't from his home phone and these salesmen don't have offices. They keep the prototypes with them."

He gave a nod as he wrote everything down and asked, "Haskell's first name?"

"Douglas. Douglas Nathan Haskell. Wife's Elaine."

He turned and grabbed the handle to open the door when Logan stopped him.

"Hey, uh, Grissom. I know you bookworm types don't like to carry, but this guy, whoever he is, killed a man and then chopped him into pieces. For the love of God, kid, get a gun."

Smiling, he opened the door as he told him, "I don't need a gun, but…uh, thanks." He nearly forgot to thank the man. Getting back into his car, he started it back up and the music kicked back in, and he heard the guitar solo that was unmistakenly David Gilmour as he pulled away from the curb.

~"And in the end you'll pack up and fly down south

Hide your head in the sand

Just another sad old man, all alone and dying of cancer—"~

Los Angeles

2011

~"And when you loose control, you'll reap the harvest you have sown

And as the fear grows, the bad blood slows and turns to stone—"~

The Eureka Janitorial Supply company in Los Angeles that Douglas Haskell worked for was surprisingly still in business. He remembered going there in 1976 and leaving with nothing, just like Detective Logan. There was no one with the initials A.T. that was a client of theirs or who ran a business they sold to, or a competitor.

Going to the communal kitchen, he made a pot of coffee and then went to the manager's office and walked to the desk where a woman had replaced the man he'd talked to earlier. Her name tag read "Megan". "Hello, Megan, I'm staying in room 2F. I was wondering, do you by any chance still have the Yellow Pages?"

"You mean the book?" she asked in surprise.

"Yeah," he said, knowing himself that it was a long shot.

Megan searched around behind the counter and her eyes widened in surprise as she pulled out the thick book and held it up. "We do. Lucky you."

He smiled as he took it from her and checked the year on it. 2009-2010. It was good enough. "Thank you."

~"And it's too late to lose the weight you used to need to throw around

So have a good drown, as you go down, all alone

Dragged down by the stone (stone, stone, stone, stone, stone)—"~

She smiled at him as he turned around and headed back to his room, but first he stopped by the kitchen and poured himself a cup of the coffee into a complimentary to-go foam cup. Shutting the door with his foot, he sat back down at the desk, tossed the book down, and sipped the coffee as opened up the laptop. Researching the Eureka company, he found that in 1972, the Eureka company launched the Sanitaire Red product line: commercial vacuums and the 'maid saver".

Leaning back in the chair, he thought about the details that Nate Haskell had written in his note to him…What had he written about his first male victim? Closing his eyes, he thought back to his time in prison as he visualized the cell. The white cell walls, the door and the slot that the note had been passed through to him by Officer Rahm. Unfolding it, he read it over. The words were blurred at first, then some of it came into focus as he thought of what he knew about the case.

Eureka on the uniform shirt. The vacuum had been red. Sanitaire had red vacuums. Commercial. Why come to a friend's house to sell them a commercial vacuum if not to sell to someone that you knew could use it?

"Came looking for my father."

He opened his eyes as he smiled as he grabbed his pencil and wrote what he remembered of the note down in the notebook. Janitorial supply houses bought and sold vacuums for hotels. Maid services. He grabbed the Yellow Pages phone book and flipped through the phone book and turned a page in the old notebook to a blank sheet as he picked up a pencil. Then, he made a list and made a lot of phone calls on the disposable phone he'd bought.

All the small business, maid and janitorial services, in Los Angeles started to add up, but he only focused on those that had been operating since, or had been in operation in the 1970's. Janitorial services, cleaning contractors, with over 30 years in business.

~"I gotta admit that I'm a little bit confused

Sometimes it seems to me as if I'm just being used—"~

It took time, but he finally sat back and looked down at the list of the total number of businesses:

30 years since 1979, there were 20.

35 years since 1974, there were 14.

40 years since 1971, there were 7.

50 years since 1961, there were 5.

60 years since 1951, there was only 1.

Digging into his bag, he pulled out an ID wallet and pocketed it into his jacket pocket. Then he grabbed the notebook and took it with him as he left the motel room.

~"Gotta stay awake, gotta try and shake off this creeping malaise

If I don't stand my own ground, how can I find my way out of this maze?—"~

Driving through the streets of Los Angeles, he headed back to where it all started: the Eureka company that Douglas Haskell had worked for when he'd been murdered. The sun was getting closer to setting and he frowned at the time, seeing it was after four in the afternoon. He knew the company was open until seven, but L.A. traffic was a bitch. It would take him at least an hour or two to reach the building.

The lights of the cars in front of him on the freeway, mixing with the lights of downtown Los Angeles, made him a little homesick for Las Vegas. Granted, California had been his home, having been born and raised there, but Vegas had become the city that had stolen his heart. He missed it. Mostly, he missed his team.

~"Deaf, dumb, and blind, you just keep on pretending

That everyone's expendable and no-one has a real friend—"~

It was getting late there too and soon they would be arriving at work at the crime lab, working on cases and solving crimes, putting perps behind bars where they belonged. Getting off the freeway, he was surrounded by business lights from the buildings that lined the streets of downtown L.A.. He also spotted the neon lights of the opening bars and nightclubs now that people were getting off work and the tourists were hitting the town, as the saying went.

He arrived at the building and found a parking spot in a lot behind the building. Walking around to the front, he took in the palm tree lined street, the cars going by on the road and the neon sign across from him that indicated that the bar was open. Feeling the need for a drink rose up in his throat, making his hand twitch, he grabbed the door to the single-story building with Eureka on the door and walked inside.

Behind the desk was a young man who stood and greeted him. "Welcome. We're about to close—"

He pulled out the ID wallet from his inside jacket pocket and flipped it open to show it to the clerk. "I'm Arthur Young, Private Investigator."

The clerk looked at the ID and badge that he'd had used since he was twenty years old and gave a nod. "What can I do for you?"

He pocketed the wallet as he leaned on the counter and asked, "I'm working an old cold case for a family friend. And, whether or not you can help me depends on if you still have records dating back to 1976."

The young man whose name was Carl, sighed as he gave that some thought. "Not in the computer, but I know that the owner keeps records in his office."

"He in?"

Carl was already picking up the phone as he told him, "Let me see. Sometimes he cuts out the back early."

He gave a nod as he pushed off the counter and walked around the lobby as he waited. Taking in the magazines on the table, the posters on the walls advertising the company's products over the years. He spotted the 1972 Sanitaire Red product line commercial vacuum and studied it as he heard Carl tell him, "Mr. Young, Mr. Arnold, the owner, will be right up."

"Thank you," he said without taking his eyes off the poster.

A moment later, he heard someone walking up to him and turned as the man greeted him as he held out his hand, "Steve Arnold. I'm the owner. How can I help you, Mr. Young?"

He shook his hand as he pointed to the poster and said, "I'm actually here because of this vacuum. I know it was launched in 1972, but was the company still sending out salesmen with this as the prototype in 1976?"

Mr. Arnold was clearly surprised by his knowledge in the company and nodded as he told him, "We sure were. That was our biggest seller for over a decade and is still preferred today, even with all these new high-tech vacuums."

"Were you the owner then?" he asked as he tried to gauge the man's age. Mr. Arnold was clearly over sixty with white hair and a mustache; his face held more wrinkles due to sun damage having most likely been out in the L.A. sun for far too long without using sun protection.

Mr. Arnold gave a nod as he told him, "I was General Manager at that time. The original owner was my father, he's since passed away. Come into my office. We'll continue our talk there."

He followed Mr. Arnold down the hallway and around a corner and to a large office that had a television broadcasting the economic news channel, the rising and falling of the stock market points in the after-hour trade market from overseas buyers and sellers. Everything in the office was a mahogany color, maple oak wood, and the seats were leather.

Sitting down in a chair in front of the desk, he waited as Mr. Arnold sat down before saying, "Mr. Arnold, as I told Carl at the desk, I'm investigating a cold case homicide for a friend. One of your employees from over thirty years ago had been murdered while working here. His name was Douglas Haskell."

Mr. Arnold gave a nod as he said, "I think I remember that. I remember my father being upset by the news. I was the one who talked to the detective on the case, and uh…"

"Detective Logan."

"That's right. Have you talked to him? He might know more than I do."

Thinking about the detective he once worked alongside, he told him, "Unfortunately Detective Logan also passed away, a while ago. Cancer. The man smoked like a chimney. I was able to gather all the prevalent information from his original files," he said as he thought "in 1976" but didn't say that out loud. "I know that Douglas Haskell had a prototype and was going to try to gain a new client, someone by the initials of A.T.. Does any of that sound familiar?"

Mr. Arnold's face frowned in thought and confusion as he said, "It's been a lot of years since. So many names and faces over the years."

He took out the list he had compiled and handed it over to him. "How about any of these company names? Anything stand out? A former owner's name or another General Manager, perhaps?"

Mr. Arnold took the sheet of notebook paper with the list and as he read it over, his eyes shot up. Then, something, clarity, maybe, as he stood. "You know, back in '76, I remember Detective Logan asking about someone. I didn't remember the initials," he said as he walked over to a file cabinet, "but I knew at the time we had no client on the books with those initials. See, I ran the books." He searched through a drawer as he continued talking, telling him, "Out of sight, out of mind. The moment Detective Logan left, we got right back to business as usual."

"But they mean something now? Attached to one of those names?" he asked as hope once again spurred anticipation in his gut. He really missed doing this. The interviews, the search for a suspect, gathering the clues, and then finally…Obtaining a lead.

"It does. A year later, we got a new client."

~"And it seems to you the thing to do would be to isolate the winner

And everything's done under the sun

And you believe at heart, everyone's a killer—"~

A year after the death of Douglas Haskell, he thought. He imagined the reason for the sudden change was due to the fact that the new client found a vacuum and started using it, and he liked it so much that he decided to switch what vacuum his company was using. The reason the vacuum was found was because Nate Haskell had murdered the salesman who'd come to his house selling vacuums and then stole his name.

"One that was with us for at least the past thirty years," Mr. Arnold was saying. "He went out of business last year. After losing much of his business ten…ah, twelve years ago." 1998. The year Nate Haskell went to prison, he thought as he watched as Mr. Arnold pulled out a file. Opening the file, Mr. Arnold looked it over before handing it to him as he stood, telling him, "He tried to keep it afloat, but…eventually he had to close. Name is Arvin Thorpe."

"A.T." he said as he took the offered file and pulled out his glasses to read the page. "Do you know if this is his current home address?"

~"Who was born in a house full of pain

Who was trained not to spit in the fan—"~

"Should be," Mr. Arnold told him. "That's been his address on file for the entire length of our contract."

Arvin Thorpe had been the small business owner of a janitorial and maid service that was contracted out to only one hotel in Los Angeles. The Penwick Hotel. They serviced the hotel from 1974 until it closed its doors for renovation in 2002. Then he started cleaning motels along the beach, jumping from one contract to another until he lost his business.

~"Who was told what to do by the man

Who was broken by trained personnel—"~

An hour later, he had parked his car on the alley a block down from the address and walked the rest of the way. The house that came into view once he turned the corner around a garage was a two-story white house with green trim. A tall wooden fence blocked the backyard as well as the back of the house from view.

~"Who was fitted with collar and chain

Who was given a pat on the back

Who was breaking away from the pack—"~

The yard was long, a garage that opened out into the alley locked. There was a locked gated door in the fence and on it was a sign that read "Beware of Dog". As he read the words, he heard the sudden barking as the dog jumped into the wooden fence in front of him. Stepping up to the fence, he peered over the top of it and saw the dog jump up towards him.

It was a boxer, pit bull mix. He smiled as he took a step back and then headed down the alley to where the alley formed a "T" and took the exit out the alley to the sidewalk. Approaching the house from the front now, he saw the sign for the security company, PTECH.

Thanks to Archie, and his own research into cyber forensics, he knew that "war driving" was when a hacker hijacked the connections to a wireless network broadcast in residential areas. All a hacker had to do was be in distance, spoof the DACP address of the router to connect with the security boxes or even gaming consoles inside the house. If it used the Wi-Fi then it could be accessed.

All he had to do was obtain the password, which any decoding software could do. Once he had the password, he could hack the communication between the control panel for the alarm and PTECH. He could disarm the alarm remotely from his own laptop without being detected.

Not stopping his nightly stroll, he stuffed his hands into his pants pockets and continued past the house as he crossed the street and headed back to his truck.

~"Who was only a stranger at home

Who was ground down in the end—"~

He would also go to the Penwick Hotel and check it out. Nate Haskell, aka Arvin Thorpe's son, was a man who liked to reminisce and go down memory lane. His first male victim had been the reason his father had the Penwick Hotel contract for so long. That hotel was Mr. Thorpe's father's only big contract and the main source of income for the family for so long that it had to hold memories for the serial killer.

He wanted to see if he could dig any of them up.

~"Who was found dead on the phone

Who was dragged down by the stone."~

TBC…

Disclaimer songs used/mentioned: "Can't You See" by The Marshall Tucker Band and "Dogs" by Pink Floyd.