Chapter XXX
The Lines Are Drawn
The Las Vegas Crime Lab's Graveyard Crew was the best of the best. They, Grissom and his CSIs, were the high performance muscle car of the Forensics world. They had worked together for years and were one big and happy family. Anyone who believed that, Wendy Simms knew, hadn't spent much time around the team. Like the other labrats, she had a unique point of view of the team. They worked with the CSIs, but because they weren't field criminalists, they were somewhat removed from the CSIs. It was easier to observe them from outside the clique. Because they saw all the players without bias. It was also much easier for a lab rat to see trouble brewing. Wendy knew, almost as soon as she'd walked into the building, that they were in for a rough night. The tension was so thick in the air, it was like trying to breath molasses. It was nights like these, when the invisible battle lines were drawn, that she began to doubt her ambition to follow in Greg Sanders' footsteps. Tonight, she strongly suspected that she would have a front row seat for whatever shit was about to rain down on them. She not only had to update everyone on DNA and Trace -- Hodges was out sick with a summer flu -- she and Greg also had to report on their re-enactment. She technically didn't have to be there for that, but Greg said it would help her get a feel for field work.
Because she had to stop by the Trace and DNA labs on her way, she was the last to arrive at the conference room. When she saw the scene through the glass wall, she had an overwhelming urge to hand everything off to Greg and get the hell out of Dodge. The lines had already been drawn. Captain Brass was at the foot of the short table and Grissom was at the head. Catherine, predictably, sat at Grissom's right hand and Detective Curtis, Sofia, sat at Brass's. The way the other CSIs had fallen in said it all. Sara the magnetic pole, opposite of Catherine, was seated on the opposite side of the table from Catherine. The fact that she was sitting beside Sofia Curtis did not escape Wendy's attention. Warrick, as he always did, sat beside Catherine, and Greg, loyal to a fault, was beside Sara. Nick Stokes, who had the severe misfortune to be the team's usual swing vote, had taken a seat beside Warrick. That left only one chair for her, and no choice. The chair had obviously been dragged in from another room and it stuck out like a sore thumb beside Greg. She sat down and hoped for the best.
Papers were still being rustled through and coffee were consumed. Though she had technically been late, the meeting hadn't started yet. That gave her a scant few extra minutes to get a feel for the room. Gil Grissom, her boss and the universally recognized leader of the team, looked completely cool and collected. If he knew he was currently sitting in the middle of hurricane, he didn't show it. His team had split over the case and he would decide which side would be the dominant one. That was a lot of pressure, but the etymologist wasn't even sweating. If she hadn't seen him do so before, she would wonder if Grissom even had sweat glands. Catherine, on the other hand, looked agitated, and that was never good. She was also dressed in what was generally considered court attire. Steel blue power suit and a starch white shirt, her hair and makeup done flawlessly, and it made her look like a corporate attorney that was about to go in for the kill.
The other two women, not counting herself, in the room, were also dressed severely. Wendy would go as far to say puritanically. Sara and Sofia both wore unrelieved black. Sofia's sleeves were rolled to a three quarters length and her blonde hair was pulled back. She was ready for a fight, her second of the day with Catherine if the gossip was on the mark. Sara, on the other hand, was wearing a cut jacket over her blouse. She needed cover, needed the professional shield and probably wanted the extra pockets to stash her ever present antacid tablets in. She wondered if they'd planned their Twinkie wardrobes because their grim expressions were twins too. Beside her, Greg shifted, fidgeted, uncomfortably. He, Nick and Warrick were all dressed in their own takes on office casual, which was generally the rule around the lab rather than the exception. Captain Brass, who she had less experience with, was harder to read, but there was no mistaking the seriousness on his face for anything else. It didn't take a field-hardened and jaded CSI to know that this meeting wasn't going to go well.
After a moment, Grissom took off his reading glasses and looked up from whatever file he'd been poring over. "Okay, it looks like we're all here. Jim, would you like to start us off?"
The Captain scowled. "Well I've been fielding calls all day long. The press has a hold of the case, and they're sensationalizing it. Sports superstars, models and dead men make for a big story. Our duly elected officials want to make sure that Vegas and the LVPD doesn't come out looking like dupes on CNN. Again." There were nods all around the table. Brass shrugged, "Sheriff says this case is priority, at least until all the brou-ha-ha dies down." He looked to his right, "Sofia."
Wendy watched Sofia start to speak. The blonde's voice was steady, and she didn't bother to look at her files. "What started out as a double at the Playground." Her winter blue eyes flicked in Catherine's direction, but she continued without a hitch. "Has lead us to something much bigger. Michael Gozton, Wen-Hsiung Yu, John Conroy, Mathew Troy, Joseph Rafferty, Dustin Malone, Travis Dyler, Ryan Ingram, Jalil Raheem, Rocco Masaccio, Diego Galeno, Peter Callahan" Sofia paused, "All dead, from various cities around the country. "There were also a few survivors, Seth McGrew, Jonathon Garret, Michael Conner and there was Jason White from Atlanta. He committed suicide less than a month after his attack. Then there is our body count: Stewart Finnigan, Dedrick Marsh and Preston Abernathy. Markus Bordwine came forward as a survivor. Our only solid lead so far was Erica Green; she was strangled to death by Finnigan. The only link between all of their deaths is the COD, which was directly or indirectly connected to the device we removed from Erica Green." Sofia looked to her right, "Greg?"
Greg stood up, "Can we get the lights for this one?"
Nick, closest to the switch on the wall, rolled back in his chair and, with a lazy swing of his arm, turned off the overhead lights.
While Greg started up the slide show, the blank white screen cast an eerie light over the rest of them. Wendy could clearly see Catherine glaring at Sofia, and Sara staring off into some unfathomable space just above Warrick's left shoulder. Grissom turned around just in time for the first image to come up. It was a standard laid out photo of the device that had been removed from Erica Green. It was the first time Wendy had seen it and she automatically crossed her legs. Though Greg was speaking, the faint rustle of cloth told her that she wasn't the only one. She made herself look at it. The device, as the team had dubbed it, looked completely mundane. If she didn't know any better, she would have shrugged and commented that she had bigger and better in her nightstand at home. She did know better, though, and held her tongue while Greg told everyone what he had dug up on the device.
"The shell is made of heavy rubbery latex, and Trace found no significant or identifying abnormalities or specialties. "There was, however, something interesting in the tip." There was an almost silent click and a new, closely zoomed and cropped picture appeared. "The head had a-"
He paused, as if he wasn't exactly sure what to say, and Catherine chuckled, "It looks like it was ribbed for her pleasure."
Greg snapped his fingers and pointed at the older CSI, "Exactamundo. So, I thought that might lead us to a producer."
Nick, voice steady considering he was probably grinning like a fool in the dark, spoke up. "We don't have a database for those, Greggo."
Silhouetted in the projection, Greg nodded, "I know. So I went straight to the horse's mouth, so to speak. I went to five different adult novelty and entertainment establishments to track down a matching model."
Wendy couldn't tell, but she'd bet big money that Greg was blushing; poor guy. "I hit pay dirt at my last stop, Babylon Adult Entertainment Center, which was actually not completely skeezy."
Grissom cleared his throat and Greg clicked over to a new picture. It was no longer identical to their murder weapon, but it was undoubtedly similar. "The Lady Killer, no joke that is its name, is distributed in thirteen different countries by over a million stores, ten thousand of them are in the US alone. Not to mention they are a bestseller at Ladies' parties and several thousand websites."
Warrick let out a puff of breath, "So it's basically going to be impossible to trace."
Greg shrugged and a new picture came up. This picture was of the device's twisted inner workings. Wendy squeezed her legs together and decided that she may never be able to use tampons again.
"The razors," Greg continued in a slightly strained tone, "are straight, plain razors that can be bought in any hardware store. I'm still tracking down the company, but hold out little hope. I'm still figuring out what the barb is. I can tell you that it's a low grade stainless steel that is used in more items than you can shake a stick at. The same goes for the smaller hook-like barbs." Another picture came up, "This, though, is something interesting. See the bubbling around the base of the razors, hooks, and especially the barb. The rubber-latex was melted, then the blade pressed down into the less-than-an-inch thick latex, and then resealed on the inside with a mixture of liquid latex and super glue. The outside was covered over with a condom that was covered again with a clear coat of liquid latex. She finished off with a piece of thin piece of latex that was probably scraped off of the shaft, over the shell's entrance." Greg clicked the wireless controller again and a split picture, the devices outer shell on the left and the inside on the right, was displayed. "I don't think she bought this thing anywhere, I think she made it herself." That revelation sent murmurs around the table, Nick hit the lights, and Greg reclaimed his seat.
For a moment, Wendy thought she would go next, but Nick cleared his throat. "I ran with the ring idea. Balfour was pretty cooperative, but made it clear that they wouldn't give us any specific customer information without a warrant. The bar cams gave us a still, and if I'd known we were going to run a slide show, I would have thrown it in."
He handed a glossy print to Warrick. "So, everyone can take a low-tech look for a minute. Anyway, the horse head underneath the stone and the M named High School wasn't much to go on, but it did narrow it down to eight thousand, two hundred and four schools: public, private and ecclesiastical." No one seemed particularly enthused about the information. Forget looking for a needle in a haystack, they were looking for a needle in a hay silo.
Catherine stood up and Wendy could immediately feel the room's energy go up a notch. The feather and welter weights had gone, now it was time for the main event. Somehow her information, about trace, DNA and the re-enactment had gotten shuffled to the side. Catherine went to the laptop that was wirelessly connected to the ceiling projector, slipped on her reading glasses and typed something in. Wendy watched, with curiosity, while the screen flashed to the lab's default desktop and then the Internet browser. They watched Catherine type in the address, and Wendy could all but hear Sara and Sofia grind their respective molars into dust as she did.
The browser icon revolved and the screen changed from white to black. The black screen had an obvious media window that was loading something and, in the bottom corner of the web site's page, there was a note about needing the newest update to flash player to see the video. Thanks to the Lab's high-speed network, the video loaded in seconds.
The screen flickered and then returned to a velvety black. One would have thought something had malfunctioned but in the center of the window, a flame flickered to life.
"Every seven seconds a girl or woman is raped." The unseen voice was immediately identified by half of the room as that of Alexandra Dupree. More lights, small tea lights, joined the first one. They were floating in a bathtub. "Every fifteen seconds, a child's innocence is molested and raped." More tea lights, now hundreds of them, appeared floating in a swimming pool. "On average, only twenty percent of reported rapes are solved." The camera zoomed in on the golden glow of the tea lights as Alex's words flowed from the screen. When she'd finished there were tea lights floating over the entire expanse of the Reflecting Pool in Washington DC. "There are two thousand rapists released from jail every day, and seven out of ten of all rapists rape again and again and again." Now the tea lights floated on a vast ocean, there were countless little lights on a sea of liquid black. The lights all blurred into one golden glow and from that a face slowly appeared.
Wendy would have been lying through her teeth if she said she didn't recognize the face. Alexandra Dupree was the perfect blonde supermodel she'd hated all the way through college and beyond. Since she knew that there was something going on and it was all revolving around Dupree, she looked not at the screen as the woman continued to speak, but at the CSIs. She wasn't the only one who wasn't giving their full attention to the video. Almost everyone was glancing from the screen to Sara and back again, with a few cautious glances at Catherine, who was shooting poison-tipped darts at Sara with her eyes, thrown in for good measure. For herself, Sara's full attention was on the screen. Her face was cast in strange dappled splashes of light and color from the screen. There was no discernible emotion Wendy could pinpoint, but there was there was enough of whatever the emotional mix was to weigh heavily upon the brunette's mind.
The others were much easier to read. Grissom, when he glanced at Sara, looked a little on the sad side of stoic. Nick, Warrick and Greg looked somewhat in awe of Sara. Either because they had never considered the fact that she might be bisexual or hadn't thought she would date a model. Wendy rolled her eyes in the darkness. Anyone who witnessed Catherine and Sara fight and thought both of them were without a doubt one-hundred percent straight, needed glasses. Speaking of Catherine, she looked positively pissed. Pissed at Dupree, pissed at Sara and pissed at Sofia. She didn't envy either of the three women. Wendy gave one more quick glance at Sofia. The usually organized, compartmentalized and seemingly two steps ahead Detective looked uncharacteristically uncomfortable.
Wendy's attention returned to the projected video, but she filed away the scene in her head. The varied and somewhat puzzling reactions of the team.
Alexandra Dupree's face glowed as she spoke of statistics and rapists run rampant. It was almost melodic. Then her eyes narrowed and her brows drew together. "Numbers, statistics, that's what women have become. Victims."
The screen flashed to a young girl, she couldn't have been more than eight She was holding one of the small tea light candles in her cupped hands. .Though the picture had gone stark black and white, there was no mistaking the hollow look in the little girl's eyes. She stared directly at the camera, "I was raped."
In the blink of an eye, a woman with poker strait hair and glasses appeared. The small candle in her hand made a glare in her glasses, she was in her mid thirties. "I was raped."
Another beat and an old woman, well into her sixties, took the screen. "I was raped."
The faces, all races, creed and ages, continued to appear on screen. After several moments, Alexandra Dupree was on screen again, a tiny candle in her hands. "I was raped." The camera panned back, revealing the model's full body and the black lightened so the room behind her was visible. It was a bustling bullpen, realistic enough to be in any city's working precinct. Alex Dupree, in complete and full Technicolor, walked among the perps and cops and sat on a desk, completely comfortable and visible against the dingy black and white scene around her. "Take Back the Night is a wonderful idea. The thing is, we shouldn't have to lose it in the first place. Cops can only take things so far. Even if every single cop was on the street all the time, it wouldn't make a difference. Your husbands and boyfriends can only do so much. We, as women, have to take a stand. We have toTake Action Now. Rapists and murderers are out there. Men who don't give a damn that you're a wife, a mother, a sister, a daughter, a student, a doctor or even," She smirked slightly, " a model. Rape isn't about sex, it's about power. A man taking your power away from you."
The scene slowly changed as Alex walked. She was dressed in slacks, her wild mane of hair was pulled up and back. She looked perfectly normal, you had to look twice to realize she'd been the candle wielding goddess of earlier. "Men" There was an extra splash of venom oozing out of the word, "can be many things, including predators of the worst kind." She stood up and looked around,"If you give your trust too easily, you could end up here or-" The scene abruptly changed and Alex Dupree was laying on a coroner's slab. Her face was pale and her hair lifeless under her. "Or here." The camera slowly panned out to show that she was obviously naked under the ME's crisp white sheet.
The scene changed again and Alex Dupree was on a crowded city street. "We have to take action. Women have to learn to recognize the signs of a bad situation before it goes too far. We have to not only be able to defend ourselves, but be able to go on the offensive." Mug shots, hundred of them flashed across the scene. Some were of large leering men that gave off an air of danger and menace, others were middle class and average, completely unremarkable. They were all, as Alex narrated, rapists. "These monsters don't stop and think of us as people, as women, and we should think of them the same. Men can't be just men, they're a threat and they need to know."
The scene changed again and behind Alex's front and center place there were countless women. "That we are powerful, pissed off and not afraid anymore. We aren't weak and we're not going to let them win. We will fight them, we will scar them and if they come to close we will rip their dicks off. We're not just some bitch, some slut, some whore, some hold to fuck. We are women and all of our holes are lined with teeth so bring it the hell on." The camera zoomed in on her hard as stone eyes. When it panned back, she was standing on the ocean of candles, "I was raped, but I'm not a victim anymore. Take Action Now." For a second the camera paused on her face right behind the tiny flame and with a puff of breath she blew out the flame. The screen went dark and the grey smoke floated for a moment later. The bold white letter T-A-N glowed behind the dissipating smoke and the video ended.
The video ended and the site began to automatically load up. A site menu comprised of the far left-hand side and there were frames that made up the varied rest of the page. There was also a log-in box that made it obvious that members had access to something beyond what a normal visitor did. Despite those facts, no one was overly interested in the website. All attention was, once again, on Catherine. Catherine, though, was not the first to speak.
It was Sara, calm and cool,"Since when does being a feminist make someone a serial killer?" Her tone was almost conversational, but the barb was obviously aimed at Catherine.
To Wendy's, and more likely the entire room's surprise, Catherine let the comment slide without sparking off an argument. "Serial Killer? It looks more like a brainwashing video. A cult of girls being taught that every man on the street is out to rape them right there in broad daylight."
Eyes quickly darted from Catherine to Sara. The brunette CSI blinked, "Cult? You think Alex started a cult?"
Both women were standing now, with the table between them and several colleagues ready to pull them apart if need be. "That sure as hell didn't sound like she was recruiting for the Girl Scouts."
Nick turned the lights on and everyone could see the splotches of red climbing up Sara's neck and into her cheeks. Her eyes were narrowed and her brows furrowed. "Alex can barely find both of her shoes in the morning. She may be involved in this group, but she isn't encouraging girls to turn into serial killers."
Catherine, her muscles tense and her temper obviously barely in check, stared Sara down. "We don't have any evidence that the same person killed Dedrick Marsh and Preston Abernathy."
Sara flipped open a file. "Finger prints came back, and if you weren't too busy butting into my personal life, you would have seen that we have a match from the candle wax at the Abernathy scene and the door knob at the Marsh scene. This killer is obviously accelerating, and becoming more viscous. If we don't stop her she will kill again and soon."
Catherine looked at the screen. "We will fight them, we will scar them and if they come too close we will rip their dicks off. We're not just some bitch, some slut, some whore, some hold to fuck. We are women and all of our holes are lined with teeth so bring it the hell on." She turned back to look at Sara. "What, do you think she's just blowing smoke? That is the M.O. In every one of these cases, and I looked at this so-called tour she's been on. Every city there's been a series of attacks in, she's been there. Dupree has a hell of a lot of coincidences to explain away and I don't think she can do it."
Grissom, obviously done listening to the arguments, held up a hand. "Are Miss Dupree's prints in AFIS?"
Sara nodded, "I put them there myself. There's no match and we have nothing to hold her on."
The argument continued, but Wendy's attention was on one of the photos that had been passed around. Preston Abernathy at the crime scene. It was a side view and she squinted at it. She gave Greg a soft tap in the ribs with her elbow to get his attention. She whispered her question and he handed her a file. She compared the picture to the personal affects list and looked between the two. She elbowed him again and he reluctantly turned, again, and showed him the picture, she'd used a felt tip marker to circle what she'd seen. A quick back and forth glance from the picture to the list and he nodded at her.
"Um guys." Wendy only got a half a seconds worth of notice. "I hate to break up the love fest, but--" She pushed the picture and the list towards the center of the table, "Does anyone know what happened to Preston Abernathy's wedding ring?"
The picture, laid on the table and it took a close look, but it was as visible as blood spatter on a white sheet. There was a tan line on the third finger of his left hand. His wedding band was missing and it had not been recovered.
Author's Note: If there is anything more wrong then GSR, it's this Wendy/Hodges horror-fest the writers have been dancing around. I like Wendy, and now that Sara and Sofia are gone off the show, we need someone to keep things at the lab in line.