5
The National Guard had loaned Nick the use of their helicopter for a more in depth aerial reconnaissance of the wilderness west of Winchester. With the rolling countryside of sparse to thick woodland rushing past underneath him, he checked his map and determinedly thought about young Maddie Franklin somewhere down there, possibly held securely by the bounds of an undiscovered and unrevealed hominid thus far unknown by mankind except in legend and mythology. Trees, foliage and scarce creeks of water whirred by underneath as Nick checked the search grid then noticed activity to the north. It looked like campers, but they were hardly suspicious in the matter they rose their beers to salute the copter. Nick saluted them back and re-continued the search. His mind on his job, his heart on the welfare of the girl, he exhaled deeply frustrated over the lack of her whereabouts.
Back in Las Vegas, Detective Sofia Curtis accompanied by Grissom made a return visit back to the scene of another unsolved disappearance to visit Charlotte Danvers, the mother of the missing William Danvers from two months prior. The return to the scene was not quite a forensic visit, but a courtesy call to a grieving missing mother who still had hopes her son was still alive. Accompanied by Officer Bruno Hess, Sofia arrived in her street clothes and approached the Mediterranean-style two-story stucco while removing her sunglasses. She lightly rapped at the door with due respect, and a few seconds after a look from the curtains, the grieving mother came to the door.
"Yes…" Charlotte Danvers appeared at the door in a white t-shirt and form-fitting blue jeans.
"Mrs. Danvers…." Sofia revealed her badge and identification. "I'm Lieutenant Curtis, one of the detectives working on your son's case."
"Please… come in…" The hopeful mother eagerly invited them in. Sofia looked the room over from the pictures of young Will in various stages of development. He was in his early youth in the photos on the wall up to the second floor landing but in his last known pictures around the furniture of the sunken living room. Sofia particularly noticed one photo of the youth with his mother and lightly sighed as she took her seat.
"You've found him?" Mrs. Danvers looked optimistic. "Is he okay?"
"Mrs. Danvers…" Sofia responded carefully and respectfully. "We've recently entered a case with stark parallels to your son's disappearance and are looking for further connections between the two." She took a file from Hess and took out a series of photos. "Now, I'm going to show you a series of photos; I want you to tell me of any of them look familiar." She laid out six unnamed photos of various brunette women. Among them was the known photo of the Lisa Bobbitt from New York, the current Kelly Clarkson clone from her university employment records and even one of Sara Sidle and another Idol contestant by the name of Katherine McPhee. The other two were of a female pedophile from Reno named Lizzie Castellari still rumored to be at large and Lynsey Culberson, a local actress once booked for being drunk and disorderly. Charlotte draped her long brunette hair over one shoulder and peered over the images. Her hand lightly shifted Castellari's image and hovered over McPhee's until picking up the photo of the Clarkson clone.
"My son loved Kelly Clarkson…" Charlotte revealed. "He clipped and collected every photo he could get of her. He even claimed his guidance counselor looked like her."
"Did you ever meet the woman?" Sofia pulled out her leather notebook to take notes.
"No…" The soft-spoken mother answered. "But I know he visited her practically every day in her office. Being an only child and not very good in sports, she sort of counseled him a lot." Charlotte paused as she thought about her. "Did she have something to do with my son vanishing?"
"I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to answer that." Sofia responded. "But I do have to tell you that your son's status has been changed from "Missing" to "Possibly Murdered."
"You're no longer looking for him." Charlotte's eyes started welling up with tears.
"Mrs. Danvers…" Sofia tried to remain as professional as possible. "Most missing teenagers turn up in the first twenty-four hours after they vanish. Going by several other disappearances similar to your son's…. the odds of him turning up alive are unlikely at this point."
"Okay…" Warrick Brown was back at the university dorm room. Greg was with him taking notes and more photos.
"Locked in the room…" He thought out loud. "Only one way out… and that was broken in, not out…" He turned round looking over the room. "How did she get out of here dragging a body?"
"Secret door?" Greg picked his UV light from his vest and shone the wall a bit looking for a trace of a secret entrance. He passed the end of the beam from it over the wall slowly and noticed a handprint. When he noticed it, he panned around it and noticed another one.
"There's no room for a secret passage much less a way into the next room." Warrick noticed Greg directing his attention elsewhere. "What do you have?"
"I don't know." Greg adjusted for a filter on his camera to get the handprints on the wall. Warrick took his larger light for more of the wall and discovered he was lighting up traces of sweat from the wall in the shape of handprints and toes going up the wall, stepping off the ledge around the doorframe to the closet and then scaling up the wall. Above the entrance to the room, he found handprints on one wall and directly across from them bare footprints on the opposing wall. The width of the entry way was about five feet.
"So that's where she went!" Warrick bounced his light back and forth. He pictured it in his mind. When the boys rushed the room, they never would have looked straight up. Bobbitt would have been perched back to the wall above the door; her hands pushing hard enough against the opposing wall that she could have simulated levitation. The constant force against the two walls at once would have kept her from falling just long enough to seemingly vanish into the air until she could drop down and away.
"That would have taken a lot of physical strength." Greg photographed the prints. "But what about Connors? She couldn't have like… eaten him."
"That's the million dollar question, isn't it?" Warrick checked to see if the screen to the AC duct had been tampered with, but it was quite solid. The closet had been checked, and the trunk they had was too small. "What did she do to him?"