The Dutch Connection: Act I

Ryan walked up to the canal to have a look at where his fellow CSI was. Someone had called in that some car that could probably be tied to another crime had been dumped in the canal and after having been informed by Horatio that it could be that this was the car that was used to dump a body in the Everglades, Ryan and his colleague Eric had been sent to find out if the car had been dumped here.
Since Eric was the team's frogman, he was the one to take a look under water. Deep inside, Ryan was pretty glad that he wasn't the one to dive in the canals of Miami.
A few minutes later, Eric's head suddenly appeared from the depths of the canal and he looked at Ryan, nodding. Ryan nodded back at him and waved at the guys that could pull the car from the canal.
Not even a quarter of an hour later, Ryan and Eric were completely absorbed by the investigation of the car.
"Do you think it's true?" Ryan asked. Eric looked up.
"What?"
"About the mafia"
"Oh. Well, Miami's always been a favorite town to all sorts of organized crime. The mafia's no difference"
Ryan nodded. "True. But I think this has never happened before, right? Dumping a body, calling it in and then dumping the car? I mean, calling it in doesn't seem very mafia-ish."
Eric laughed a little. "Perhaps they're trying to make a statement" he suddenly grabbed a pair of tweezers and Ryan noticed how Eric picked up a few long, blonde hairs from the back seat.
"Follicles are still attached" he said, somewhat satisfied. Ryan nodded.
"And the victim's not a blonde. Do you think there's another victim?"
Eric looked at his colleague. "Dunno. Let's hope not"
They searched the car for more clues, but there were no more clues to be found except for some blood stains in the truck that were almost certainly the vic's.

Horatio quietly entered the A/V lab, to see how far Tyler and Calleigh had gotten with tracking down the precise address from where the cell phone came. Tyler was explaining to Calleigh that he used the cell sites and the area in which they picked up the signal from the phone. Horatio noticed some blue-colored transparent circles appearing on a digitalized map of Miami on one of the monitors. Finally, Tyler pointed at one of the blue circles.
"The cell phone came from this area"
Horatio found it was time to ask a question. "Can you also find out who also called from that area?"
Tyler turned around. "That's a little hard to find out, Lieutenant. I'll give it my best shot."
Horatio nodded and walked off, as he saw Frank Tripp walking through one of the corridors.
"Frank" he said. Tripp turned around and looked at him.
"Horatio. I've been looking for you."
"Yes… It appears the call has indeed been made to a house in Coconut Grove. In fact, the cell phone itself also was in that house today."
Frank looked at the Lieutenant. "Yeah. I asked around a bit, and it turns out that some think that coke dealer has got something to do with the mafia. Even though it's not always considered their style to call in a murder to the police, it has been done before to make a statements. And there are, as you know, more branches of mafia. In Italy alone there exist three very powerful branches, the Cosa Nostra, the Camorra and the 'Ndrangheta. And lots of smaller branches."
Horatio nodded. "Which one do you think we're dealing with?"
Frank thought for a second. "I'm guessing 'Ndrangheta. They're known to traffic cocaine from Colombia and Venezuela to Italy, via either Spain, Belgium or the Netherlands. Since it's a coke dealer in the Grove…"
Horatio nodded again. "Thank you, Frank." He noticed two of his CSIs stepping out of the elevator. Horatio left Frank and walked up to the CSIs.
"What have you got?"
For once, Ryan let Eric do the talking. "Few strands of hair with the follicles still attached and some blood. The car's in the garage, we sent a photo of the tire threads to Tyler"
"Get that to DNA. I want to know what's going on out there."
Ryan and Eric nodded and made their way to DNA. Horatio walked up to one of the windows and looked at the city that he was supposed to protect. What was going on? He noticed Frank and an idea popped into his mind. Only, this plan was supposed to be kept a secret. Horatio knew enough of the mafia to know that his chances of catching one of them were very small. After all, if they hadn't realized yet that the house in the Grove could easily be tracked down, the chances that they had their sources inside PD were still big and therefore they would find out things soon enough.
"Frank" Horatio said. "What's the 'Ndrangheta's way of working? What do they do?"

Eric looked at Valera. She was preparing DNA samples of the follicles from the strands of hair and preparing samples from the blood, while Eric and Ryan waited for the results.
"I'm not working any faster if you keep watching" she said. Ryan smiled.
"We just like to watch"
Valera looked at the now follicle-less strands of hair on the lit table. "Here's some other thing to watch" she handed Eric and Ryan the strands. "The roots seem darker. I think your vic dyed his or her hair."
"Our vic's not a blonde" Eric replied. Valera looked at him.
"Then I'd certainly take a look at those hairs"

"That's certainly dyed hair" Ryan confirmed some twenty minutes later. Eric looked at him.
"Hmm. You think Tyler already has the results on the tire threads?"
"Divide and conquer" Ryan said. "What if you go to Tyler to see if he's got any results on the tire threads, then I'll see Valera for the DNA results."
Eric nodded and both parted ways.

Calleigh entered the autopsy room to see Alexx for the bullets from the vic's head. Alexx was glad to see the CSI in full health.
"You know, all that with the mafia scares me" Alexx confessed.
Calleigh smiled at the coroner. "Don't be scared. If they don't have a reason to kill you, they won't kill you. And even if they do have a reason to kill you, they only kill you when you're posing a threat."
Alexx looked up. "Let's hope that. Here you have the bullets." Alexx handed Calleigh a little paper baggy that felt kind of heavy. "They seem like 9 mils to me"
Calleigh opened the baggy and looked at the bullets. "Well, they did mean it seriously. These are indeed 9 mils. Hollow Point. I guess they did want him dead."
Alexx looked at the mushroomed bullets in Calleigh's hand. "Whatever they wanted, this poor man's brains are shot to pulp. I hope you can at least get some information from those bullets."
Calleigh smiled weakly. "There's no need for that. We know who killed this man. And we know where to look for them. We just also had to know what they use to shoot with."

Horatio listened to Calleigh's report on the bullets, Eric's report on the tire threads and Ryan's report on the hairs. He slowly nodded and looked at Frank. Tripp only nodded back at him, indicating that what Horatio might have thought was probably true, if he was to judge on these reports.
"We're going to Coconut Grove" Horatio said, finally.

The Hummer parked a few houses down the street, Horatio and Frank slowly walked with their guns drawn towards the house. Somehow, it didn't surprise Horatio to find the front door opened and both the garden and the first floor were totally abandoned. The mafia had left this building, that was for sure.
While clearing the second floor of the house, Frank discovered a walk-in closet that strangely had been locked. With a fast kick, the door was opened and Horatio and Frank discovered their second victim. The blonde strands of hair were easily recognizable between the cascade of chocolate-brown hair down the victim's back. Valera had been right, the blonde hairs had been from a female victim.
A young girl with blonde highlights who was bound, probably. Horatio looked at the girl and quickly removed the ropes that bound her.
"Are you okay?" he asked her. The girl looked up to him.
"I hope so" she said, after sighing. "Who are you?"
"I'm Lieutenant Horatio Caine and this is Detective Frank Tripp. We're with the Miami-Dade PD. Where are you from?" Horatio had figured it out right that the 'Ndrangheta had kidnapped someone. And this girl was probably not American, she didn't sound American. Her English sounded like a blend between British English and American English.
The girl's answer confirmed his thoughts.
"I'm from the Netherlands. So I'm in Miami, huh?"