Okay, this got posted with chapter 6 on accident, sorry about that...
Anyway, here's the last chap on it's own.
Chapter Seven: Seek and Find
Everyone was seeking something that morning it seemed, for Warrick was searching for Greg, to tell him he had a vistor out front, Greg in turn was looking for Grissom, to ask if he could get his days off changed. Grissom was looking for Sara, and Brass, to ask Sara about her breif sick episode earlier, but was having trouble, as they weren't in the shooting range, where they had last been. And Calleigh was looking for Horatio, unaware that he had gone with Nick and Catherine. Who she found was Greg.
"Hey, Greg, have you seen Horatio anywhere?"
"Um, he went with Catherine and Nick, I think, to search our perp's house."
"Oh... Okay, thanks. Oh! By the way, Warrick's looking for you."
"Yeah, I heard that... You know where Grissom is?"
"He's looking for Sara, and Brass, as far as I know."
The two parted ways. Calleigh, to go get something to drink, and Greg, to find Warrick.
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Katrina was certainly a good actress, Horatio had to give her that. In fact, the act she was giving them about having no clue what they were talking about was almost believeable. It would have been comepletely believeable, if he hadn't known she did it. When they arrived at her home, she continued to insist that she had no idea what was going on. And Horatio was beginning to have his doubts that she did know... When Nick, Catherine and Sofia began their search, he was sure she was mentally unstable. She was pacing back and forth in her living room, talking to someone that wasn't there. Now, he had his fair share of that, having once been a Catholic, but this was different. She acted as if there was really someone in the room with her, other than the offcer, and Horatio himself, and the various boxes that were still unpacked.
She panicked, when Catherine and Sofia discovered a nine millimeter beretta hidden under her mattress, and an old broken broomstick, that had traces of blood, and other biological fluids on it. She began babbling incessantly about her mother, and how it was all her mother's fault, and that her mother had done it all. After the group had been able to gather that much, the words coming from her mouth stopped making any sense what so ever. By the time they got back to the crime lab, she was still going on like that, and everyone was beginning to wonder if the woman was really that unstable.
She had calmed down, once she was put in an interrogation room, and Horatio and Grissom came to speak with her. The first words out of her mouth were of course, denying her guilt.
"I had nothing to do with those kids..."
"The evidence says otherwise, Katrina," said Grissom, "Or do you prefer Allyce?"
She snapped to attention upon hearing her name, "What did you call me?"
"He called you Allyce," said Horatio, " That is your real name, isn't it?"
"No one has called me that since... since..." she didn't seem to remember when.
"Since your parents died?" Grissom prodded.
"You need to get your stories straight, Mister," she said, "My father and brother are dead... My mother is very much alive," she added "unfortunately," under her breath.
"Allyce," said Horatio, "Your whole family is dead..."
The woman didn't seem to have heard past her name, "Don't call me that. No one ever calls me that except her. "
"Who?" Horatio asked.
"Her... My mother..."
Getting an idea, Grissom asked, "Where is your mother now?"
Katrina/Allyce didn't look up, but he could see her eyes darting around, "she's in here..."
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The rest of the crew was on the other side of the glass, wondering just what the hell was going on.
"I don't get it," said Catherine, "I talked to her at that club, and she was perfectly sane... Or she seemed that way. Think this could be an act?"
"It could be, Honey," said Warrick, "But, crazy people don't always seem crazy at first... And this isn't really giving off that 'act' vibe..."
"Well, insane or not," said Calleigh, "She killed those kids. Ballistics, and DNA confirmed it, remember?"
Everyone nodded. They had. The bullets from the kids were all a match to her gun, and the blood and hairs found at the scene were a match to her. Not to mention the fact that she had come from Miami with her b oyfriend in the time fame needed to fit the murders. The question that everyone wanted to ask was "why?" Why would she do that to those kids? They weren't going to get their answer just then... This woman still had to be gotten through to. She was refusing a lawyer, now, every time Grissom or Horatio offered, so they went back to the question of "where's your mother?" They were getting the same answer over and over again "she's in here."
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Fed up with the answer they were getting, Horatio switched questions, "Why did you kill those kids?"
"I didn't!" Katrina/Allyce nearly shouted.
"Then why did we find the murder weapon in your home, your prints and DNA at the scenes, then?"
"I don't know! It had to've been her!" she looked at some of the photos that had been thrown on the table in frustration, "It's just like what she used to do, anyway..."
"Allyce," said Grissom, gently, though it was with all his self-control that he kept from yelling at her, "what happened?"
The woman turned away from him, looking lost in thought, before she answered, "My mother abused me, my twin brother, and even my father, until I was fourteen..."
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Katrina Welker, AKA Allyce Barnes was never a happy child. Always picked on in school, given snide remarks from teachers, a poor household, and an abusive mother. Her brother, Cameron, had it just as bad, if not worse, in school. Teachers pegged him for a trouble maker, because their favorites beat him up, then claimed he started it. But both children would have rather taken the teasing, and fights at school rather than stay home. They even went so far as to avoid going home, for as long as they could in the afternoons, and when they finally got the courage to go home, they would sneak in through their bedroom window, in hopes that their mother wouldn't know they had arrived. Some days she did, others she didn't. The days she did were the worst of the children's lives.
She would call them to the living room,and their torture would begin. Jason always thought he got off lucky, compared to his sister. He just got beaten, and, sometimes, when his mother wanted to hear him scream, like Allyce did, she would put some of her eucalyptus and peppermint massage oil in his eyes. Allyce on the other hand, got the beating, the oil, and sometimes, her mother would take the old broken wood broomhandle, strip her, and rape her. Their father would do nothing about the cruel things his wife would do to them. He was to scared himself.
Things went on that way until the twins were fourteen, and their father finally did something about the abuse. He took his gun, and shot his wife, once in the chest, and did the same to his son. Then turned the gun on himself. Allyce came home to find her family dead, though the only one she really cared about was Jason.
The police wouldn't believe her when she told them what her mother had done. They said there was no way a mother could abuse her children that way. Allyce's claims of rape were scoffed at even more, until finally, she gave up on trying to tell them. She was shuffled from foster home to foster home for about a year, until finally one family adopted her, changing her last name to Welker. As soon as she was old enough, she had changed her first name to Katrina, after the daughter the Welker family had lost, shortly before taking her in.
And, she had gone on to become sucessful in the nightclub business.
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"But my mother wasn't dead..." Allyce spat, "she came back, a few months ago, in Miami... And then those murders occured, so I sped up the moving process, to get here to Vegas. But she still followed me, and then those kids here died..." she put a hand to her busted lip, "she hit me, when I told her to leave."
Staring at her in disbelief, Horatio and Grissom said nothing. They knew for a fact that her mother was dead... Horatio had called one of his CSIs to look up the death certificate, and autopsy photos for him, to confirm that everyone in her family was dead.
"I hate her," said Allyce, suddenly, "She made my dad do that... She drove him too it. And he killed Jason... didn't even have the decency to close his eyes, before he blew his own brains out. i found Jason with his eyes wide open you know... "
Unable to help himself, Horatio asked, "What color were his eyes?"
"Green..." she replied, "Bright green."
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Once out of the interrogation room, Grissom and Horatio discussed her behavoir with the others.
"I say she's either pulling our chains," said Sara, looking as if she would have rather not heard the woman's story, "Or she really has no idea what she did."
"Could be split personality?" Greg suggested, hoping someone would say something encouraging about his theory.
"It's possible," said Calleigh, with a quick smile at Greg. He looks alot like Ryan... She thought, Hm. I miss that kid... Have to call him when we're done here... Maybe accept that date he offered before I left.
"Are they normally aware of a seperate personality though?" Warrick asked.
Grissom shrugged, "Not always, but it's possible. That may be what's going on here."
"Or," said Horatio,"she isn't schiztophrenic, and she's just imagining that her mother is following her, and she's pinning the murders on her... imaginary friend, if you will. "
"Either way," said Nick, "Are we sure it's her that did it?"
Everyone nodded. "Along with the help of her boyfriend," said Brass, approaching them. "He just confessed."
"Let's have them arrested then," Warrick, "Where they'll do time can be worked out later, yeah?"
No one objected to this. After Katrina/Allyce had been told she was going to be arrested for nine counts of murder, the group drifted apart. Grissom noticed that one person wasn't leaving. Sara, of course. She was staring through the glass at the other woman, looking almost sorry for her. As if she sensed Grissom's eyes on her, she said, "How does anyone do that to their own child? How can you beat, and rape your own daughter?" she paused a moment, "I guess after all these years I should be used to this kind of thing by now, huh?"
"The day you get used to it, Sara," said Grissom, embracing her from behind, "Is the day it's time to quit. "
"Yeah, I know. It just makes me sick, to think that those kids would still be alive, if it wasn't for one abusive mother..." she sighed, then laughed a little at herself, "I feel like pulling a Catherine, and just going home right now to tell Summer how much I love her." She smirked at the gentle kick to the ankle she got from Grissom, "I would rush home to tell you how much I love you, too, but you're right here." She shrugged out of his embrace, and together they started down the hall to catch up to the others. Sara looked back towards the interogation room once, thinking about the woman who sat in there, being cuffed by an officer right then, confused, and upset. She felt another pang of pity, as she faced forward again. To lighten the mood, she suddenly stood on her toes a bit, and whispered in Grissom's ear, "How's a little sibling for Summer sound to you?" Not that it matters how it sounds. Too late for thinking about it.
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Epilogue: Goodbye to new friends
In celebration of catching their killers, Sara's announcement, and as a way to say goodbye to Calleigh and Horatio, Nick and Susan had planned a nice dinner at their apartment, which everyone attended. It gave them some time to get their minds off that case, as it still disturbed them all.
Both Nick, and Susan were superb cooks, which showed in the way that there certainly wasn't going to be any leftovers. Of course, there were some who couldn't have cared less about the food. The children, to be more specific. Jaina and Ryne were having far too much fun with Summer to care about eating, and Summer in turn was having to much fun practicing her skills as an older sibling, and proudly proclaiming that she was going to have a baby brother or sister soon. The fun and games lasted for several hours, until Horatio reminded Calleigh that they did have a plane to catch, and, after her phone call to Ryan, she had a date to make.
Their good byes were said, and on Calleigh's behalf a hug or two was shared, and they left, with Warrick and Catherine, driving them to the airport.
It was a relief to be leaving, actually, Horatio thought, anyway. He liked the crew here, but he missed his team, and he knew Calleigh did too. Who knew? Maybe another case would allow the Miami lab, and the Vegas lab to work together again, and maybe not. Only time would tell. For now, the main concern was making that plane on time, and getting home. That was another thing he was missing. Moisture. How people survived in that desert, he didn't know.
END.
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As always, I have a preview of an upcoming Story
"Better Left Alone"
Some things are better left alone. That's what people said. Maybe this was one of those things? Maybe I should just let Grissom be. After all, he was partially out of his shell... Maybe with time he would come all the way out. But then, where did that leave me? If I was afraid of making him retreat now, wouldn't I still be later on? Who could tell?