All For Nothing

Chapter 7 – Three Little Birds

„Don't Worry!" Nick sang loudly, turning up his car stereo. "About a thing…"
Louise raised her eyebrows, laughing, "Really Nick?"
"Because every little thing." Warrick joined in from the back seat.
"IS GONNA BE ALRIGHT!" They chorused, severely out of tune. Louise turned to look out of her window, shaking her head.
"Don't know you…." She muttered, as they pulled up to their scene. Brass and some of the uniformed officers turned to the Denali disapprovingly. Louise grabbed her kit and climbed out of the car quickly, while Nick and Warrick finished their song.
"How are our Marley impersonators?" Brass asked, as Louise ducked under the tape.
She rolled her eyes, "Don't even go there. Where are we anyway?"
"About 20 miles from civilisation." He said, pointing, "Nearest town is in that general direction."
Louise took in the miles of bleak desert around her as Nick and Warrick emerged from the truck in hysterics. She turned around and glared at them, "Are you done?"
"Sorry, Lou" Warrick defended, "It's a good song!"
"Woaaahh…" Nick interrupted, staring past the arguing pair at the crime scene. Louise followed his torch beam and cried out, for crawling towards them, gasping for air was a young girl. Dropping her kit, Louise shouted instructions while running towards the victim, closely followed by her co-workers.
She fell to her knees and drew the girl to her. "Someone call the medics!"
Louise frantically pulled off her cardigan and placed it on the victims bleeding stomach. The young girl looked up at Louise with wide, pleading eyes and Louise felt tears prick the corners of her eyes.
"It's okay, sweetheart." Louise whispered as the dying child gripped her hand, "Just hang on, okay? The paramedics are on their way."
She brushed some of the hair from the girl's face and looked around panicked. "Nick!" she shouted, her voice raised a few octaves, "Do something!"
The Texan looked at the blonde sadly and with a jolt, she realised they were too late. Louise looked back down at the girl, stroking her forehead lightly.
"What's your name, sweetheart?" Louise asked, softly, "Do you know who did this to you?"
"Louise…" Nick said quietly, crouching down next to her and placing a hand on her shoulder. Nick closed the little girl's eyes and allowed Louise to bury her head in his neck.
"Why do I do this job, Nicky?" Louise sighed, as the coroner moved the girl off her lap.
Warrick knelt next to David as he documented the girl's injuries, "You guys are going to want to see this."
David held out the girl's wrist, "Ligature marks." He noted sadly.
Nick groaned and Louise walked over to the next body, "These two as well." She looked up at her co-workers. "What kind of psychopath would do this?"
"That's why you do this job, Louise." Warrick said, staring out into the desert, riled by their newest case.

Xxx

"Lou," Nick walked up to his friend, leaning into the back of the Denali, "I'm going to need to bag your clothes." The blonde looked down at her blood soaked clothing and nodded, taking the overalls from him. He turned his back as she slipped into the navy blue jumpsuit and placed her clothing in a bindle. She dug in her kit and pulled out a butterfly clip, twisting her hair off her neck. "Let's do this." Louise said, menacingly. Nick placed the evidence bindle in the back of the truck and followed Louise out to the tape. Warrick was already snapping pictures of Louise's girl, so she took the second victim. David was just finishing up.
"You ready to go, Louise?" he asked, scribbling on his clipboard.
She nodded, "Talk to me."
"Well, liver temp is 97.2; she's been dead less than two hours." He said gravely, "Single GSW to the head, multiple bruises and abrasions extending over her arms and legs as well as ligature marks."
"We've been here at least an hour, so the killer must've been close when it was called in." Louise said, examining the area around the body. "How old do you think she is?"
David took a quick look at her teeth and sighed, "I'd say around 18 years old. Louise, some of these injuries look old."
"Prolonged abuse and imprisonment maybe?" Louise asked, pulling on her gloves.
The coroner replied grimly, "It's starting to look an awful lot like that. Can I take her?"
She nodded, picking up her torch and walking around the scene. Nick walked up behind her, closely followed by Warrick.
"What did you get?" she asked, watching David load the three bodies into the van.
"My victim was around 12 years old, visible prolonged abuse and single GSW to the head." Nick started, "Ligature marks, bruises, the works."
"Your girl was 3 years old," Warrick added, "Same injuries as the other two."

Xxx

She'd pulled a double shift combing the crime scene and now, Louise sat on the bench in the locker room, staring blankly ahead. Sara and Catherine had passed through at the start of their shift but, after warnings from Nick and Warrick, had left the blonde staring into space. Grissom had explained to the team that this was the first case where a victim had died in Louise's arms. He'd pulled Sara and Catherine off their suicide case and had assigned them to Louise's case. Even Greg had cleared his backlog to make the triple murder his top priority.
"Louise…" he said quietly, sitting down on the bench next to her. He squeezed her hand lightly, when she didn't respond.
"I'm fine." She said, wiping a single tear from her cheek. She stood up confidently and he took her hand again as she walked past him.
"You sure?" he asked. She nodded, pulling him up. "Let's go catch this bastard."
As she stared into his eyes, he knew that she was serious and that she was going to be okay. He handed over the autopsy report, "Doc Robbins asked me to give this to you."
She flipped it open and her eyes widened, "Can you test the samples please? See if we can identify them?"
"Already on it." He followed her out of the locker room, "I'll get it to you as soon as it's finished testing."
Everyone was waiting for her in the layout room and smiled sympathetically when she arrived.
"Let's run it." Grissom said, once she'd taken her usual spot next to Warrick
"I just got the autopsy results back from Doc…" Louise began, "All victims indicated signs of sexual assault."
Catherine gasped, "Son of a b…"
"He hasn't been able to identify any of them through Missing Persons, or CODIS or any other database that we have access to, but Greg is running their DNA as we speak." Louise continued, laying out the autopsy pictures on the table.
"Ligature marks on all three victims looked like shackles, or cuffs." Louise sighed grimly, "And the evidence of abuse is just… horrific." She pulled out more pictures, "Bruises, cuts, scars, burns, broken bones, healed fractures."
A shocked silence filled the room, interrupted when Greg ran in.
"You are not going to believe this!" he panted, out of breath from his two metre sprint from the DNA lab. "Victim one and victim two are sisters and then the little girl is her daughter."
"You sure about that?" Grissom pressed?
He nodded, "Positive!"
"So we're looking for two siblings who went missing… some time ago?" Warrick asked, opening a laptop and searching the Missing Person's database.
"Rick…" Louise said slowly, "I think this is bigger than this. I think this is human trafficking."
"What makes you say that?" Catherine started looking at the images.
Louise frowned, "They were taken out to the middle of the desert, shot and then the killer just high-tailed it out of there, leaving no trace. These guys are pros and that make me think trafficking. Look at the abuse; no 15-year-old has a child unless they've been abused, or are in the sex trade."
Nick sighed, "That actually sounds plausible. Now the problem is finding the killer, before he kills any other girls."
"Why do you think there will be other girls?" Louise asked, sadly.
Nick pointed at one of the injuries that each girl had, "That is a brand. No one brands their victims unless they're in a larger organisation."
He slid the picture across to Louise who examined it closer. "I think it's an animal …"
She passed it over to Warrick, who squinted, "I think it's a coyote."
"Wow… That narrows down our search area; it's not like there aren't coyotes in the whole flipping desert."
"Has that new trace kid arrived yet?" Nick asked, examining a container of something he'd picked off the victim's clothing.
Grissom shook his head, "He's not due for a couple more weeks."
"I'll run it." Louise said, holding out her hand for the container. She was beginning to feel flustered and focused all her energy on not hyperventilating. When she'd seen the autopsy report and Greg had tested the DNA, she was ready to cry. She set up her tests on the tiny piece of tiny and held herself steady on the counter in the trace lab. "No 15-year-old has a child unless they've been abused." Her own words were ringing in her ears and she fumbled in her pocket for her phone. "Emma?" Louise said when she answered the phone, "Oh, nothing's wrong. I'm just working a really tough case at the moment. How's Heather?"
No one could understand why Louise was in a better mood when she returned to the layout room with her results.
"Nick, your tiny bit of tiny; Animal, Mineral or Vegetable?" she smiled, smoothing out a map.
He frowned, "I'm going to go with Vegetable."
She circled an area on the map, "Not quite. It's a mushroom which, luckily for us is only found in one area of Vegas."

Xxx

"Louise!" Brass radioed from the patrol car up ahead, "You have to let me take the lead on this one. No going anywhere without backup. Clear?"
"I've got it." She replied, trying to keep up with the line of police vehicles in front of her.
Nick gripped the dashboard in front of him as they bumped down a dirt track, "Next time…" he swallowed, looking green, "…I'm driving."
"You always drive," she shot back, stepping on the accelerator.
"There's a reason for that..." he gasped as she sped up.
He started singing under his breath and Louise strained her ears to hear him, "Rise up this morning…"
She rolled her eyes, "Bob Marley? Again?"
"Every little thing…" he gasped, "…is gonna be alright, if Louise doesn't kill me in the next ten minutes."
"Very funny…"

Xxx

As shouts of 'clear' echoed around the abandoned warehouse, Louise felt her heart drop. When Brass emerged from the last room looking sombre, she feared the worst.
"You're going to want to see this."
Louise followed him back into the room where she gasped. The walls were covered in blood, shackles bolted into the plaster and in the centre of it all a Polaroid picture lay on the floor.
She picked it up with a glove, careful not to smudge any fingerprints, "Oh no." she cried, " We're too late."
Nick held out a clear bag and she dropped it in. He looked closer at the image. A dark room, the one they were standing in, filled with wild-eyed girls staring helplessly at the camera, while chained to the walls and one another.
"They knew we were coming…" Louise murmured, taking her kit from the uniform who had gone back to the truck.
She pulled out swabs and began to take samples from the walls and floor, her face dead-panned. "Nick." She said quietly, "How many girls were in that picture?"
He counted the faces he could see, "20. Why?"
"I get the feeling we're going to find 20 more bodies in the next couple of weeks."
"It never hurts to be hopeful," he reassured.
She shook her head, "You saw what they did to the three we found. I just fear for the safety of the others."

xxx

"Please tell me you've managed to ID those girls," Louise pleaded as she walked into the DNA lab.
Greg grinned, "I have matched the DNA of twelve of the girls to active Missing Persons cases. All of them are really old cases going back to the 80s, but then there are your three who aren't in any system at all."
"Have you tried familial searches?" she asked, flicking through the pictures of the girls Greg had identified.
"No hits so far. I've tried to find a pattern in the kidnappings, but they're literally from all over the country. New Jersey, Miami, Vegas… This one was from Texas." He pointed to each picture, "They're from different backgrounds, different ethnicities… I can't find a link anywhere."
Greg's computer beeped and he pulled the screen around, "I don't believe it…"
"Looks like I'm going to prison." Louise smiled, grabbing the files and stopping at the printer, "Thanks Greg; good job."

A.N. This chapter was inspired by this week's episode 'Wild Flowers'. I wanted to jump ahead a little bit, but then I thought this would be a good case for Louise and it sets up a plot line for WAAAAAAAAAAY down the line. I'll continue this case in the next chapter, where I'll explain the whole prison thing... We're still on Season Three, just to clarify, between 'The Accused is Entitled' and 'The Execution of Catherine Willows' (which will make an appearance after this case). There wasn't very much Greg/Louise romance happening in this chapter after their little chat last chapter. Damn you Ecklie. Has anyone else noticed that it's only Vegas who has major issues with that policy? I'm pretty darn sure that in NY and Miami, there are loads inter-team relationships.

Anyway, please review. I'll send you cake... (I PROMISE.)

~Carley Idonea.