Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer
December 13, 10:12 PM
12 days until Christmas
"Griss, this had better be one damn good high profile of a case if you had to call me in early on a night Tina and I were out," Warrick complained irritably, stepping out of his vehicle, carrying his silver kit. He wore a leather jacket to keep out the chill, and a small hint of cologne lingered on him, though he had planned to wash it off before coming in to work. He caught up with Grissom at the front of a large Victorian style home. It was decorated like many of the houses on the block were, with wreaths and holly berries, Christmas lights, and a light up Santa and sleigh on the roof.
"It's the sheriff's daughter, Megan," Grissom stated, meeting Warrick in the middle of the street, his hands in his pockets on that cool night.
"What are you talking, kidnapping?"
"No, theft. Some of her toys were stolen." The two turned unison and walked toward the home.
Warrick's face fell and he rolled his eyes. "Grissom, you gotta be kidding me. You called the entire team in early to find the sheriff's daughter's missing toys?"
"Yes. And no." Grissom stopped and the two turned to face each other in the driveway, just before the crime-scene tape.
"No?"
"There's a dead elderly woman out back, with hoof prints on her forehead." He jerked his head towards the back yard.
Warrick let out a laughing breath of air. "You're kidding me, right?"
Grissom shrugged, his eyebrows raised. He lifted the tape. "You should see for yourself."
Warrick gave him a skeptical and slightly annoyed look as they entered the perimeter of the crime scene, heading toward the backyard of the sheriff's house. They noted the sheriff himself leaning on the front of his Cadillac as Brass spoke to him. A few yards away, on the front lawn, Sofia spoke to the 8-year-old daughter of the sheriff. The girl was still dressed in her purple flannel nightgown, draped in her father's coat as they stood in the nippy air. Her dark brown hair was shoulder-length and tucked behind her ears. She had big, dark blue eyes and her face was cute, if only for her long and pointy nose.
"I heard that Megan was not a pleasant kid," Warrick stated, nodding at her as they traipsed down the lengthy driveway.
"She's been spoiled," Grissom stated simply.
"Hey! Grissom!"
Warrick and Grissom turned to see Catherine jogging towards them with Sara and Greg getting out of the Denali behind.
"Grissom!" Catherine snapped, coming to a stop before him. Her blue eyes were crackling in the dark and a firm frown sat on her face. "What the hell do you think you're doing calling me out of Lindsey's Nutcracker?"
Grissom pursed his lips. "Is there another one?"
"The 17th…"
"Go see that one."
"You—"
"There's a dead elderly woman in the backyard," he interrupted. "Sara and Greg, go check out the body; Nick and David are already there. Warrick, I want you to go check out the girl's room. Catherine, backdoor was the entry-way."
"And where are you going to go?" Catherine replied sardonically.
"I'm going to go talk to Sofia."
"Okay, so it was Santa Claus who came into your room?" Sofia asked Megan hesitantly.
"Yes."
"You're sure."
"Yes!" Megan screeched, stomping her foot on the grass. "It was a big fat man in a red suit! He came into my room, I pretended to be asleep while he took some of my toys, and then he left out my window!"
Sofia stared vacantly ahead before sighing and jotting a couple of notes down on her pad.
"I can read upside down, you know," Megan stated arrogantly.
Sofia glanced back up at her as the girl leaned her pointy nose forward to see what she had written.
"And I do not appear to believe that it was Santa in my room. It was Santa. I know it."
"But…uh…," Sofia quickly fished around her head for a response. "But Santa doesn't leave the North Pole before Christmas Eve, you know."
"Uggh!" Megan threw her hands up. "If you won't believe me, I'll scream police brutality and my daddy will sue you." Megan stuck out her tongue at the older woman, then folded her arms and turned her back to her.
Sofia's mouth hung open slightly and she narrowed her eyes at the girl.
"Making any progress?" Grissom asked, stepping up behind the detective.
She looked over her shoulder and stood, folding the notepad closed.
"She, uh…" Sofia lowered her voice so Megan couldn't hear from where she stood, glaring evilly over her shoulder at the two. When it felt safe to continue, she explained the extent of the interview to him.
"The person who went into her room was most likely the person who killed the elderly woman. There was no ID on her, but I'm sure the sheriff will know at least her first name if she was in his backyard," Grissom responded.
"Mmm…" Sofia murmured. "I'll try and see if I can get anymore details from the sweet little girl. What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to go talk to the sheriff." Grissom pointed his flashlight towards Brass and the man, nodded goodbye to Sofia, and headed off.
"Oh boy," Greg exclaimed upon arrival at the actual crime scene.
In the middle of the spacey lawn laid the corpse of an old woman. She wore a white shawl over a pale blue sweatshirt and jeans. A pair of black snow-boots dawned her feet and there was a set of bifocals askew on her nose. Her face was old and worn, wrinkled, her mouth frowning as its left side lay on the cold ground. The head was twisted away from the rest of her body, settled with its back on the dirt and grass.
"Hey Greg. Sara," Nick acknowledged, adjusting his camera and taking a couple more photos of the dead woman. He seemed to be the only person who hadn't been in the middle of something before they were all called in.
"Hey," they answered in unison, stepping cautiously along the grass around the corpse.
"So, uh…Dave, what's TOD?" Nick questioned the young coroner.
David answered distractedly, "About 8:45 PM." He paused, brushing his fingers on the dead woman's face. "Hey, you guys...what do these bruises look like to you?" The woman's face was beat up by numerous uniform bruises, tiny puncture wounds at the tip of each.
Sara, Greg, and Nick all bent their faces down to the woman's head.
"Hoof prints," Sara was first to say, her hands in her pockets.
"That's what I thought…" David muttered.
"Grandma got run over by a reindeer," Greg joked, smirking.
"Yeah, you can say that again…" Nick agreed. He paused, still looking at the body. "What's this we got here…?" He set the camera down and reached into his kit behind him, coming forward with a pair of tweezers. He lifted a small hair from the corpse of the woman and held it up, Sara shining a flashlight at it.
"It's about a four inches long, brown…seems pretty thick…" she observed.
"Maybe it's reindeer fur," Greg offered with a chuckle.
"Greg, when was the last time you saw a reindeer in Nevada?" Sara inquired, nearly rolling her eyes.
His laughing died out. Clearing his throat, he replied innocently, "She's got hoof prints on her forehead. It's a possibility."
Sara sighed.
"Let's get to work. Greg and I'll take a look around the yard."
"And I'll get this body to Doc Robbins," David stated, waving over the people with stretchers and large black body bags.
Warrick opened the white door to Megan's room and let out a sigh as he entered. The room was large, a walk-in closet on the same wall as the door. A dusty bookcase stood against the far wall next to a window and around the base of it was what looked like hundreds of toys, scattered all over the floor—stuffed animals upon stuffed animals upon dolls upon an enormous hodgepodge of any toy a child could want.
"Better get to work," he muttered to himself.
If he finished early, he might be able to get back home and make up the missing half of his and Tina's night out before she went to her own job.
There were so many toys; it was hard to tell that anything was missing. So instead of busying himself with an inventory of missing items, Warrick started by dusting the door of the bedroom. He recovered nothing. He then dusted the open window…another disappointing result of zilch.
He sighed, staring out the window. Below, he saw that the body bag was full. Sara and Greg were walking around the yard, stopping here and there, a scattering of yellow plastic markers in their wake. Nick was taking pictures of the indent in the grass where the victim had laid. Again, Warrick let out a soft breath through his nose. Then, suddenly, something caught his eye. There, stuck on the window lock, was a small red thread. He squinted at it before reaching into his chest pocket for a pair of tweezers and a bag. He pulled it off the window and looked even closer at it—just a plain red thread. He stuck it into the bag, shut it and placed it in his kit
He examined the window some more, found nothing, and grudgingly closed up the box.
"Warrick?"
He turned to see Grissom standing in the doorway.
"Hey boss," he greeted in a disheartened tone.
"Making any progress?"
"Nothing but a single red thread. No prints, no other trace. I can hardly tell what was taken."
Grissom glanced around at the spacious room, looking as if he were almost intimidated by the amount of luxuries this girl had.
"Did you look at the floor?" He caught sight of a small indent of carpet in one corner.
"Griss, come on. I mean, do we really have to do this? They're just toys."
"They could lead to a killer," he pointed out.
Warrick heaved another sigh and looked at the floor beneath his feet. Again, something abnormal was brought to his attention. Specks of black dirt on the floor. He bent down, taking a tape-lift from his pocket. He stuck it onto the trace and pulled it up.
"Griss, I got some black powdery dirt…and it's not fingerprint powder."
Grissom turned to look at Warrick's discovery.
"Good find. We can give that to Hodges back at the lab. I just finished talking to Brass and the sheriff. Sheriff was just finishing up putting his daughter to bed while his wife was out of town. He went downstairs, a half hour later his daughter is yelling for him and he hears some bells and a muffled scream. He went to see his daughter first, of course and then looked outside and saw the body. He says it was a neighbor, probably headed over to drop off some fruitcake for the holidays."
"But why use the backdoor?"
"Grissom!"
Warrick and Grissom turned to see Catherine standing there, her earlier anger only partially dissipated.
"Yes?" Grissom asked pleasantly.
"I finished the backdoor. One print on the doorbell and a few smudges on the doorknob. Also, a fruitcake on the doorstep, if that means anything. Nicky's got that. You guys get anything more?"
"Some black dirt and a red thread. That's it," Warrick muttered, tossing the tape-lift into his kit lazily.
"Hmm…sounds like Santa," Catherine indicated, raising her eyebrows.
"That's exactly who the daughter thinks entered her room," Grissom declared.
Suddenly Grissom's cellphone chirped.
"Grissom."
"Griss, you gotta come see this."
"Sara?"
"Come to the back if you're not busy."
Grissom leaned over towards the window, peeking down at the yard. Sara, Greg, and Nick were all standing next to something he couldn't see.
"Okay…" He closed his phone.
"What does she want?" Catherine asked.
"She says I have to see something, wanna come?"
"Yeah, sure. I've got nothing better to do…no Nutcrackers to see, no daughters to congratulate…" Catherine stepped aside, Grissom and Warrick walked past her, and all three of them headed down the stairs and out the back door.
"You are looking at a set of sleigh tracks," Sara declared, almost proudly.
The group stood around two even marks in the ground, pressed deeply. They looked like two parallel bars running halfway through the yard, starting a couple of feet from the backdoor and stopping a few yards from where the neighbor's body had laid.
"The space between the two impressions is about five feet or so and the width of the sleigh runners is about…six inches, give or take a half inch," Sara stated, checking the measurements she had written down, her voice tilting up slightly at the end.
Grissom was gazing at the length of the impressions, his eyes narrowed slightly as he stood in thought.
"Any thoughts, Grissom?" Greg asked.
"Reindeer tracks on her face and sleigh treads in the grass…I don't know what to think right now."
"We found a red thread stuck on the girl's window," Warrick said, breaking the silence. "And some black dirt on her carpet."
"So what, Santa killed Granny?" Greg asked.
"Didn't know he was one for stealing toys…" Nick replied.
"Nothing is said until we process this evidence. Santa Claus is not a suspect. If he even exists, he lives at the North Pole, not Las Vegas. Now, if we're all done here, we should get back to the lab."
Nods all around and they picked up their kits and stalked off the scene.