Chapter 2 Clean
Grissom stood back while detective Brass and another police man stood against the wall of the small shop on either side of the men's room door. Guns drawn, they waited for a third officer who counted to three, then with one swift movement rammed his shoulder into the door taking it clean off it's hinges. Brass and the first officer quickly entered the bathroom.
"Clear." The officer called after a once around of the room. He quickly backed out allowing room for Grissom to join Brass. The CSI pulled his flashlight out of his jacket pocket and turned the end. As the flashlight flicked on, it lit up the bathroom and both men took a look around. Detective Brass's mouth flew open at the sight before them. The small men's room couldn't be more then five by five feet with a small toilet and sink on one end of the room. But what they were focusing on was on the other end of the room. Plastered all over the wall were backpacks, each hung up with a single nail. All the backpacks were different colors and sizes, but all had one thing in common. Each backpack had a picture of a different girl pinned to the front. All they girls were bound and gagged in their pictures, their eyes screamed for help. Grissom recognized some of the girls from amber alerts and news reports, some of the girls he had no idea who they were. Brass thought there had to be at least twenty or more bags hung on the wall.
"Brass," Grissom said defiantly, "We need to find the owner of this place. Now."
Sara ran a hand through her hair and looked back down at the table before her. She hadn't had any luck with missing persons or the school rooster, now she was staring at the contents of the pink backpack from the crime scene. It had held a complete McKinley Middle School uniform, two sticks of berry burst lip gloss, and half of a snickers bar. She had already sent the snickers bar down to the DNA lab to see if Mia could get anything off of it. How does a pre-teen girl leave her house with noting but lip gloss and a candy bar? Sara thought as she examined the backpack. She picked it up and turned it over in her hands. She noticed it was clean, really clean, almost like she had just bought it. It was close to October, too far into the school year for a new backpack. Sara had just set the bag back down when Grissom walked into the room, two officers behind him with one large cardboard box each. The officers set the boxes on the table Grissom thanked them and they left.
"What are you doing?" Grissom asked scanning the table. "Catherine was supposed to be processing the backpack."
"When we got back Ecklie put her on another case." Sara explained looking over the boxes. A disappointing look crossed Grissom's face, although a second later it was gone.
"Well, I hope you got plenty of sleep yesterday." Grissom said, opening one of the boxes. "We found these in the men's bathroom at the abandoned shop." He started pulling backpacks out of the box, all in their own evidence bags. Sara gasped as he pulled out one after the other, the horrifying pictures still pinned to the front. "We've already matched a dozen of them to missing person's cases and unsolved murders going all the way back to the eighties." Grissom explained. "Did you check missing persons?"
"Yeah, no luck." Sara said opening a box and carefully pulling out a purple school bag. The picture pinned to the front of it was of an African American girl with short black hair. She was tied up with what looked like a women's scarf. Sara cringed as she imagined all the things that could have happened to that girl. "Umm…" Sara started, regaining her composure, "Nothing on the school roster either, probably the only day in history every single student attended class." Grissom sighed looking around the table, he wasn't sure where to start. "What's even more confusing," Sara said looking down at the very first back pack. "Is that this back pack wasn't on the wall."
"You're right." Grissom agreed, "Also, the body was dumped so close to his base. It doesn't make any sense." Grissom stopped unloading the box. "Maybe she wasn't an intended target. All these other girls, the ones we've identified already, were found wrapped in blankets or placed in boxes, and the cause of death was always suffocation. This girl, she was left where she died, almost like the killer didn't want to touch her."
"Maybe she got in the way of something." Sara suggested. "She could have discovered his room and he had to kill her." Grissom thought this over and shook his head, trying to make sense of it all.
"No, this doesn't make sense." Grissom said, putting a hand on the back of his neck. "This many murders, this level of secrecy, Why make your head quarters the local teen hangout spot?"
"Teenage girls?" Sara mused out loud. Grissom looked over at her.
"I'm going to stay here and get organized." Grissom said moving the empty box from the table. "Find Brass and head to the school, and see if he found the owner of that building yet." Sara nodded and quickly walked out of the room. Grissom watched her till she turned the corner at the front desk. Then he looked back to the twenty-three school bags lying in front of him, and wondered who exactly they were looking for.
Catherine walked down the hall purposefully with a small file pertaining to her case folded in her hand. She turned her head left and right looking through the glass walls of the Las Vegas crime lab.
"Something wrong?" Hodges asked walking up to Catherine.
"Have you seen Nick?" She asked. Hodges shook his head.
"Any thing I can help with?" Hodges asked eager to please his superior.
"I just dropped thirty solo cups and a jar of puke off at trace," She said, smiling, "You're not helping anybody for awhile."
"Are we having a party?" Hodges asked jokingly.
"You are." Catherine said, walking away. Hodges smiled and turned towards the trace lab. Catherine continued down the hallway till she reached the exam room were Grissom had spread out twenty three different back packs on the glowing examination table. When she walked in he was hanging the last picture off the last back pack on the white board off to the right side of the room. "What's with all of this?" Catherine asked, surprised.
"We found them at the crime scene." Grissom said, turning towards her. "I need your notes from last night, by the way."
"I'll get them to you." Catherine said. "Sorry about Ecklie. I don't even know why he wanted me on the case so bad: he's got all of day shift to boss around and he's still picking on-" Catherine was interrupted by her phone ringing. She slipped it out of its holder and looked at the screen. "I'll see you later Grissom, I've got a date with a body." she quickly turned around almost colliding with Nick Stokes, who had just walked into the room. "Oh, good Nick-"
"Don't," Grissom said staring at the pictures on the wall, "I need him." Catherine looked at Nick disappointingly.
"He paged me first." Nick said slipping past Catherine into the exam room. She sighed and walked out the door.
"And if you see Greg," Grissom yelled after her, "Tell him he's mine too."
Catherine slipped on a pair of gloves as she walked into the autopsy room. Warrick was already there standing over their John Doe, who was spread out on a large metal table, a white sheet spread over him. Doctor Albert Robbins, the chief medical examiner, was on the opposite side of the table talking to Warrick about baseball stats.
"It's just you and me, Rick." She said standing beside him.
"Just how I like it." Warrick said, smiling. Doc Robbins cleared his throat and began to peel the sheet off of the body lying in front of them.
"I've got some bad news for you guys." The doctor said laying the sheet at the body's feet. "This wasn't an overdose." Both CSI's looked up at the doctor in astonishment.
"That's impossible." Warrick said, "We found him lying in a pile of his own puke, in a room full of drugs."
"Well, I sent a sample to tox just to be sure," He said shifting his weight to his cane. "But C.O.D. was cardiac arrest due to unknown causes."
"Are you sure it wasn't due to drug use?" Catherine asked. Doc Robbins shook is head and pointed to John Doe's arms.
"No track marks on his arms. I also swabbed his nasal passages and found nothing. When you said overdose I looked everywhere. Unless drugs can now be absorbed by osmosis, I can't find an entry point." The doctor sighed and looked over the body once more, "Sorry guys, that's all I have right now."
Sara and Brass walked up the stairs to McKinley Middle School while slowly observing the school. Sara watched as a Group of children just released for recess poured out into a fenced in school yard connected to the left side of the school. She stood by Brass as he punched a button on a gray intercom by the main doors. There was a bit of static, then a woman's voice.
"McKinley Middle School, how can I help you?" The woman said pleasantly.
"Jim Brass LVPD and Sara Sidle with the crime lab." Brass said flashing his badge to a camera attached to the intercom.
"One moment please." The woman said. The intercom hissed then went quiet.
"There's no way she was abducted from this school." Sara said looking around. "There's way too much security." Brass nodded his head in agreement. They stood back as a short, African American woman walked to the doors and opened them.
"Come on in." She said holding the door for them, Sara recognized her voice from the intercom.
"Thank you." Sara said stepping in after Brass.
"Sorry about the wait." The woman said, leading them down a short hall and into an office. "I'm just a secretary. The principal is out for lunch, but he'll be back soon." She opened a glass door marked Principal and motioned for them to enter. "I'll help you with anything you need."
"Well Miss…" Brass started.
"Carol." The secretary cut in.
"Miss Carol," Brass said, sitting in one of two brown chairs in front of a mahogany desk littered with papers and knickknacks. Sara sat in the other. "We need to know if you recognize this girl." Brass held out a large photo of their Jane Doe lying on an autopsy table. Carol took the picture and sat down behind the desk.
"Oh my God." She said, putting a hand on her chest, "That's Jamie. Jamie Tucker." She stared at the picture a moment longer then handed it back to Brass. "She's dead?" The secretary questioned. "When?"
"Yesterday afternoon, around one o'clock." Sara said staring at the woman intently.
"That's impossible." The secretary said quickly pulling a laptop out from somewhere behind the desk. "She wasn't in school today, but yesterday she was on the attendance list. I saw her walk into the school myself." She opened the laptop and began typing.
"How exactly does your attendance system work?" Sara asked.
"Well," The secretary began, still typing on the computer, "All our students have a fifteen minute home room. The teacher takes attendance and send the files straight to the principals computer that I have right here. Everything's done electronically nowadays."
"Is there anyway a student could have a friend stand in for them?" Brass asked.
"No." The secretary answered turning towards them, "The teacher has to physically see a student in order to count them as present."
"But you only take attendance that one time." Sara said skeptically, "So a student would only have to be present for homeroom to be listed on the attendance sheet." The secretary nodded her head slowly as she realized what the CSI was implying.
"The doors lock automatically Miss, as soon as they close," The secretary said quickly, "We have cameras at every entrance and exit, we never let anyone in without proper identification, and even if someone did get in, it's physically impossible to get into the rest of the school without passing through the main office. Whatever happened to Jamie, it definitely didn't happen here."
"Carol," Brass said, "If you don't mind we'd like to interview some of Jamie's friends and teachers. Also we'll need the tapes from all the cameras."
"Anything that'll help." Carol agreed, picking up a black corded phone from the desk. I'll set up a room for you to conduct interviews in."
"This is Anne and Gloria." Carol said to Detective Brass while herding two young girls into the empty art classroom where he was waiting. Anne, a sheepish girl with long red hair slipped quietly in to an empty chair in front of the teacher's desk where Brass was seated. Gloria looked around while smacking loudly on a piece of gum.
"Look, I was just holding it for a friend." She said defiantly, plopping down nosily in the chair next to Anne.
"Holding what?" Brass asked.
"Never mind." She said quickly crossing her legs and looking away from Brass.
"These are two of Jamie's best friends." Carol explained, straightening out Gloria's uniform collar. "Just be nice and answer the detective's questions girls."
"Is Jamie in trouble?" Anne asked quietly, "Is that why she's absent?"
"Kind of, yeah." Brass answered trying to dodge the question. "Did Jamie cut class yesterday?"
"Yeah" Gloria answered.
"Does she cut class often?"
"Yeah."
"You ever go with her?"
"Hey man, this ain't about me." Gloria quipped, folding her arms across her chest.
"Where do you think she goes when she cuts class?"
"Dive beach," Gloria said smirking, "That's were everyone hooks up when they cut class." Brass nodded his head and scribbled something in his notepad.
"Do you know anything about Jamie's home life?" Brass asked looking back and forth between both girls.
"I know she don't like her old man." Gloria answered, staring at her nail polish. "But she never lets anyone come over, so we've never been."
"She spends most of her time at Billie's house." Anne cut in. "They're really close."
"A boyfriend?" Brass asked.
"Naw," Gloria answered running a hand through her cropped brown hair, "Billie's a girl."
"Why don't you pull this Billie out of class for me." Brass said making another note in his pad.
"I can't," Carol said, "She's absent today too."
"Was she absent yesterday?" He asked Carol.
"No," Carol said, "No one was absent yesterday."
"No offense," Gloria said turning towards the secretary, "But you teachers are dumb as bricks." Carol put a hand over her mouth. "I bet half the school skipped yesterday, all you gotta do is be there for home room then slip out the back."
"Sir," Anne broke in suddenly, sitting up straight, "They were inseparable. If Jamie skipped Billie did too."
"Give me a last name." Brass demanded, pulling out his radio.
"Hamilton." Carol said quickly.
"This is detective Brass," He said quickly into the radio, "I need someone to check missing persons for a Billie Hamilton." He looked at both girls then to Carol, before he could say anything a voice crackled over his radio.
"Billie Hamilton. Blonde. 4'9, 90lbs. Reported missing at 8:00 this morning. Amber Alert has been issued." Brass looked at his watch. 8:30 am.
"You didn't mention Billie was missing." Brass said, looking at Carol.
"I didn't know." Carol said with a concerned look. Both girls looked at each other then back at Brass.
"Thanks for your help girls." Brass said standing up and walking out of the room. He turned into the hall way where Sara was searching Jamie's locker.
"Primary back pack." She said, holding up a bag identical to the one they had found at the crime scene. "This one is worn a bit, and it has all her school books in it. I bet she came to school with this one then switched them right before she cut class."
"Well you better hurry up and bag that." Brass said pulling out his phone, "You've got a second locker to search, and I've got some parents to visit."
"Were you messing with my desk again?" Catherine asked Warrick as she sat down behind her desk. She picked up some stray papers and straightened them into a neat pile. Warrick smiled at her but didn't answer; instead he sat down in one of the chairs in front of her desk. "You're just jealous because I've got my own office." She said jokingly.
"If I wanted your office," Warrick said, picking up her name plate and spinning it in his hands, "I'd just marry you and make you split it with me."
"Is that a proposal?" She asked taking the name plate out of his hands and setting it back on the desk. Before he could answer, Hodges appeared in the doorway, Mia standing beside him. "You could have paged me, "Catherine said, "I would have come to you."
"Well I was going to page you but…" Hodges started, unsure how to finish.
"Things got a little weird." Mia finished for him.
"Weird how?" Warrick asked, sitting up straight.
"Well," Hodges said, handing Catherine the lab report in his hand, "Your cups were clean. Really clean."
"So were the ones you gave me." Mia said, "Straight out of the package clean. No DNA, no finger prints, nothing."
"So what are you saying?" Catherine questioned, "That some one just opened up a pack of cups and tossed it on the floor?"
"It get's weirder." Hodges said, "The puke isn't your victims. We compared it to the victims DNA and it isn't even the same gender."
"So he was lying in someone else's puke." Warrick wondered out loud.
"Actually no." Mia said, "The sample that we tested was the sample you guys sent to me, which was taken from his throat."
"So he had someone else's puke in his mouth." Catherine said while scanning over the lab report. Suddenly Catherine's phone rang. She pulled it out of its holder and held it to her ear. "Willows. Yeah.. Ok…" She rolled her eyes, "Thanks." she flipped the phone closed and set it on her desk.
"What was that about?" Warrick asked, noticing how agitated Catherine had become.
"Tox came back on our John Doe. He was clean, for everything."
"Everything?" Warrick asked.
"Not even an aspirin." Catherine answered, leaning back in her seat.