Here is chapter three.
Disclaimer: I only watch CSI. :}
"I think that it is pretty obvious on how this woman died, but I still need a job, so I will tell you anyway," said Doc as he hovered over Roxanne's body. "Multiple stab wounds to the chest and stomach. She lost a lot of blood from the looks of these stabs—there are eight of them, by the way. She has deep cuts on her arms from putting them up to block herself, though it did not help much."
Grissom leaned against the table. "What I wonder about is this: why was Roxanne stabbed multiple times, but her daughter was only nicked by the knife?"
"Maybe the killer thought that she was dead when she hit the floor," Doc suggested.
"Or, maybe, the killer couldn't bring himself to do it."
Doc walked over to one of the sinks and started to wash his hands. "I do not know, Grissom, but I'm only too glad that I only had the mother's body and not the daughter's body too."
As he walked through the door, Grissom said, "And her body is still one too many."
***
"Leo Harwood," said Sofia Curtis. The interrogation room was small, but by now, she was use to it. She had no need to be afraid—she was not the one that did anything wrong. "Your girlfriend was found in her car, dead." Their Jane Doe had a name now: Regina Chapman.
"I know that already." Harwood was antsy. He was drumming his hands against the table and his eyes never stayed in one place for long. Sofia looked the man over. His features were long, giving him the appearance of someone who was sad all the time. His eyes were large pools sitting on his face, but his glasses were too small, and his dark hair needed a haircut. Harwood was a long and lanky man, which surprised Sofia. From the photographs that she had seen, Regina was a beautiful, well-dressed woman. Her boyfriend was the exact opposite.
"When was the last time that you saw Regina?" asked Sofia after a long silence.
"It was—it was two days ago," stuttered Harwood. "We went out to a restaurant…. How did she die?"
It was a good thing that the autopsy was done before we brought him in, Sofia thought. "She died from asphyxiation."
"What? I thought that she was in a car crash!" Harwood threw his hands up to his face. "What does that even mean?"
Sofia crossed her arms and stared at the man, letting the room fill with silence. "It means that she suffocated." What Sofia did not ad was that Regina wasn't choked by a person. She died from her throat swelling and cutting off the air to her lungs.
"She was suffocated in her car? Did that cause her to crash?" Harwood looked horrified.
"No, she was put in the car after her death, post mortem. Now," Sofia said sharply, "tell us about Regina. Did she have any enemies, anyone whom she had a falling out with?"
Harwood shook his head so hard that Sofia wondered if it hurt his neck or not. "No, everyone loved Regina…. However, the other night she had a falling out with her best friend. I have no idea what it was about, since it seemed like one of the problems women have, and I did not want to get involved—"
"What is her friend's name?" asked Sofia, cutting him off.
"Bethany LeClaire," chattered Harwood. "May I go? I needed to call her parents. I haven't done anything wrong."
He was right. They could not hold him here. "Yes, you may leave." Sofia left the interrogation room soon after Harwood. She pulled out her cell phone. "I need to have Bethany LeClaire here," she said into it. "Now."
***
"Man, this woman sure knew how to keep a clean house," said Nick as he picked a hair off the white couch with his tweezers. "This is the only hair I have found on this entire piece of furniture." Like the couch, most of the room was white: the chair in the corner, the square rug draped over the hardwood floor, the lamps that were on the dark stained end tables.
"Actually, she had a maid." Warrick searched the TV station. "Did you really think that a twenty-six-year-old could keep a house this tidy? I know that my house never looked like this when I was that age."
"Yeah, mine either, but that's what happens with kids who have rich parents—their very own home and a maid that comes with it." Nick leaned back away from the couch.
"So what exactly are we looking for?" Warrick asked.
Nick started to make his way to the kitchen. "Well, Regina was killed somewhere else besides her car. We're just trying to find something out of the ordinary here. Results from the lab told us that there were chips of maple wood on her clothing, suggesting that she was sitting down on a wooden chair when she died."
Warrick nodded. "If she thrashed while her throat was closing up, then that would cause chips of it to transfer to her clothing."
The kitchen was extremely large, much larger than any twenty-year-old would care for. The countertops were marble, the appliances stainless steel, and the table and chairs were wooded. Half of the kitchen had tile floor, but the other half, the part with the dining table, had a wooden floor, like the rest of the house. Underneath one of the chairs was a gash in the floor.
"I don't think that the maid caused that," Warrick commented.
A scene started to form in Nick's head. He pictured Regina sitting at the table. Then she started to shake, and then she grabbed her throat. She was convulsing and choking. Finally, Regina was thrown across the floor by her own shaking, and the chair was flung out from under her. The bottom of the leg of the chair scraped against the wood floor. The vision disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Nick relayed his idea to on Warrick.
"But what was she doing at the table?" he asked.
Nick shrugged. "Eating? We should ask Doc what was in Regina's stomach when we get back. I hope that that will be important. Otherwise we have no other leads."
"You really think that this is where Regina died?" Warrick did not say it cruelly—he was only curious. "If she did, then was someone with her? Or did they come later and find her dead on the floor? Was it an accident or was it really murder?"
"Either way, someone has to go to jail for moving a dead body and making it look like a car accident. Did she die here? I do not know, but I think that it is a possibility."
They proceeded to taking samples of the wood chairs. While they were walking out of the house, Warrick turned to Nick and said, "Remember when I said she had a maid?"
"Yeah."
"I think that we should ask her some questions."
***
Grissom's eyes were starting to hurt from staring at the computer screen for so long. After hours of searching, he finally had it.
"What's that?" Catherine asked as she walked through the office door.
"This," said Grissom, "is the statue that was left at our crime scene. It comes apart into three pieces. They each fit into each other perfectly and the inside is hollowed out."
"Yes, I can see that," Catherine commented. She gazed at the screen. "But they look like three different animals."
Grissom nodded. "That's true, Catherine. However, they are in fact one creature." He flipped to another screen, which showed all of the pieces together. "It is from Greek mythology. This is a monster called the Chimera. It has a lion's head, a goat's body, and the tail of a dragon or a serpent, whichever way you look at it. The Chimera breathes fire. Bellerophon was the hero that killed the creature in the myths. He also happened to tame Pegasus, which was a winged horse. Did you know that the word chimera means an imaginary monster made out of different grotesque combinations of animals? It also means something unrealistic or an organism with different tissues or DNA from different sources."
"So the Chimera really left its mark on history," Catherine commented. "It really is not lovely to look at. Why would anyone want to have of statue of that?"
"Oh, you would be surprised how popular this statue is. From what I have read, professors on the Greeks or Greek mythology love this for paperweights. Then there are people who just love the Greeks. I must say, their stories are very intriguing; however, I do not know as much on the subject as I hoped I would. "Grissom stared at the creature on the screen. "It is a strange combination. I wonder how they came up with it, the Greeks that is."
Catherine raised an eyebrow. "Oh? How do you know that the Chimera really did not exist?"
"There is nothing that supports that theory," said Grissom. "It is scientifically impossible."
Turning her attention back to the statue, Catherine said, "Where is the rest of the statue?"
"That I do not know," Grissom said as he slipped his glasses back on. "Either it was in the house before the killing and the murderer moved it…"
"Or?"
"Or the killer has two more pieces, and two more murders to leave them at."
To be continued…
I love Greek mythology. I really want a Chimera statue, but I do not know if there are any really ones or not.
I would love to hear what you thought of this chapter!
R&R