Here is chapter eight.
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"Well, well, look who is back." Greg leaned back in his chair, looking very pleased with himself. "Dear little Nicholas."
Nick leaned against the table. "Just tell me what the results show, okay?"
Greg saluted. "Roger… So who do you think it is?"
"What?"
He sighed as if he were talking to a mere child. "Who do you think killed Regina Chapman? The boyfriend? The best friend? The maid?"
"I really do not care who did it as long as we catch them," Nick said forcefully. "Now, just tell me what you found out!"
He eyed the man. "Calm down. Jeez…" But then he smirked. "First I will tell you that I found no prints on the brick that was in the car that the body was found in—Warrick sent it here."
Nick could feel his anger rising. "What about the hair?"
"The hair that was found on the deceased is not a match to Bethany LeClaire's hair."
Darn, Nick thought. He thought that it would be a match—both the hair and the woman's hair were red. Now we need to find out whose hair it is.
"So, did I solve the case?" Greg asked.
However, Nick was already walking out the door to meet with Warrick. He was waiting outside of the main lab, his arms crossed.
"I just got done talking to the maid, Lo Johnson-Gare," he said when he saw Nick. "She does know about Regina's food allergies."
That was something. "I got the test results back from the wood chips that were on her clothing," Nick said. "They match the chair that was in her kitchen. She was there not long before she died, or, as I think, she died there…. Also, the hair that Doc found on Regina's body does not match Bethany LeClaire."
Warrick chuckled. "That might be a good thing. We could get our butts sued for taking hair like that."
Nick shrugged, but smiled. "Well, once I saw that the hairs were red, I thought that we could get a search warrant and then get our killer."
"Wait." The smile on Warrick's face vanished. "Did you say that the hair was red?"
"Yeah, it looked it, but I only had one piece to glance at, not a full head of hair."
Warrick tapped his chip thoughtfully. "We need to get two warrants. One will be for Bethany's hair. Yes, I know you tested it already, but we don't want to get sued, even if her hair is not a match to the victim."
"And the other warrant is for whom?" Nick asked as he followed Warrick down the hall.
"If I'm right, then you will see. I have a hunch about one of our suspects…"
***
Catherine wiped the sweat off her forehead. After finding the second part of the Chimera statue, she had sent in a call to Grissom. He was, to her knowledge, driving out there at the very minute. Now the Chimera Killer was definitely a serial killer. The MO was the same as the first case—stab wounds and a sterilized statue left on a table in plain sight. The only other option was that someone had planted the statue as a copycat, but the details of Roxanne Theseus's case were not leaked to the public.
Since the first case had clues about the second, Catherine and Sara were forced to search the whole center—again. It was tough work. Many businesses had taken people or animals from Greek mythology and made it either their name or product label. Not to mention that almost anything could have an underlining meaning that related to mythology.
An atlas was set on the top of the growing pile. Atlas was a titan forced to hold up the weight of the world on his shoulders. Even a box of cereal was put onto the list of possible clues. Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, was named Ceres by the Romans. It was later turned into the name for wheat cereal.
If something as simple as an atlas or a box of cereal could be a clue, then this will be a challenge, thought Catherine.
"I'm really starting to hate this place," Sara said as she too wiped her forehead.
Catherine stopped to think again. "The clues we found in Roxanne's home were in the room that the Chimera statue was in…."
"So, maybe, the clues are in the same room here, too," finished Sara.
They made their way back down to the front desk, where the couple had been slain. They went through the entire process again, but this time they wrote down whatever could be clues to the next victim. It was long work, for the Greeks had influenced many things. In its own way, it was almost amazing.
"I'm really starting to hate these people," Catherine said.
"The Friars?" Sara asked, confused.
"No, the Greeks," answered a voice from behind them. They turned around to see Grissom standing in the doorway with his case in hand. "It is amazing what they had accomplished, and it is even more amazing that we have based many modern things off their mythology."
"You sure took your time getting here," Catherine said as she set down a snow globe back onto the desk that she had taken it from. "We have already searched most of the upper level, but we then decided to come back to the room where the victims were killed. Now, we are searching this part of the center."
Grissom put the case on the ground and started to put on disposable gloves. "Did you think to ask an employee whether or not something was different about the room than before the killings? If I am not mistaken, you did the same thing with Zoë Theseus."
Both Catherine and Sara rolled their eyes at the idea. Of course, they would have overlooked that small detail—and, of course, Grissom would be the one to point it out to them.
"Excuse me, miss," Grissom said as we walked over to the line of employees that were still waiting at the entrance. "Could you please tell if anyone else worked at or near the front desk?"
The woman rubbed her forehead from the stress of the day. "I would work at it if Dorothea or Elliot were working with one of the center's visitors. Why?"
Grissom pulled the woman over to the desk, where Catherine and Sara had begun to work again, though they watched him curiously. "What is your name?"
The woman pulled a handkerchief out of her shirt pocket and wiped her nose. "Li—Cindy Li."
Grissom nodded in approval. "Now, Ms. Li could you look around this room and tell me if there is something that was not there before."
"What do you mean by 'before'?"
"Before the killings," he said frankly.
Catherine leaned over to Sara and whispered, "He still is not a 'people person,' is he?"
Sara suppressed a smile.
Cindy Li was peering around the room, sticking her neck into the bookcases and around objects, for she was not allowed to touch anything. With the CSIs permission, she looked through the desk drawers and the insides of the cabinets. Finally, she went to the final case on the opposite side of the desk. "There," she said pointing to the top shelf. "Those three things up there—I do not think that they were there before—no, I know that they were not there before."
Catherine and Sara went to the bookshelves with Grissom. Sitting on the top shelf were four things: a DVD, a photo of a dove, an owl key chain, and a crudely painted gold apple.
"Juno?" Catherine said as she held the DVD up. "I never saw that movie…."
"Does this mean that there is another victim out there," Sara said to herself.
"No," said Grissom as he put the objects into evidence bags. "Not if we have anything to do about it."
To be continued…
And the mystery thickens…
R&R