A/N-Thanks for all the positive reviews so far. I hope I do not disappoint!!
Greg and Catherine were six hours into their shift when Capt. Brass came to Catherine. "We have another murder, same MO as the one you and Greg had yesterday. Location is about 15 miles west on Highway 164, the Desert View Motel." He handed Catherine the address. "I will meet you two out there."
Catherine found Greg in the garage looking over the victim's Mustang. "Greg, we have another one. Looks like the same killers struck again."
"Yeah? Where," he asked as he got out of the driver's seat of the car.
Catherine filled him in on the details and told him to be ready to go in fifteen minutes.
This was an even smaller motel then the last one. It only had 15 rooms, one of which the owner/front desk clerk lived in. It seemed most of the small properties were like this on the rural highways.
David Phillips was already on the scene when Catherine and Greg arrived, with their kits in hand.
"Hey Dave, what do we have this time?"
"The TOD is approximately 2 hours ago. Similar type lacerations and throats slashed like the last victims."
Greg's eyes looked around the tiny room. "Looks like the same kind of bloody mess they left last time too."
Splatters of blood covered the walls and floors again. The two victims, again a male and a female laid in the same positions on top of the bloodied bed.
"Well seems like we have ourselves some serial killers on our hands," Catherine mused.
Greg had walked towards the bathroom. "I already smell the bleach from here. So they make a mess during the killing process but then clean up after themselves in the bathroom with bleach. Then why make such a mess of it in the first place?"
Catherine glanced at the younger CSI. "They probably enjoy the slashing and murder process, yet do not want to leave too much behind for them to be caught. They want us to see they enjoy what they do."
As many times as Greg had been on cases like this, it was something he still could not get use to. The cold-hearted act of murder and the glee some people seemed to take in it. He started photographing the room.
Brass came in a few moments later.
"Our victims are Leo Stanger and Brenda Shaw. Both in their mid-thirties and it seems they checked in early yesterday. They were due to check out early today and had requested an early 4 am wake up call. Bob Maley, the motel owner, said Mr. Stanger told him the evening before he would be checking out by 5 am. When he had not come down by 6 am, Mr. Maley went over to the room here to make sure they got the wake up call. He says when he got no response, he assumed they had upped and left without coming to the front desk to check out. So he entered the room and saw what you see now. He immediately called 911 from his cell phone. He did mention seeing a tan pick up truck leave the motel at around 4:30 am. The truck had not been here the night before. The black Camry is the vics' car. He got no plate number for the tan truck, had no reason to," he told them.
"So the wake up call probably spooked our killers and then they rushed to finish the job. So maybe they left something behind for us this time." Catherine turned to Greg. "We are going to take our time with crime scene and hopefully get something substantial this time."
Greg simply nodded and went back to photographing the scene.
A couple hours later, Greg sighed as he stood up from searching under the bed for clues. "The maid here keeps this place cleaner than the previous motel. I've found a bunch of smudged prints on the door handles and partials on the dresser and nightstand, but not many hairs this time and under the bed is clean."
"Yeah same here. And here I was hoping they were rushed and left something behind. Looks like it does not take them long to clean their stuff and go."
They spent another hour at the scene then headed back to the lab. When they got there the day shift was in. They were both so tired, they dropped off their evidence at the appropriate place before Catherine and Greg went to their homes for a few hours rest.
Managing to each snag at least 5 hours of sleep this time, Greg met Catherine in her office to go over Dr. Robbins autopsy reports on the two newest victims. Long lacerations along their torsos and backs of both with some small, deeper cuts along their arms and some on their woman's face. The cause of the death was the deep lacerations across the throats of both victims. Toxicology reported also the sedative Midazolam in both of their systems."
"So they mildly sedate their victims first to gain control over the situation, then they start slicing skin and torturing them," Greg said to Catherine on his hunch.
"It would appear so. Only there is one main difference this time, Dr. Robbins said the woman appeared to be sexually assaulted with a foreign object this time."
"Yeah?" Greg thought for a moment. "I wonder if that pool cue chalk we found has anything to do with the object, say maybe a pool stick?" He raised his eyebrows in a guessing gesture.
"It's always a possibility. It would not be the first time I've heard one used in a rape."
"And if so, maybe our killers hang out at pool halls," Greg suggested.
"Could very well be. Good one, Greg. I'll have Brass check into some near our crime scenes. In the meantime see if Wendy has anything more for us.
They waited as the young couple came back to their motel room. They had seen them at the Five Dragons Bar, playing pool. They were perfect for what they wanted tonight. They followed them back to their motel in their Blue GMC Jimmy, at a distance, as to not be noticed.
He smiled at his girl as she watched the couple close the door to their room.
"It's a bit early. Let's say we grab something to eat and then come back and start the show."
She grinned back evilly. "Sounds like a plan to me."
Once again a hair found on the scene was Jessica Myers. Wendy had matched it. They put out an APB for the arrest of Jessica Myers for suspicion of murder. At least they had one possible suspect; the problem was bringing her in.
Greg went into the locker room during a break and laid down on the bench. He was just going to rest his eyes for a few minutes. They had been burning from the lack of sleep and staring at the photos of the two crime scenes for hours, trying to figure a pattern out, which there was none.
Sara came in to grab her jacket out of her locker and saw Greg sleeping on the bench. It had been a long couple of days for her and Nick, too, with Grissom and Warrick still out at the conference, but they did not have the messy crime scenes that Catherine and Greg had scored, which took hours longer to process. Every time they tried to help out with their case, Sara and Nick got called out on another new one in town. She could not wait until Grissom and Warrick got back.
She tried to be quiet and not wake up Greg but her cell phone went off. Greg stirred awake as she grabbed her phone. She mouthed an apology to him as she spoke on the phone. She ended the call quickly and noticed Greg staring into space, as he was sat up on the bench.
"Sleeping with your eyes open now, are we?" Greg looked at her, giving her a cockeyed frown.
"No, I wasn't. I was just trying to think the cobwebs out of my head. I didn't plan on falling asleep." He looked at his watch. It had only been about 20 minutes.
"So how long were you out, Sleeping Beauty," Sara smirked at him.
He glared at her with a grin. "Only about 20 minutes and it was my break time, Evil Stepmother."
"Wrong story tale, Greg," she laughed.
"Whatever. When do Gris and 'Rick get back anyway," he whined.
"Late tomorrow. Say I gotta run now. Nick called and said we got a new 415 off the Strip. Enjoy the rest of your shift."
He stood up and stretched his legs and arms before heading to check in with Catherine again. Two more days to go and hopefully he would have a whole day off to just sleep.
Catherine was on her phone when he came in. She held up her hand for him to give her a moment. He stood just outside her door to give her some privacy.
When she finally waved him in, she explained she was on the phone with her daughter.
He smiled at her. "I had a feeling by the look on your face."
She looked surprised at him. "What do you mean by that?"
"Oh just that your face always seems to lighten up more when you are talking to her. It must be hard these last few days hardly seeing her."
Catherine was pleasantly surprised at how he noticed how she was when she spoke to Lindsay and his concern for her about not seeing her daughter much. She suddenly felt very comfortable talking about Lindsay to him.
"Well she is having a tough time in some of her science classes, like chemistry, which is weird. I was pretty good at it, but then again I took a lot of those when I was much older than she was."
"I was a science nerd, I freely admit and excelled at Chemistry. If she ever needs help on it, I could try to help her out," Greg offered.
"Thanks Greg, that's really sweet of you to offer. We might just take you up on that." She smiled.
Greg smiled back at her at the thought. "Has Brass had any luck on tracking down Jessica Myers yet," he asked her to get them talking about the case again.
"No, he has not found her, but he did find out she use to work as a nurse, but before she stabbed her ex-boyfriend, she was fired from her job for finding drugs in her system after random drug testing at her workplace."
"So she has a history of drug use and knowledge of drugs and has used a knife in a stabbing before. She sounds like a prime suspect to me," Greg shrugged his shoulders.
"Ditto. Now we just have to find her and figure out who her accomplice is in all this before they do it again."
Brass had walked up to catch just the end of her sentence. "Too late! We have another one. They moved north, though. This one happened off of hwy 157 at the North Vegas Lodge."
"No way, 3 nights in a row? What so they have some kind of scoreboard," Greg exclaimed.
"Seems so. We are putting out more info on Jessica Myers to find her. Hopefully someone will spot her. In the meantime I will meet you at the scene."
Greg look exasperated at Catherine. "We have to find these killers soon before they get to anyone else."
"Yes we do. I am sure Grissom and Warrick will help us out once they get back to work. I know this case is going to be priority one until it is solved." She got up, grabbed her jacket off her chair and made a motion for Greg to follow her. "Let's get to the scene."