LAS VEGAS : PRESENT
Catherine and Warrick walked into the garage and stopped, staring at the crushed and charred hearse.
"We're assuming someone survived suicide corner and a car fire in a coffin?" Warrick asked.
"Until we find a body, yeah," Catherine answered.
"Las Vegas luck at its best."
She nodded, walking around the hearse. The coffin had been put back inside to transport it to the garage.
"Do you want the hearse, or the coffin?" she asked Warrick.
"Hearse."
"Help me get the coffin on the table before you start, will ya?"
They moved it over to a table and sat it down. Warrick pulled on gloves, grabbed his flashlight, and started going over the hearse.
Catherine picked up a flashlight and opened the coffin. She noticed eyelet screws about where the hands and ankles would have been. She turned and picked up a bag with the one of the torn plastic ties, holding it up. Catherine held it next to each of the screws until she found the wear pattern that would have matched.
"Whatcha got?" Warrick asked, looking up.
"There's wear on the plastic ties where they were tied down. They put up a fight at least."
"Hope search and rescue finds them, or they fought for nothing."
Catherine knew he was right, but she liked to believe there might be some hope. After all, this person may have survived a thirty foot plummet and kidnapping. She began to slowly examine the coffin, picking off evidence as she did.
"Mandy, I come bearing fingerprint gifts," Catherine said as she walked in.
"Do ya now?" Mandy said with a smile.
"Yes." Catherine sat the dozen prints on the table before Mandy
"You're joking, right? A dozen of them?"
"And more to come. They are all over that hearse and coffin. I think maybe the hearse and coffin were stolen."
"Who would steal a hearse, or a coffin for that matter?"
Catherine walked back out. "Nothing is sacred these days."
Mandy laughed, getting started on the fingerprints.
Greg pulled the tape that had gagged their John or Jane Doe from a bag and carefully removed the bits of skin attached to it. He prepared the skin for DNA testing, started the test, and then began working on other evidence from the accident scene. He picked up the grains of sand that Catherine had found in the coffin and placed them on a slide and slid it under a microscope. Greg leaned over, focusing on the sand. The particles hinted that this was not sand from Nevada – it lacked the mineral composition of sand from the local area. But he had seen this sand in the Gulf Coast.
Greg moved back and prepared the grains to go into a spectrometer. He looked over his shoulder when the DNA computer beeped, populating a CODIS hit on the screen. Greg turned, expecting to find some criminal with probably a good reason to be on the wrong end of a crime. Greg skimmed the page, right past the man's occupation. His eyes jumped back and he forgot to breath.
"Oh no…" he gasped.
Greg fell into a chair and started typing and clicking. Nick walked in, dropping his swabs off next to the others Greg was working on. Greg stopped typing, reading a file he pulled up.
"Have you had any hits from anything yet?" Nick asked, looking at Greg.
Greg didn't answer.
"Greg?"
Greg still didn't answer.
"Greg!"
"What?"
"Is something wrong?"
Greg suddenly jumped up and ran past Nick, searching for Grissom. Nick walked over to the computer, reading the APB. And instantly was outraged.
Grissom and Warrick stared at the interior of the coffin that luminol had lit up brightly.
"And that's just with one light coating," Catherine told them.
"That's can't all be blood," Warrick commented.
"GRISSOM!" Greg yelled as he ran into the garage.
The three turned. Greg grabbed the doorframe, panting.
"I gotta hit on the skin off one of the piece of tape."
"Do you have a name?"
Greg waved his hand at Grissom as he shook his head. "The name's not the important part. He's—"
"What is his name, Greg?"
"Ryan Wolfe, but Grissom, he's a CSI with the Miami Dade Police Department. He was kidnapped two weeks ago, and is still missing."
"That changes things," Warrick said.
"Yes. It means we have an injured officer wandering the Mojave Desert." He looked at the two. "This just became a round the clock case. I'm going to go ask for swing."
The two nodded, watching Grissom leave. Greg fell in behind him, starting to tell him what else the CODIS hit told him