Disclaimer: I obviously do not own CSI: NY. I just own my car, my laptop and my crazy muse who seems to want to write 4 different stories at a time. I also do own any characters that you do not recognize. You can borrow them if you ask permission first!
A/N: Here's the next chappie!! Thanks to all who reviewed. As always, please R&R. My muse loves the attention. :D As always, a grateful thank you to my betas, PrincessG and Axellia, without whom my story would just suck!
Chapter 14.
Here's to you…Mr. Robinson?
Danny and Hawkes were back at the lab, bright and early the next morning. Hawkes brought the coffee this time. They sat, patiently waiting for Detective Angell to arrive with the warrant. They had only been waiting for fifteen minutes when she arrived.
"Messer. Hawkes. I got the warrant, you guys ready to go?"
In response, both men just got up and began to walk towards the elevator. Danny and Hawkes drove in one of the lab vans, while Angell took a police SUV.
It only took thirty minutes to drive to Henri Dubois' apartment and when they got there, they proceeded with caution. Angell took the lead as they walked up the stairs. When they arrived at the apartment, with the manager in tow, Angell knocked loudly on the door. "NYPD. Henri Dubois, open the door."
There was silence from the apartment, so Angell motioned to the manager. "Unlock the door, please." The man quickly unlocked the door, and the three detectives walked in.
The apartment was a mess. Clothes, books, various special effects equipment and pizza boxes were strewn around the room in a haphazard manner. Angell looked around and scrunched her nose in disgust. "Hawkes, Messer, start processing the place."
Danny and Hawkes nodded. Hawkes took the living room, while Danny walked into the bedroom.
"Hawkes?" he called out in an urgent manner. "We have a body in here! I think it's Charlotte Peterson."
Hawkes and Angell ran into the bedroom. Hawkes immediately ran to the prone woman lying in the bed. He immediately checked for a pulse while Angell called for an ambulance. "She's alive." He turned to the woman and called softly, "Charlotte? Can you hear me?"
The woman groaned softly, but did not open her eyes. Hawkes pried open her eye and flashed a light in it. "It looks like she's in shock. She could have been drugged. I won't know any more without a tox screen." Danny nodded and paced beside the bed.
Angell murmured into the phone to the dispatcher, so the paramedics would have all the information they needed.
Hawkes looked at Danny pacing. "Messer, start taking photographs of her. I see rope burns on her wrists."
Danny nodded and took out his camera. He calmly began to photograph the scene, so that the visual evidence would be preserved. He had just finished, when the paramedics arrived.
Quickly, Charlotte was loaded onto the stretcher and carried out; Hawkes close behind so that he could assist the paramedics in case she went into further shock.
Danny went back to processing the apartment, finding a couple of knives that tested positive for human blood. He also found a store of hallucinogenic drugs and various other forms of drug paraphernalia. He motioned to Angell. "I do believe that we have found our killer's lair. I'm going to spray everything down with Luminal and see if there is anymore blood residue. Can you close the blinds?"
"Sure, Messer. Do what ya gotta do." She walked over and quickly shut all the blinds, leaving the room in semidarkness. Danny turned on his UV light and the evidence of blood splatter was everywhere.
He began to take swabs of the different pools of blood that he found. A couple of hours later, he was finished and he repacked his kit. He sighed in exhaustion, drawing Angell's attention.
"You okay, Messer?" she asked.
"Fine. Just tired. I need to take all of this back to the lab. Do you have an APB out on Dubois?"
"Yeah. Called it in a couple of hours ago. No sign of him here or at his job. Looks like he has disappeared."
Danny just shook his head. "Maybe we'll be able to find him with all this evidence. I wonder if Charlotte is awake yet."
At the hospital, Hawkes was talking to Charlotte's doctor. "So, so you have the results from the tox screen?"
"Yes. It looks like she was kept on sedatives. I also found traces of Rohypnol in her system. Other than the rope burns, I don't see any other physical trauma on her. I had a nurse run a sexual assault kit. It came back negative."
Hawkes nodded while he looked at her chart. "Good. Has she woken up yet?"
The doctor nodded, "No. I think that she will be out until tomorrow."
Hawkes nodded. "Okay. Call me if anything changes." Hawkes handed him back the chart and walked out of the ER.
When Hawkes got back to the lab, he filled Danny in on the doctor's finding. Danny nodded, unsurprised. "With all the drugs that we found at the apartment, I'm surprised she didn't have anything else in her system. I have about a hundred different blood samples to run through DNA and we have no clue where Dubois is."
Hawkes heard the frustration in his voice. "Ease up, Dan. We can't do everything at one time. Let me help you run the blood and let Angell worry about catching Dubois. That's her job. Our job is to get the evidence to put him away once he is arrested."
Danny sighed. "Alright, I get cha. I'm overreacting. It's just…things are so crazy right now. Cory, the assassin. The crazy case! I need a vacation."
Hawkes laughed. "Don't we all? The only cure is to focus on our jobs and catch the bad guys."
Danny laughed in response and handed over half of the swabs he was working on, so that Hawkes could help prepare them for DNA testing. Both knew that with as many samples that they had, it would take the DNA lab several days to run them all.
It took them a couple of hours to get all of the DNA evidence ready to be processed, then they both started to process the rest of the evidence that Danny had gathered from the apartment.
Hawkes looked all around him. "Okay. From this evidence, I'm making a pretty well educated guess that Henri Dubois is our killer. But why? What's his motive?"
Danny nodded his head. "I don't know. It doesn't make sense. Why would a drama teacher kill all of the girls? He has a good job in the special effects industry and from the picture I saw of him, he's not bad looking. This is just not adding up!"
Hawkes understood his frustration. "I think that we are missing something here. Maybe Charlotte can fill in the blanks when she wakes up."
Mac walked into the room. "Danny, Hawkes. What do you have here?"
Danny quickly gave him the rundown and also voiced his frustration to him. "Sometimes there is no motive, Danny," Mac said in a matter of fact manner. "Sometimes, a killer just kills to kill. But I don't think that is the case here. I think that the reason that we don't know the motive is because something happened in Switzerland. Unfortunately, the evidence that you have from the Swiss police is not showing the motive and the only people that can answer it are dead or in the hospital. Listen, why don't you and Hawkes take off for the day. You've been here for ten hours and just staring at the evidence is not going to help you. Go home, get some sleep and then talk to Charlotte in the morning."
Danny nodded. "Kay, Mac. It might be nice to spend a little time with Cory."
Hawkes also nodded then turned to Danny. "I have an idea. How about we take our girls to the movies? It's been a long time since we spent quality time with them."
Danny smiled. "Perfect. I know just the movie. Cory wants to see it, but we haven't had time." At Hawkes' confused look, he continued, "Knocked Up. I've heard that it's really funny and I think that's what we need to see right now."
Hawkes laughed. "Perfect. I'll call Lydia and tell her that I am kidnapping her to go to the movies." With that, both men walked into the locker room, feeling in a much better mood.
The following morning, Danny and Hawkes were in a better mood. They both agreed that the movie was the funniest that they had seen in a while. They were still discussing it, while changing in the locker room.
"Man," Danny said. "That was the funniest movie! It makes me think. What would I do in that situation? I love Cory and all, but I don't know if I'm ready for kids yet."
Hawkes nodded his head. "I don't think anyone is ready for a little spawn of Messer! Hey! Don't hit with that!" Hawkes ducked as a towel came flying at his head. "It's just a joke."
Danny rolled his eyes. Both men turned as the door opened and Mac walked in. "I think that you might get some of your questions answered. Charlotte Peterson is in interview. She was released earlier this morning and voluntarily came in." Mac turned to leave. "Oh and Danny? Hawkes is right, no one is ready for Messer kids."
Danny just stood there with his mouth hanging open as Hawkes bent over in laughter.
Danny walked into the interview room, where Charlotte and Angell were waiting. Hawkes was going to watch from the two way mirror.
Charlotte looked at them, a little fear in her eyes. "Thank you for saving me. I thought I was going to die," she said softly.
Danny looked at the attractive blonde, feeling his attitude soften a little. "Can you tell us what happened?"
Charlotte took a breath and began her story. "Henri asked me to come by for tea. The next thing I knew, I was tied up on a bed. I tried to break free, but he just laughed. Then he gave me a drink of water. I don't remember anything after that until I woke up in the hospital."
Angell took over the questioning. "Why do you think he would do that? Does it have anything to do with Anna, Marie, Carolina and Abigail?"
Charlotte looked at the detective in wonder. "How do you know about them?"
Danny looked at her. "We found their bodies. You went to school with them."
Charlotte nodded, but Angell decided to play bad cop to Danny's good cop. "Why did you lie to me about knowing Abigail, Charlotte? This is not looking good for you. You lied to a police officer in a homicide investigation. That tells me that you had something to do with their deaths."
Charlotte's already pale face lost any trace of color. "I didn't! I swear, I didn't have anything to do with their deaths!"
Danny picked up his cue, perfectly. "Okay. I believe you. Why don't you tell us the whole truth? Like why did Henri kidnap Anna and Marie?"
Charlotte nodded. "I swear, I'll tell you everything. I knew them in boarding school. We weren't good friends or anything, but they were nice. While I don't know if this is true or not, there's a rumor that went around school after they disappeared. There was talk that they had been sexually assaulted by a teacher and were going to go to the authorities about it."
Angell looked at her and snorted. "Then why did the police not put that in the report?"
"People were too scared to talk. Plus, this rumor didn't start until about a month after their disappearance." At Danny's encouraging nod she continued. "Anyway, I was getting ready to leave for the States, when I had an encounter with Henri. I had just graduated and he asked me out to dinner. I don't remember a lot of that night, but I know that I had sex with him.
"It wasn't until a couple of weeks ago that I figured out that he had slipped me a roofie. So I was blind when he started to seduce me. I was so overwhelmed! He's French, you know, totally gorgeous and he wanted me. I was the plain girl at school."
She broke off for a moment there and Danny decided to probe her for information. "Did he ask you to do anything for him?"
Charlotte nodded. "He wanted my help to get into the business. You see, Daddy has some contacts in the movie business. It's not fair! All he wanted to do was use me, for my connections." She started to cry and accepted the handkerchief that Danny offered her with a watery smile.
"Charlotte," he said softly. "I know that this is painful, but we want to catch him. I need your help to do that. Please continue with your story."
She nodded. "So, I got him a job in the industry. We dated for a couple of months when he moved over here, but then he started to push me away. Then you found Abigail and my mind started working. Why was she there?"
Angell interrupted her. "Why did you lie to me about knowing her?"
Charlotte sighed. "I knew that she was found in Henri's apartment. I leased it for him under an alias. I wanted someplace safe that we could meet, without my parents asking questions. I loved him. But when I found out that Abigail had been murdered, I realized that the person that the rumors had been about was him! So he asked me for tea, and I wanted to confront him, but I never got a chance."
Danny and Angell exchanged a glance. Danny then looked back at Charlotte. "Why don't you stay here for a bit? Dubois can't get you in here." He took another look at Angell and they both walked out of the room.
Angell started working on all the angels out loud. "So, we have a teacher who sexually assaulted at least two of his students. Said students were going to turn him in, so he kidnapped them. He then seduces another student to get into the US. So why kill them two years later?"
Hawkes looked at her. "Simple. They were a burden to him. Chances are, he kept them in the apartment that Danny searched. Once he killed them, he had to kill all links to him. Thus, their friends were lured here. The only one he didn't have a chance to kill was Charlotte. I'm sure he didn't know that we were on to him, otherwise she would be dead."
Danny nodded in his agreement. "We need to get her into protective custody until we find Dubois."
"I agree," said Angell. "I'll get the paperwork started." She walked down the hall, while Danny and Hawkes went back to the lab, to see if they could figure out were Dubois had gone.
AN: So, the killer is revealed!!! Any thoughts, questions or comments???
brainDamage089-The plot did thicken! I honestly don't think that anything will happen to Danny. I put him through hell in the last fic, so I probably won't do that again. And yes, he's trying to learn French for her. I thought it was romantic! Yes, it was the last chapter posted, but I have more written!! Although my muse is a little vague right now (way to focused on Harry Potter 7 coming out).
Girl of Many Worlds-I agree. Red Bull helps me so much when I only get 2 hours of sleep because I was out at the club! (I'm really getting to old to do that on a work night, but I just love amateur boxing!)
mj0621-I'm glad it's worth the wait...The fluff may be a while in coming, but I do have some rather emotional chapters coming up!