5)
A/N: Sorry for not updating, I was studying for my Spanish exam (which I probably messed up … ).
Looking forward to your opinions on this chapter.
December 15th
At the same time Mac and Stella entered the pathology where Sid, who had just finished examining the body was already expecting them with a proud smile on his face. Obviously he was dying to tell them what he had found out as he nervously kept messing around with his glasses.
"I examined the body," he announced. "And I got a surprise for you."
"I don't like surprises," Mac stated in a low voice, nonchalantly throwing a glance at the corpse lying on the operating table in front of them, his dead blue eyes starring right into nowhere.
Stella however couldn't avert her gaze that easily. It was evident that the guy had been working out, his muscular upper arms and legs were striking. The lips were slightly open, showing perfect white teeth. At the sight of his three days stubble Stella remembered Hawkes telling her that the beard kept growing for some time after death, as well as the fingernails, which was just one of the medical facts and figures she'd rather not known.
The other irritating thing about his face was his penetrative look. Although Stella tried to avoid looking into his eyes, they seemed to be staring at her.
After all neither experience nor serenity could protect her against the indescribable feeling of being in the wrong place, of withdrawing from the normal world the moment she was in the same room with a dead body.
The corpse, now frozen in death, arms and legs twisted in an awkward way, had been alive once. Blood had circulated in his veins, a heart had pounded in his chest. And now there was just death, the most infinite and irrevocable word a human mouth has ever pronounced.
Somehow death was their business, yet the mystery of it was still unfathomable.
After realising she had been caught up in her thoughts again Stella turned towards Sid and folded her arms.
"If it explains to us who's this guy it's a good surprise," she said.
Sid smiled at her.
"Well, let's see. As I've already said, I've examined the body. Naturally I paid special attention to the fractures of both his arms and feet, you don't see such a thing everyday, right? I know what you think now …".
"How someone could break these bones," Mac answered.
"Exactly. The offender must have been exceptionally strong to be able to inflict such injuries to a man 7 ft tall with arms like other people's legs," Sid explained, gesturing vividly.
"Honestly, if you look at it just from the mechanical point of view it's really fascinating how someone could actually break these strong and healthy bones. It's just incredible. You can't imagine how hard and robust the material that human bones are made of actually is. I found it really hard to …"
"Sid," Mac interrupted him impatiently. "Your conclusion?"
Sid nodded and tried to cut it short.
"The fractures, the strangulation marks as well as the gunshot wounds on his back are posthumous. The victim has been dead for several days."
"Hold it for a second!," Stella said and gave Sid a questioning look.
"Someone strangled, shot and tortured that guy when he was already dead?"
"Yes."
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely."
"Then what is the cause of death?"
Sid smiled whimsically, obviously enjoying the moment.
"Someway, he was poisoned."
"What does 'someway' mean?"
"The toxins I found in his blood are sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride."
"So?," Stella asked.
"The cause of death was lethal injection."
Lindsay was standing at the window, her hands folded, starring outside without realising what was going on around her. She tried to focus on what had happened all these years ago, in a time she found to be strange and unreal, almost as if it was a dream rather than a cloudy memory, something she had made up or someone else had planted in her mind.
Which one of the thoughts crossing her mind were authentic, which had been added by fear, by time? Suddenly she remembered pieces and bits, little details and fractures she couldn't classify.
Somewhere back in her brain there seemed to be a place filled up with all the emotions, thoughts and ideas she had been suppressing, where all the memories had been hiding, now out of a sudden flooding her mind.
"Linds?"
Danny was standing at some distance, observing her.
"I shouldn't be keeping you from your work, you have to finish processing the DNA, you have to find out if this guy is really …." Her voice broke.
"Just tell me whatever you know," he said softly, giving her an encouraging look.
Lindsay took a deep breath, obviously fighting back her tears.
She didn't quite know where to start.
---
From 1989 to 1993 there had been a row of murderers all over the world.
A young mother shot on her way home from work in Rome, Italy.
The cruel homicide of two teenagers in Granada, Spain.
A young couple strangled in a park in Montpellier, France.
A police officer shot in Montana.
A young female officer shot in Ohio.
Seven victims. Five different countries. Three different methods. One DNA.
During the following years nothing happened and the case was just about to be closed down, when out of a sudden investigators discovered exactly the same DNA tracks on a shotgun with which a young girl had been shot in a wood in Texas in 1999. After five months, a suspect could finally be tracked down.
Jason Parker, 35-year-old truck driver, resident in Texas, not previously convicted.
At that point of her report Lindsay stopped for a moment. She was pale and Danny noticed that her hands were shaking. It was obvious how much she was affected by last night's events.
They both sensed it, the atmosphere was incredibly tense.
Danny hung on her lips.
"Well, you can imagine how glad we were that finally the killer would be arrested. One of the victims was Detective Thomas Horne, one of our co-workers. His death was … it was a big loss.
After all it was just luck, Parker drove to fast, the police stopped him and for some reason he got nervous and attacked one of them. That's how his fingerprints and DNA were taken and that was it.
I had just started working as a CSI and that was one of my first cases. I don't know why but somehow my boss decided I should do the testifying, and I thought, why not? I was just eager to help get that guy condemned, so I gave evidence at the trial. I wasn't the only one, actually there were investigators from all over the world testifying against him, and of course the guys from Texas did the main work."
---
Lindsay leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes for a few seconds.
She felt dead beat.
She didn't want to look at Danny, see his face, whatever expression she might find in it.
She wasn't sure if it had been the right decision.
To tell him about Jason Parker, about the murderers.
About Thomas.
She didn't know if it had been right to tell him so much, to unfold this part of her past.
She didn't know if it had been right to tell him so much.
And to leave out so much more.