Chapter 4

Sunday, September 3rd, 2006
12:01 AM

Clutching the multiple slips tightly in his hand, he wandered his office, loathing Saturday nights. They were busy enough with two active homicide investigations, without having to deal with all the criminals who came out of the woodworks on weekends. Making a couple of calls, he managed to deal the lighter cases off to swing and days, leaving his team with a homicide and a B&E. He walked back to reception, dropping off the cases he'd dealt and made his way into the break room. "Alright, busy night in Vegas, but I managed to hand some of the less pressing cases off. We'll handle the remainder."

"I hate working weekends. We're already up to our ears in active investigations. Can't the criminals take a break and let us close up our other cases?"

"If only it worked that way, Greg."

"You know swing and days are going to drop us with something during one of their shifts, don't you?"

Grissom turned to Nick. "I realize that possibility, but with Sara out for a few days and with active investigations, I didn't have much choice."

"When's Sara getting back?"

"Tuesday night." The answer came out a little too quickly and a little too automatically, causing Catherine to raise her eyebrows at him. He ignored it and moved on. "Nick, you and Greg can take the homicide. Man shot dead in his home in Henderson. Vartann will meet you there." He handed off the slip. "Catherine," he held up another slip. "B&E in Summerlin. A couple went out for the night, came home and discovered their house was broken into. When you're done, you can get back to your case." Catherine grabbed the slip from his hands and left the room. It was just he and Warrick.

"Where do you need me?"

"I handed off the rest of the cases. You can keep working on your case."

Warrick nodded, mouthing a silent thank you. He nodded and turned, leaving the room and heading straight for his office.

Grissom sat down on the chair he'd fallen asleep on seven hours earlier. The sleep had left his back extremely sore and convinced him of the need to go home. Reluctantly, he'd gone home and gotten little rest, but, as he sat down in his office and he stared down at the photos he'd left out, he realized that the rest had helped. He could focus on the pictures again. He picked up one picture and studied it, closely. The motel room was so clean, too clean to be something orchestrated by a pimp exacting revenge. Mitch Munz had nothing to do with the death of Wanda Collins. If he was teaching his prostitute a lesson, there was no way he would be concerned with creating and presenting a sterile scene. It was someone else, someone methodic and obsessive and someone who paid great attention to details. Grissom's stomach turned. They were looking for a man who would be very hard to find.

8:08 PM

Nick let his camera fall to his chest as he looked up and watched the truck cut across the desert sand and pulls up next to his. Catherine stepped out, her hair up in a pony tail, her bangs blowing across her face in the wind. She was wearing jeans and a long sleeve tee, and Nick watched as she pulled on her LVPD forensics jacket and made her way towards him and Vega. She approached and smiled at him. "Aren't you working on your own homicide?"

"Open and shut. Wife killed her philandering husband. She confessed and all the evidence backed it up. What about your B&E?"

"Matches a string of other B&Es that have hit Summerlin lately. Still no closer to finding the perp."

"And yours and Warrick's homicide?"

"It's cold. Grissom left it with Warrick. He called me up, figured you might need a hand."

"I told Grissom that Swing was going to get us back for dumping our cases on them. "

"What have we got?"

"A couple of hikers found two burnt bodies, one partially on top of the other. David's examining them."

"Body dump?"

"Must be, although I'm not sure why the killer would burn the bodies after dumping them in the desert."

"Burnt, how?"

"Someone lit them on fire."

"In the desert? You're sure they were burnt here and not somewhere else before being dumped here?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. I think they used this location because it's wild fire season. Maybe they didn't want to risk burning them in the forested areas. It's a weird one, Cath. Wait until you see it."

He led Catherine over to where David was examining the bodies and watched as Catherine bent down next to David. "Hi, David. Uh, what a terrible smell."

"Smells like burnt pork, right? Confirms the bodies were lit up here."

"Nick, the bodies are still in relatively decent shape. I expected something closer to bone and ash."

"I did too when I first heard about it. There was still a little smoke when I got here, but it couldn't have been a very big fire."

"Big enough to burn the skin down to the nerves but not big enough to cremate the bodies. There's burnt wood all around the bodies, square shaped pattern."

"I know. The killer must have brought in the wood. What can you tell us, Super Dave?"

"No id on the victims. Sand imbedded into the charred skin. The body on top was a woman, as you can tell. We'll have to move the woman to see what's underneath. Do you need more photos?"

"No, you can move her away."

Nick helped Dave carefully lift the first victim into a body bag and watched as David examined the second. "Well, your other victim was male."

After carefully placing the man into a body bag, Nick turned to Catherine. "Do you want to stay with the scene or head back to the lab with the body?"

"You're the primary. You can take the body. Besides, I didn't come here just to turn right back around."

He grinned at her. "Alright. See you back at the lab." Catherine pulled out her camera and began taking photos. He gave her one last wave before getting into his truck and following the coroner's van back into the city.

8:23 PM

Catherine bent over the area, fingering the burnt wood with her latex gloves, finding it still hot to the touch. Her eyes wandered over the area, noticing that the bodies were placed on what looked to be a platform of wood. Her eyes followed the square pattern of wood around the area the bodies were found. Snapping more pictures, she moved along the outer edge until something caught her attention. She took another photo then picked the warm item up. "Vega, come take a look at this."

When Vega was beside her, she held the item up with her gloved hand. He bent forward to look at it. "Looks like a piece of rope."

"Yeah. The killer must have had the victims tied up at one point, or used the rope to tie together the wood. When you and Nick arrived, did you see any tracks around here?"

"There were some impressions in the sand, but we couldn't make them out. The wind blew the sand around and made it impossible to get foot or tire impressions. Stokes got a rough estimate of the size of the tire and he measured the distance between tracks. His estimate was that it was a truck or SUV, but that's all he could get."

"Wonderful. Did the hikers who found the body have anything to say?"

"They were out hiking for the day, passed this area around six-thirty, quarter to seven, saw smoke, decided to check it out and found the bodies, smoke and flames rising off of them. They said they could smell flesh burning underneath and could make out a face. They called 911 immediately and emptied the remainder of their water bottles on the fire. When the flames were still coming off, they doused the fire with sand and managed to put it out. "

"Explains the sand imbedded in the bodies. They didn't see a vehicle or anything?"

"No, just a heap of burning corpses."

"Alright." She stood up and began photographing again. "There's lots of collection here to do and lots more photos to take. I'll need to bag up all this wood and get it to trace, and I'll have to wait for it to cool a bit more before I can bag it. No use you waiting here for me to finish. You can head back if you want, maybe see if Nick can get you an id."

Vega nodded. "I'll leave you an officer. Have fun."

She scoffed. "Thanks. See you later." Vega left and she kneeled down on the desert sand, taking more pictures as she waited for the evidence to cool.

9:12 PM

Nick followed as Dave Phillips wheeled the first victim into the morgue. Doc Robbins entered shortly after and glanced down at the body, then back up at Nick. "Lot's of tissue damage, but if we peel that away, you should be able to get DNA from the body."

He nodded. "I was hoping you'd say that. There was no id on either of the bodies and since we can't get prints, I was hoping we'd come up with something from DNA."

Nick washed down the body for Doc Robbins, allowing Doc Robbins time to prepare. When David entered with the second body, Nick moved onto it. Beside him, Doc Robbins began peeling away at the skin and placing each tag into a tray. Layer by layer, burnt skin was removed until Doc Robbins was nearly at the bone. Nick stood beside the Medical Examiner, entranced by the sight, as Doc Robbins exposed the layers with deft precision. Finally, the doctor came across usable tissue. Nick pulled out an envelope and opened it, allowing Doc Robbins to drop the fleshy material inside. He sealed the envelope and labeled it, waiting for Doc Robbins to repeat the process on the second victim. It didn't take as long to reach usable tissue on the female victim.

Nick labeled the second envelope and held both up, staring at them. "Thanks, Doc. I'll get these to Wendy and have her run DNA through CODIS and Missing Persons. Can you get to work on COD? Cath and I think the bodies were dumped and lit up. It would help if we knew how they died."

"I'll make it my priority."

"Right on, thanks a lot." He took one last glance at the two victims, shook his head and then turned sharply, leaving David and Doc Robbins behind in the morgue.

Monday, September 4th, 2006
12:17 AM

Catherine made her way through the halls of the lab, carrying boxes of evidence. Hot and tired, she stopped to page Nick and soon he was helping her log the evidence in. They carried box after box, logging each piece of evidence in separately. Once the last item from the last box was logged in, she stopped and wiped her brow. "I picked up every piece of wood and rope I could find. The bodies were burnt on some sort of home made, layered platform. I figured the layers gave way with the burning, but once the bodies were removed, I could see evidence of locking wood. I want to get a sample to trace right away and see if Hodges can get us the type of wood or find any accelerant that might be used. What did you get from Doc Robbins?"

"He was able to pull DNA off both victims. I sent it off to Wendy. She's running the samples now. Doc Robbins is still in autopsy."

"You didn't want to watch?"

"Doc Robbins will tell us all we need to know." Nick ran a hand through his hair. Catherine nodded in understanding.

"Well," she stated, pulling two bags out of evidence, one containing wood, the other containing rope, "let's get this wood and rope to trace." She handed Nick the bags and grabbed a few of her own.

It was impossible to drop something off and trace and make a clean break out of the room when David Hodges was working. Catherine and Nick tried, but like nearly every other time she tried, Catherine found herself and Nick caught, having to listen to Hodges make his usual pompous remarks. Luckily they were spared when Nick's pager went off. Catherine breathed a huge sigh of relief and flashed Hodges a smile. "Get us those results as soon as possible."

Once they were in the hall she turned to Nick. "The morgue?"

"Yeah, Doc Robbins finished the autopsies."

1:09 AM

Doc Robbins was leaning over the male victim when Nick reentered the morgue with Catherine right next to him. Doc Robbins looked up at him and moved over to the female victim. "Nick, Catherine," Doc Robbins gave them a nod in greeting, both victims had some bone fractures and bone chipping common when exposed to the heat from fire."

"COD?"

"You're fortunate the bodies were still in decent shape. I have COD for your female victim. Respiratory arrest, she burnt to death."

"She was killed in the fire?"

"Yes."

"What about the male?"

"I wasn't able to determine Cause of Death."

"He didn't burn to death too?"

"Well," Doc Robbins used his cane to beckon them over. Nick found himself looking down at the female victim's open chest cavity. "Do you see all the soot lining the lungs? She had to be alive to have inhaled it. I also found Carboxyhemoglobin in your Jane Doe's blood. Your John Doe's lungs weren't present for soot, nor was his blood present for Carboxyhemoglobin. Your Jane Doe definitely died in the fire, but I imagine your John Doe died elsewhere and was burnt later."

By the time Doc Robbins was finished, Nick's mouth was hanging open. His eyes shot to Catherine. She looked as disgusted and disturbed as he felt. The woman was burnt alive with a dead corpse. He turned back to Doc Robbins. "And you can't confirm COD?"

"No. The most I can determine is that his heart stopped. What caused it to stop is undetermined. As I said earlier, you're fortunate the bodies were in decent shape and I was able to determine what I have."

Nick shook his head and turned back to Catherine, meeting her eyes and holding them. "What the hell?"