A/N: There will be lots of science in this chapter. Others will focus on characters little more.
Mac is standing in a kitchen in house in Elm Street 13, talking with patrole officer who found the remains. He is holding notebook and pen in his hand, and is occasionally writing notes. He is also wearing latex gloves over hands and plastic shoe covers over shoe bottoms. Sid is standing near the foot on the floor, wearing latex gloves over hands and plastic shoe covers over shoe bottoms, forensic camera hanged around his neck. Sheldon is also standing near by, colecting evidences. His forensic briefcase is lying opened on the floor near by. He takes forensic tag from his briefcase, puts it on the floor near the leg, and photographs it. Then he notices few pieces of some white mushy supstance around the foot and in the ashes. He picks up another forensic tag from the briefcase, puts it on the floor near one piece of that white trace, photographs it, picks up small plastic container and a tweezer from his briefcase, picks up a trace with the tweezer, opens the container, puts in it and closes the container. He puts the tweezer back in his briefcase, picks up market from it, removes it's cap with his teeth, writes something down with it on the sticker on top of the container, puts container back in the briefcase, takes marker's cap out his mouth, puts it back on the marker, and puts it in the briefcase too. He also takes sample of ashes, storing it on the same way, but without photographing or marking it. Then he notices small piece of wood in the ashes, and marks it, photographs it and stores it like previous two evidence, this time using an evidence bag instead of plastic container. He also notices bigger and darker piece of wood inside the ashes, and marks it, photographs it and stores it like the previous one.
Sid stops studying the foot closely, moves few steps a way, takes another look at it and then takes a big breath.
"Boy... just as I thought I've seen it all."
Mac walks toward him.
"Neighbour, sixty four years old Richard Willson, was worried because he didn't see his neighbour, eighty five years old Jon Harper, didn't go out at seven am to pick up newspapers like any other day. He also claimed he heard a noise coming from the house, that sounded like a smoke alarm, and that he also smelled smoke from direction of Jon's house, but he also said that he saw no fire. He called 911. Patrole officer, twenty five year old Rick Q, arrived to check things out. He, too, smelleds smoke but saw no fire and heard no noise. Front doors were locked, bit back doors weren't. He walked in through back doors and found... this. Jon was living there for over fifty years with his wife, Beatrice, who died five years ago at age of seventy nine from a heart attack. His older brother, Richard, died from heart attack year ago at age of ninety one. He has younger brother, seventy eight years old Wolfgang, younger sister, sixty nine years old Jenny, a son, fifty seven years old Jon jr., daughter, forty nine years old Amy, granddaughter, twenty five years old Rebecca, and grandson, seventeen years old Eric. They all live in New York. We will interrogate them."
"I never seen anything like this before", Sid says. "No body remained, just some ashes and part of one foot. Apparently, body was completely burned, but only damage caused by fire in the house is on the floor under and little bit around remains and on the ceiling above it. And I also noticed some strange white greasy supstance in the ashes and around the foot."
"And there is no clear point of origin", Mac says, looking around.
"That is called spontanious human combustion", Sheldon says, still entirely focused on his work. Both Sid and Mac glare at him, their eyes widened in surprise.
Both Sid and Mac glare at him, widening their eyes.
"What?", he asks, surprised by their shock. "Never heard of it? Well, apparently, for still undetermined reason, human body can burst into flames without an apparent external source of ignition." He walks few steps away, holding his briefcase in his hand, bends down, and puts his briefcase down on the floor, near opened box of matches lying on the floor. He takes forensic tag from the briefcase and puts it on the floor near the box of matches. "Everything matches", he says before photographing the evidence. "Most of the victim's are eldery people living alone." He picks up the evidence bag from his briefcase. "Whole body, especially torso, is completely burned, except for the extremities, is a foot. All idoms in house remain completely intact, except for the floor under the body and the ceiling above it." Sheldon picks up box of matches, puts it in evidence bag, seals the bag and puts it on the floor. "Sometimes, strange white greasy traces are find around the remains. And there are no traces of fire accelerant or clear point of origin." He takes the marker from briefcase, takes the cap off it, writes something down with it on the bag, puts the cap back on the marker, puts the marker back in the briefcase, and puts the bag in the briefcase too. Than he notices box of wet wipes on the floor near the place where box of matches was find, and marks, photographs and stores it like he did with box of matches.
"Doctor Hawkes, although I do understand that Halloween probably got your creative juices running, I am sure that there is logical explanation", Mac smirked.
"Well, there are few logical explanations about spontanious human conmbustion too."
Jo walks out of the bathroom, wearing latex gloves over hands and shoe covers over shoe bottoms, holding her forensic brirefcase in one hand and evidence bag in another, black comb in it.
"I found a comb in the bathroom", she says. "With several short grey hairs on it. Maybe we can obtain DNA profile from them and compare it with one recovered from the foot."
"That could help us ID him", Mac says. Jo nods her head and walks away.
"So far, I can tell you this door belongs to an eldery person, most likely Caucasian man", Sid says.
"That matches to description of our victim," Mac concluded.
Sheldon picks up screwdriver from his forensic's kit and uses it to cut a piece of charred wooden floor. He stores it in mason jar picked up from his briefcase. Then he glares at window on left side wall and notices that one curtain is missing. He photographs the window.
Lindsay walks toward them, wearing latex gloves over her hands and plastic shoe covers over her shoe bottoms, and holding her forensic briefcase in her hand.
"I found dozens of usable fingerprints on back doors itself",she explains, "but almost none on either side of the door knob. And few that I did find probably belong to patrole officer who found the body... or what's left of it. I also found short brown hair on the floor in front of the back doors, cigaret butt in back yard, two usable shoe prints in back yard, and some blood on the yard fence. I'll bring that in lab on analysis."
"OK, you do that", Mac agrees. Lindsay nods her head and walks away.
Sheldon stands up, photographs smoke detector on the wall, stops and takes a look at it.
"I have that brand of smoke detector", he says. "It automatically turns itself off after ten minutes if somebody doesn't turn it off before or fire doesn't stop."
"That could explain why patrole officer didn't hear the noise", Mac agrees. "We will take it in the lab too."
#
Lindsay is in the City hospital, in patient's room, next to Jane Doe's bed. Jane Doe is the only patient staying in that room. Girl's shirt, jeans, bra, panties, shoes, socks and Iphone are in the plastic box on the table near her bed, together with some other idoms: pair of yellow rubber gloves with traces of blood on them, few plastic bags, and a notebook.
Lindsay puts her briefcase down on the floor, opens it, photographs idoms in plastic box, and stores then like any other evidence, putting each idoms in seperate evidence bag. She searches the Iphone before storing it. She finds few phone numbers, some text messages, lots of photographs feauturing girl that matches to description of Jane Doe with lots of teenagers that appear to be her peers, and few older people who appear to be her parents, and link on Facebook page belonging to somebody named Natalie Doyle, with Jane Does's photograph posted there.
After storing those evidences, Lindsay swabs under victim's fingernails for trace, using cotton swabs taken from her forensic briefcase, each time using different swab and storing it before swabbing under another fingernail. Then she takes a fingerprint chart, an empty file that she puts in now empty plastic box on the table near the bed, and package of dried ink, and uses the ink and the chart to fingerprint Jane Doe. She puts it back in briefcase, puts the chart in the file, puts it in briefcase too, and used wet wipes to clean Jane Doe's fingertips and palms from ink. She dumps her ink stained wipes and gloves in trash can near by, and puts on a new pair of gloves.
Lindsay photographs girl's face, then carefully removes a gauze on right side of her neck in order to photograph the wound.
As soon as she sees the wound, she shivers. She has no idea why, but the injury simply feels... of. Unnatural. Something she never seen before. Not to mention that it happened on Halloween...
No, she is being silly. There is always rational explanation, and this time is not an exception. Definitely not an exception.
She quickly calms himself down, takes forensic ruler from her forensic briefcase, presses it against victim's skin, near the wound, photographs the wound and puts the ruler back in her forensic briefcase. Then she picks up cotton swab from her briefcase, used it to swab the wound, stores it, and puts the gauze back on. She also notices bruise on victim's right leg, just below her knees, and she marks it in photigraphs it the same way she did with a wound on victim's neck. Lindsaythen leaves, closing the doors behind. Before she leaves, she snaps a photograph of Jane Does's face with her Ipod.
#
Mac is sitting at the bench in hospital's hallway, talking with woman who found Jane Doe. Mac is still wearing latex gloves over hands and plastic shoe covers over shoe bottoms. He is also holding notebook and pen in his hands and is ocassionaly writing notes.
"What's your name?", he asks the woman.
"Ashley Willson."
"How old are you?"
"Thirty five years old."
"Do you have any idea who could that girl be?"
"No. This is the first time I see her."
"Where did you find her?"
"Uh... I was driving to my work place. It was about six am. I work at fast food place. I saw her lying in a ditch near a road. I immediately , ran out, checked out on her. She was bleeding, I tried to wake her up, she didn't respond... I tried to call 911, but my battery was low... I knew that hospital is only two miles away so I put her on passenger seat of my car and drove her here. I can't belie I was able to carry her inside. And... here I am."
"That was brave. You probably saved her life."
Ashley smiles shyly. "Thank you. Anyone would do that, I guess."
"Actually, lots of people don't do that even when they can... unfortunatelly."
Ashley nods her head.
"Can you show me some sort of identification?"
"Sure", Ashley says and opens her purse. Few idoms fall out of it: notepad, few coins, pair of red leather gloves, red wrinkled wipe, and wallet. Mac helps her to pick them up.
"Thank you", Ashley smiles. She puts all idoms back, except for her wallet. She pulls her driver's licence from it and shows it to Mac.
"It's OK", he says, handling licence back to Zoey, Whp puts it back in her wallet, which she then puts back in her purse. At that moment, Lindsay walks toward them.
"Mac, I found link on Facebook page on victim's Iphone. Under the name Natalie Doyle. And photograph matches. Maybe that's her name."
"OK. We'll check that out. But first take this woman fingerprint and DNA sample from this woman", he says gesturing toward Ashley, "and also fiber samples from passenger seat of her car. I am going to a nurse so she can give me a sample of victim's blood for DNA analysis and toxycology testing."
#
Mac pulls over black SUV in front of a place that Alysha stated as location where she found Jane Doe. They take off their seat belts, grab their briefcases and walk out of SUV, closing the doors behind, and walk in a field near the road. They notice big pool of blood on the floor. She puts her briefcase down on the ground, opens it, takes forensic tag from it, puts it on the ground near pool of blood, and photographs it. She takes cotton swab from her briefcase, swabs a blood, and stores the swab in her forensic briefcase.
"It seems that Alysha was telling the truth", Lindsay concludes. "This is where Jame Doe was laying for some time."
"And now, we follow the blood trail", Mac says.
They continue following the blood trail. Every time they find blood splatter, Lindsay marks it, photographs it, swabs it and stores the swab, then they continue walking. After about ten feet they enter a small forest, and after about ten feet they realize that they entered Central Park. They look at the ground, then look around, and sigh.
"Ground is pretty dark here", Mac notices. "We can't see the blood. And there are no usable shoe prints or tyre tracks either. Ground is pretty hard."
"We can go back at night and check it with UV light, but hundreds of people are walking here every day. It will probably disappear by then. And I doubt that specially trained dogs would be able to smell anything. Dozens of people probably walks here with their dogs every day and lots of pants are growing around. That could easily disguise victim's smell, even if she walked down this path recently."
"There are over five smaller paths leading toward this one. And I don't see any people here, so I doubt that we will find any witnesses."
"There are no lots of people here, in this part of Central Park, so early in the morning. Best thing we can do is to take dirt samples and hope that we will find forensic evidence that will tell us where she was attacked."
"OK, you do so, and then we will go to talk with Natalie Doyle's parents."
#
Mac and Lindsay are sitting in living room in house, on the couch, talking with Natalie's parents, Jane and Robert Doyle, who are sitting at smaller couch opposite to the one where Mac and Lindsay are sitting. They are still wearing gloves snd shoe covers, and Mac is holding notebook and pen in his hands, writing notes. Jane is holding Lindsay's Iphone in her hands, her eyes tearfull and widened in shock.
"Yes, that is my daughter", she says, handling Iphone back to Lindsay. "What happened to her?"
"We can't say anything for sure yet, but it seems that somebody wounded her with some sort of sharp weapon", Mac explains.
"Oh my God...", Jane gasps, covering her mouth with her hand.
"Is... is she going to make it?", Robert asks.
"First twenty four hours are critical, but it looks like she is going to make it", Lindsay assures them.
Robert sighs in relief and gently puts his right hand on his wife's shoulder.
"How old is she?"
"Sixteen years old", Jane answers. "When did she leave home today?", Mac asks.
"Uhm... at about five am, with her car. Red Ford", Robert says.
"Licence plates?"
"Uhm... 3569. New York licence plates."
"Was she usually leaving home that early?"
"Uhm... no. But she had some sort of science project to do. For school. She didn't tell us what, or where will she go to complete it..."
"Did she appear to be upset or scared that morning, or lately?"
"No. Little annoyed because she had to get up so early, but nothing else."
"And she defiinitely left alone?"
"Yes."
"Did... do your daughter or you have any enemies?", Lindsay asks.
"Uh... I don't think so. She recently broke up with her boyfriend... what was his name?"
"Zack", Jane says, after moving her hands off her face, her head still bend. "Zack Grey. But I really don't think he had anything to do with that."
"We still need to check him", Mac says. "Where does he live?"
"Where were you between five and six am?", Lindsay asks.
"Mostly sleeping. We both have day off today. My wife got up briefly to prepare a breakfast for Natalie and help her get ready for school."
"What school does she attend?", Lindsay asks.
"New York City High school", Jane whispers, swallowing hard after a last word, obviously trying not to cry.
"When can we see her?", Robert asks. "Where is she."
"She is at the City hospital", Mac says. "And I assure you that she is well taken care of. But I'm afraid you can't visit her until tomorrow. She needs to rest."
Robert leans closer to Mac.
"Please, find person who did that to her", he says.
"We will", Mac says, determinetelly, nodding his head. "Can we search her room?"
"Sure."
#
Mac and Jo are looking around Natalie's room.
"Everything seems OK", Lindsay concludes. "Nothing suspicious or out of ordinary."
Mac glares at laptop on Natalie's writing desk.
"But, it doesn''t hurt to take her laptop", he says. "Maybe hard drive will help us find out more about her potential enemies or friends that could help us learn more about her."
Lindsay nods her head and takes laptop, putting it in the evidence bag tajne from her forensic briefcase.
#
Sid is sitting on passenger seat, near body. Mac is standing near opened driver'sc side doors.
"Witnesses say his car crushed in their car from behind. Guy walked toward his car to check things out and found him sitting on driver's seat, dead, an axe stuck in left side of his neck."
"Body is still warm... no signs of rigor mortis... I thoonk he is dead for two hours, three hours tops." Sid searches victim's pockets and finds a wallet. He sees a driver's licence inside.
"Well, that's about the time it took us to get here. It seems he was killed while driving. Position of driver's seat and rear mirrors seem appropriate for his height."
"Judging by this driver's licence, this guy's name is Steve Jules, thirty years old. And a photograph matches."
"And judging by his clothes and gloves, he may be a janitor or something."
Meanwhile, Danny and Adam are processing back seat of a car for evidences, also wearing latex gloves and plastic shoe covers, their forensic briefcases lying opened on car floor. Adam notices an ear ring on car floor, puts forensic tag and forensic triler on the floor next to it, photographs an ear ring,picks it up with the tweezer, and stores it.
"I found an ear ring on car floor. Maybe killer was a woman."
"I doubt woman would be able to do something like this", Danny says, looking at the body being carried away.
"Well, you never know."
Danny notices trace on car floor, like sweat or something like that. He marks it, photographs it, swabs it and store the swab.
Next, they both pick up wireless vacuum cleaners from their briefcases, check is there a bag inside, turned them on, and use them to vacum the car for trace. Danny does so with the back seat, and Adam with the floor. Afterward, they take bas out of vacum cleaners and store them as any other evidence, and out vacum cleaners back in their briefcases.
"Do you ever check backseat in your car?", he finally asks him.
"No. What that has to do with a case?"
"Well, witnesses say this car crushed in their car. Barely half a minute later guy walked toward the car and saw guy sitting on driver's seat, dead. All windows were closed. We found ear ring and biological trace on back seat. It looks like our killer was hiding on the backseat."
"I guess that's a possibility. But it doesn't happen as often as people think."
"Yes", Adam says while opening a glove compartment. "Tell that to people who will read about this in newspapers tomorrow."
Danny notices a gun under driver's seat. He marks it and photographs it, then picks it up and looks closely at it.
"Well, look what we have here. Smith&Wesson, .38 calibar. Serial number scratched off." He moves gun barrel close to his nose and smelleds it. "It doesn't appear that it was ever fired." He picks up the evidence bag and stores the evidence. He also notices brown fiber on driver's side doors, on button used to open and close the window on said doors. He marks that evidence, photographs it, picks it with the tweezer and stores it.
"I didn't find anything suspicious in glove compartment", Adam says. "Just a nap, towel, few coins and screwdriver..."
Danny takes fingerprint brush and bottle full of fingerprint powder from his briefcase, opens the bottle, puts it's cap under the bottle, and used brush and powder to powder a steering wheel, arm rest between driver's and passenger seat and seatbelt buckle for fingerprints. He finds over twenty usable fingerprints in total, lifts them with fingerprint lifting tape and stores them. He puts the cap back on the bottle, puts idoms back in briefcase, and opens the arm rest. Inside, he notices greesy trace. He marks it, photographs it, swabs it and stores the swab.
"OK", he says. "Let's examine the trunk."
They walk toward the trunk and open it. They find spare tyre, few coins and some tools, but nothing suspicious.
#
Don, Jamie, Sid and Lindsay are in the alley were prostitue was find stabbed to death. They are all wearing latex gloves over hands and shoe covers over shoe bottoms. Sid and Lindsay also have forensic cameras hanging around their necks. Sid is standing near the body, studying it. Don is also standing near by, talking with Sid. Jamie is standing at near end of an alley, talking with couple who found the body. She is holding notebook and pen in her pen, and is occasionally writing notes. Lindsay is searching the area, looking for evidences. Every time she notices possible evidence-such as beer bottle, condom, condom wrapper or cigaret butt-she marks it, photographs it and stores it.
"Female, in mid to late twenties I would say", Sid concludes. "Some money, no ID's."
"Judging by her clothes and location where she is find, she may be a prostitue", Don concludes. "Maybe we have her fingerprints and DNA in database."
"I would say that she was killed last night between nine and twelve pm. I can't determe exactly cause of that before an autopsy, but I think it's pretty obvious right away. Multiple stabbing wounds. Especially creepy part is that somebody removed her kidneys and left them there. Which, apparently, nobody bothered mentioning us so we would put them on ice in time. The longer they stay outside, lesser are chances that some usable trace may remain in them."
"Well, I think they were pretty freaked out when they stumbled upon... this," Don says.
Sid just glares at him, but says nothing. Then he moves his attention on stabbing wounds.
"Hmmm... this is strange. I never saw such stabbing wounds before. I will make casts later, maybe then everything will be clearer." He notices piece of black fabric in victim's right hand, so he picks up forensic tag from his righ pocket and puts it on the ground near victim's hand and photographs it. "Maybe it's a piece of killer's clothing which she ripped during a strugle", he suggests before he takes an evidence bag from his right pocket, then he picks up said piece of fabric from victim's right hand, puts it in said bag and seals the bag.
"Well, we can only hope that he is not budging serial killer", Don says. "Since she is not robbed and there are no obvious signs of sexual assault... who knows what is going on in that guy's head."
A/N: Song playing in background of a scene where Lindsay is in hospital room with Natalie Doyle is "Perfect day" by Constellations.