AN: So, we've got a couple of chapters coming up that are pretty focused on cases, I hope you like them! I had a lot of fun writing them and coming up with the cases (not sure what that says about me as a person…) And I promise, I'm not forgetting the relationship stuff, we're getting there!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything relating to CSI
Chapter 28
The rest of Grissom's Sunday is spent at a gas station on the north-east edge of the city, documenting the new crime scene. Catherine joins him at the start of shift, and when they've gone through everything within a hundred-yard radius of where the body was found with a fine-tooth comb three times, they finally head back to the lab.
"This is going to be bad," Catherine predicts when they've gotten the collected evidence sorted in the Layout room.
There's not much to say to that, so he just hums and focuses on the rope the girl's hands and feet were tied with. It's a generic type, probably found in most stores selling climbing gear or DIY equipment. They already have DNA from the other two cases, but they still need to officially confirm they're looking at the same perp, so he bags and tags a couple of hairs that are stuck in the knot and swaps for epithelials along the length. Just as he's finished, his phone beeps, letting him know that Al is about to start the post.
"I'll drop these with Wendy and then I'm heading down to the morgue," he tells Catherine, who just nods her agreement without looking up from the t-shirt she's studying.
Wendy promises to put a rush on the DNA comparison, and he takes the opportunity of the few minutes it takes to get down to the morgue when bypassing the elevator to call Sara. It's four in the morning, but he knows she'll be awake and eager for updates.
"How's it going?" she answers after the first ring.
"It's going," he replies with a sigh, the relief of hearing her voice slightly overwhelming, considering it's only been ten hours since he saw her. "Nothing new so far, I'm on my way to see if Al can find something. How are you?"
"I'm fine. Or I will be."
The second part surprises him – she usually brushes off any worry.
"Was Shelby disappointed about dinner?" he asks as he pushes open the door at the bottom of the stairway.
She laughs softly over the line. "Very. I had to bribe her with ice cream to get the pout off her face."
He's not sure if she's exaggerating to humor him, but it doesn't matter. "I would say I'll make it up to her by stopping by with breakfast, but I honestly don't have any idea how long I'll be here, and I don't want to make any promises I can't keep."
He's reached the morgue by now and nods at Al when he enters the room.
"I know, don't worry about it. But let me know if you get out of there in time to pick her up, and, if not, Catherine's promised the girls homemade pizza tonight."
"I didn't actually need more motivation to get out of here as soon as I can. OK, I've got to go, Al's about to open up the latest victim. Give Shelby a kiss for me when she wakes up, OK, and hopefully I'll see you later?"
"Good luck."
He hangs up and stuffs the phone in his pocket before turning his attention to Al, who's watching him with an amused expression on his face.
"How's Sara?" he asks, a hint of teasing in his voice.
"Good. How's our Jane Doe?"
The coroner nods, a silent acknowledgement of the change of subject. "I was just about to find out."
The autopsy doesn't turn up anything new, unfortunately, and by the end of shift, all they have is confirmation that the DNA from the third victim matches the DNA from the first two, and an ID – seventeen-year-old Gemma Yaeger, army-brat from Nellis Air Force Base.
"You go ahead and go home," Grissom tells Catherine. "There's nothing we can really do right now; I'm just staying to catch up Donovan on the latest developments. Hopefully we'll have the surveillance tapes from the second and third gas station by tonight."
"Don't stay too late," she tells him.
"Trust me, I'm out of here as soon as possible," he assures her. "See you at dinner."
"Oh, you're just inviting yourself over?" she asks, amusedly.
"Sara already invited me," he admits, keeping his eyes on the case file on the table in front of him, but he still catches Catherine's raised eyebrow.
"Of course she did. Guess I'll see you then."
He's out of the lab by seven forty-five and sends off a text to Sara telling her he can pick up Shelby as planned.
Monday is a flurry of activity. Archie and Warrick go through the surveillance tapes from the new gas stations, Hodges identifies the brand of rope used and Sara spends the whole shift locating retailers in the greater Las Vegas area – of which there are far too many – Catherine and Nick accompany Jim to interview the clerk on shift at the latest gas station as well as the victim's parents and best friend, and Grissom dives into the online world of knots. He also sends out a general request for information on similar cases to California, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, and Montana – for now, they're limiting the search to the areas intersected by the I-15 – and Catherine calls the FBI to see if they can get some help working up a profile.
It's almost six thirty when Jim appears in the doorway to his office, a grim look on his face. "We've got another one."
So, the shift turns into a double, and he just manages to get a few hours of sleep before the start of the next one. On Wednesday, though, he determinedly leaves the lab along with the others at seven AM sharp – they still have nothing, and the day shift is perfectly capable of analyzing the latest batch of video surveillance. He gets some much needed sleep and whatever tiredness is left over evaporates when Shelby lights up like a sun when he enters the daycare center.
She's watching Dora when his phone rings half an hour after they get home, and he considers ignoring the call when he sees the name, but knows it could be important.
"Grissom."
"Gil," Conrad's voice comes over the line, tinged with relief. "I need you to come in and go through the serial rapist case with me."
He sighs. "I'll be there at the start of shift."
"I've got a press conference at six, so that's not going to work."
"Can't Donovan go through it with you?" he asks, referring to the dayshift supervisor. It's after three, so Swing's on the clock now, but it's still closer to the end of the day shift than the start of the night shift.
"I called him first, several times, as a matter of fact, but no answer. Please, Gil, I'm desperate here."
He should have ignored the phone. "Fine," he still agrees. "I need to take care of something first, but I'll be there as soon as I can."
"I'll see you in your office."
The dial tone indicates the end of the conversation, and he puts his phone back in his pocket before going into the living room.
"Sweetheart?" He waits until Shelby tears her eyes from the screen. "I'm sorry, I have to go in to work, so I'm going to drop you off with Mom, OK?" He hopes Sara's managed to get enough sleep.
Shelby frowns. "But Dora."
"I know, honey, you can continue watching later, alright?"
Her lower lip trembles a little as she hugs her stuffed lion to her chest, and he wonders if an outburst might be coming. She hasn't had one while with him yet, but Sara's warned him that, while they are few and fairly far between, they have been getting more frequent as of late, perhaps a preview of the terrible threes, perhaps a reaction to all the changes lately. And Alison at the daycare center said she'd been a little cranky all day.
He scoops her up, hoping to avert it, and brushes some hair that has escaped her braid behind her ear. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. How about tomorrow, we go get ice cream? And then you can watch three episodes of Dora?"
He probably shouldn't resort to bribery, but he definitely hasn't built up any tolerance to her puppy eyes yet.
"OK."
He turns the TV off and grabs what he'll need for now – if the press conference starts at six, he should have plenty of time to go back home and get his kit before shift actually starts – and they're in the car a few minutes later.
The problems start when there's no answer at Catherine's place. He frowns, knocking again, and when there's still nothing, he pulls his phone out.
"Hello?" Sara answers after the third ring.
"Hey, I have to go into the lab to brief Conrad on the serial…" He cuts himself off, glancing at Shelby. "The case with the women found along the I-15," he amends. "Apparently, there's a press conference at six. Where are you?"
"Didn't I tell you I was getting a haircut today?"
She did, he remembers now. "I forgot, sorry. What about Catherine and Lindsey?"
"Catherine has a date – remind me to tell you about that later, by the way – but I don't know about Lindsey. She's not home?"
He knocks again. "If she is, she's not answering the door."
"Um, OK, hang on." He hears her talking to someone, her voice muffled by, he assumes, her hand covering the microphone. "I should be done in about twenty minutes, but I'm on the other side of the city, so I think you'll have to take her with you to the lab and I'll come pick her up as soon as I'm done."
He knows his gut instinct to object isn't rational. It's not like he'll let Shelby loose in Ballistics or the morgue, or show her gory crime scene photos. Lindsey has visited the lab fairly regularly over the years, since she was younger than Shelby, even, and she's obviously turned out fine. Still, he doesn't want his little girl anywhere near the death and devastation he associates with his place of work.
Desperate times, though.
"OK, yeah. We should be in my office, but call if you can't find us."
"I will, see you soon."
"Bye." He hangs up and turns back towards the car, nudging Shelby in front of him. "Change of plans, sweetheart – you're going with me to work for a bit, and then Mom'll pick you up there, OK?"
"OK."
Ten minutes later, he's walking into the lab, Shelby on one hip. The swing shift receptionist greets him as usual and then offers Shelby a smile. "Hi there, sweetie."
"I assume she won't need a visitor's badge?" he half-jokes, and the woman shakes her head.
"I think we can make an exception."
The walk down the corridor is interesting – he knows he's a fairly prominent profile in the lab, and most people, even on the other shifts, know him at least by appearance and will usually nod or even say hi, but he's never gotten as many genuine smiles as now. Granted, they're aimed at Shelby, but still.
Then there's a familiar voice calling his name from Trace and he sighs.
"Hodges." He turns as the man hurries into the corridor. "You're here early."
"I could say the same for you," the tech replies, smile slipping a little as he spots Shelby. "And who might this be?"
Grissom realizes that he doesn't know about Shelby, which is surprising. Not that they've sent out a memo or anything, but the team knows, and it's been over two weeks – he and Sara talk about Shelby almost daily, in the hallways or break room, so he knows the news is slowly spreading to the rest of the night shift personnel. He would have expected nosy Hodges to be one of the first to find out.
"This is Shelby," he says, tugging on the little girl's braid. "You want to say hi, sweetheart."
She shakes her head and then buries her face against his shoulder, and he offers Hodges an apologetic smile.
"Sorry, I got called in unexpectedly and took her away from her favorite TV show. Speaking off, I shouldn't keep Conrad waiting."
Without waiting for a response, he continues down the corridor.
Conrad's waiting when they reach his office, leaning against the desk with his arms crossed over his chest. "Funny, I don't remember it being bring your kid to work day today," he notes drily when he spots Shelby.
Grissom ignores him for the moment, getting Shelby settled on the couch with a sheet of paper and some markers, in lieu of crayons, making a mental note to pick up some for potential future visits.
"You called me in unexpectedly," he replies when he's satisfied that she's occupied for the moment. "Sara's picking her up in fifteen minutes or so, but for now, this is the best I can do."
Conrad nods and claims one of the visitor's chairs in front of the desk. Grissom takes the other, not wanting to put the desk between himself and Shelby.
"OK, so, let's start from the beginning," Conrad says, opening the case file on the desk. "Hailey Burns, nineteen, found on Wednesday around noon behind a gas station outside Mesquite."
"From Provo, Utah. According to her parents, she was going to Vegas to visit a friend," Grissom picks up the narrative. "She was supposed to get here last Tuesday, and when she didn't arrive or answer her phone, the friend called her parents, who called the police. T.O.D. is early to mid-morning on Tuesday, but lividity indicates she was moved, so we don't know how long she was actually out there before she was found."
"Signs of…" Conrad hesitates, glancing over at Shelby, and Grissom realizes he's watching his words as carefully as he himself is, which is… surprising. "Intimate activity. Not voluntary. DNA?"
"Yes, but no hits, so he's not in the system."
"And C.O.D. is…" He checks the papers in front of him, nodding when he reaches the correct information – manual strangulation. "Right. And the strange pose, what's that about?
Grissom finds one of the photos from the scene and studies it for a moment. The girl was found naked, her own t-shirt tied around her eyes in a makeshift blindfold, her hands bound to her feet with an intricate knot behind her back, twisting her body into an unnatural position, and her underwear stuffed in her mouth. "We don't know yet. I would say the blindfold might indicate remorse, perhaps, or maybe he just doesn't want her to look at him when he… Catherine put in a call to the FBI's behavioral unit yesterday, after the fourth girl was found, hopefully they'll have some insight."
"Witnesses?"
"Clerk at the gas station remembers seeing Hailey around five-thirty that morning. She didn't see her talking to anyone, though. We're still tracking down other patrons."
"OK. Number two, Jamie Voight." Conrad flips through the papers until he finds the right ones. "Found just after two AM on Friday in Glendale."
"Which is when we started working the case," Grissom says. He assigned Nick and Greg to the scene, and it didn't take long before they picked up on the similarities with the case dayshift was already working on. "Same C.O.D., same pose, same knot. Trucker's hitch."
Conrad finds a close-up of the knot in question. "Not much help considering they're being found at gas stations along the I-15," he notes. "I assume we're already thinking trucker?"
"Or someone wants it to look that way." Grissom shrugs. "It's not hard to find info on knots online."
"True. What do we know about Jamie?"
"Twenty years old, Nevada resident. According to her mother, she carpooled with a friend to and from work, but she never came home on Thursday afternoon. The friend dropped her off at the same place as usual around five forty-five – near exit 91, a few hundred yards from where she was eventually found and five minutes from her home. T.O.D. was between ten PM and midnight."
"So, he had her for a while before…" Conrad grimaces, and Grissom nods.
"We haven't found any witnesses on this one. The friend mentioned a local doomsday prophet, but he was interrogated and ruled out based on DNA. Then we have Gemma Yaeger, seventeen. Father's a colonel at Nellis, she had a part-time job at the gas station at the intersection where the I-15 and the 215 meet and never got home after her shift ended at six PM on Saturday. T.O.D. sometime between eight and midnight, found at the gas station on Sunday afternoon."
"Not nearly as deserted as the other two scenes. How is he not drawing attention to himself?"
Grissom shrugs. "He blends in? Or maybe he dumps them in the middle of the night, I don't know… same C.O.D., same pose, same knot, and same DNA."
"So, we're looking for the same guy, at least." Conrad runs a tired hand over his face. "I don't know if that's better or worse, to be honest."
"Well, he's now officially a serial, so…"
"Yeah." He flips through the papers again. "Fourth girl, Ana Dominguez, sixteen."
"Found in Jean yesterday morning, T.O.D. sometime between four and seven PM on Monday. Runaway from LA, reported missing by her father last week but we don't have any info on her movements between that and when she ended up here. We've got calls out to all gas stations and rest stops between here and LA, hopefully surveillance footage will yield something that'll tell us when and where she was taken."
"OK." He puts the papers and photos back in the case file and carefully closes it. "So, what do we have? Four girls found at four different gas stations along the I-15, same C.O.D., same pose, same DNA on all four. Same general age, all four tall, slim brunettes. T.O.D. puts the crimes roughly two days apart, so are we looking at a trucker running his route?"
"But it doesn't take two days between the different dump sites," Grissom argues. "And Ana was most likely coming from the direction of LA, so he would have had to dump Gemma just north of Vegas on Saturday and then turn around and go back this way to pick up Ana."
"Someone working locally then," Conrad amends. "Stationed here, delivering to places around and outside the city?"
"It's possible. We've contacted all major trucking companies, hopefully we'll get some info on their drivers soon, maybe be able to match drivers with the times and places." He looks up when there's a knock on the door and gestures for Sara to come in. "Hey, sorry about this."
"No worries, it was bound to happen eventually," she replies with a smile. "Conrad."
"Sara. And I'm the one who should be apologizing, but I really needed a run-through before the press conference. We need to get some info out there, but not too much. Don't want the public to panic."
Sara goes over to ruffle Shelby's hair, but she just looks up briefly before focusing on her drawing again, so she comes up to the desk. "The girls found along the I-15?" she asks, opening the folder.
"Yeah. Sheriff's getting antsy, so he's throwing me to the wolves," Conrad says.
"Did we hear anything about possible related cases out of state?" She gives Grissom a questioning look and he shakes his head.
"Nothing probative yet, but the request only went out yesterday, so we might get something eventually."
She finds a photo of Hailey Burns and studies it for a moment, brows furrowed. "There's no way this is his first," she muses as she puts the photo back. "If there are no other similar cases, it at least has to be an escalation of some sort."
"Most likely," Grissom agrees, and she sighs.
"Right, we'll get out of your hair. Catherine said she won't be back for dinner, so if you don't feel like cooking, come on over."
"Sounds good. Six thirty?"
"Great, see you then. Come on, baby, time to go."
Shelby obediently slides down from the couch and takes Sara's outstretched hand, waving at him as they leave the office.