Chapter 03
"What do you have for us doc?" Nick asked as he and Sara enter the morgue.
"COD of the female vic was multiple gunshot wounds to the chest. One of which shattered the left ventricle like a balloon, death was instantaneous. No surprises there but here's what is interesting," David said as he held up a stainless steel bowl with a large chunk of the victim's liver in it.
"Look at this"
The liver was swollen with white blotches randomly dispersed giving it almost a mulberry like appearance.
"What is that?" Sara asked as she peered as the strange lesions
"I had never seen anything like this before," David said. "I found something similar in the small intestines. I called Doc Robbins and he said he thinks they were caused by chronic Schistosomiasis."
"Chronic what now?" Nick asked.
"You mean like a chronic type of worm infection?" Sara asked.
"Yes, impressive Sara," said Doctor Robbins who was standing behind them. "I made some slides for histology to confirm the diagnosis. Both the liver and small intestines show chronic granulomatous inflammation and I found a few eggs encased in fibrous pockets. I send them to a human pathology lab to be identified but I'm reasonably sure it's Bilharzia. A waterborne disease found in many parts of Africa."
"Like I said, it's a first for me" said David as he held the bowl containing the liver almost reverently. The woman had calluses on her palms indicating that she had worked with her hands a lot. Her toe nails were painted a postbox-red and the edges were peeling. There was just the start of stubble on her shaven legs. Sara felt a pull on her heart strings as she looked at the woman, but shut the thoughts down firmly. The victim didn't need her empathy, but her professionalism. The last thing she needed now was to get too involved with another case.
Again.
Grissom must surely be questioning her competency as it was. The male victim had been brutally beaten and showed various defensive wounds. His right humerus was broken in two places, as was the small bones in his right hand. Sara made a mental note to scrape his fingers for foreign DNA. There were multiple contusions on his head and face showing clear bruising and swelling, clearly antemorte. He also had multiple rib fractures and contusions on both his chest and back. Apparently the blows did not stop coming when he fell to the floor. The knuckles of his left hand were also bruised and Sara decided to swab those as well.
She was just finishing taking photographs before she would start collecting evidence when the door opened. A strange woman entered with Grissom close on her heels. She wore a formal grey suit with a while blouse. Her brown hair was short in a fashionable style and she had an expensive looking handbag over her shoulder. One look at Grissom told Sara that she had not waited for permission to enter the morgue. Yet, the stranger stopped in her tracks when she saw the body of the man and a myriad of emotions flashed over her face, but Sara thought she saw predominantly sadness, shock and guilt.
"Excuse me, this is the morgue, visitors are not allowed down here," Sara confronted the woman.
"Grissom why is she here?" Dr. Robbins addressed the supervisor.
The woman was staring aghast at the body, and then suddenly sat down heavily on an empty chair with her face in her hands. "They made him", it was almost a whisper.
"Sara, Doc, this is Agent Scott from Interpol. Apparently one of the victims was one of their undercover–agents," Grissom answered Doc Robbins, meeting Sara's gaze.
"I'm sorry I just barged in on you like this, I just had to be sure" Agent Scott supplied, her voice quiet as she began to get a hold of her emotions.
Standing up, she again looked at the body. She seemed to have aged a number of years in the matter of a few minutes.
"I won't be taking any more of your time, my apologies for the interruption." Turning she left the autopsy room.
Sara hurried after her. "Agent Scott wait. There are some questions that you might be able to answer for us, who is he?"
Agent Scott turned around and looked at Sara, hesitating. Sara recognized the look of professional detachment and calm and realized that if she didn't push, she was going to lose her one chance to get some direct answers from this woman. "I understand you don't want us impinge on your investigation, but at least give us something to go on. Let us catch who did this"
Agent Scott sighed deeply and sat on the bench outside the autopsy room. Sara sat next to her and waited.
"I suppose it doesn't matter anymore. His name is Adam Smith. He has been under deep cover for the last 2 years working on animal smuggling between Africa and the far-east. He managed to track some of the king-pins to the States. But all the knowledge he gained he took with him to the grave."
Sara grimaced, knowing that death was the ultimate silencer. "Do you know any of the contacts he was working with? Did he alert you that something was wrong? Was he worried?" She pried gently.
The other woman shook her head solemnly.
"Adam always kept his cards close to his chest. But it doesn't matter. You won't catch whoever did this. Not the higher-ups at least"
What struck Sara was the absolute certainty and total lack of emotion in the woman's voice as she said it.
"Why are you so sure?"
Agent Scott's eyes grew harder as she shrugged, not looking at her.
"Because we have been trying to break up and uncover this syndicate for years without success. These people are too rich and too powerful and they have pull with too many people."
Turning to look Sara in the eye she said.
"We won't win this war"
It sounded a bit melodramatic, but clearly Agent Scott was deadly serious.
Having seen what they could see at the autopsy, Sara and Nick returned to the lab. Nick kept glancing at Sara, looking quite impressed until she lost her patience with him for not telling her why.
"What?" She asked as he raised his brows.
He wasted no time in asking her: "How did you know that in there?" He asked. "You know about the Bilharzia?"
"Well," Sara said, trying to sound neutral. "I read when I can't sleep." She shrugged.
"About Bilharzia?" He asked incredulously
"Well it's our job to know stuff isn't it?" She stated becoming slightly uncomfortable under Nick's scrutiny.
She often felt uncomfortable and even defensive when people pried into her private life, or lack thereof, as it turned out. Nick didn't need to know quite how often she couldn't sleep.
"You sound more and more like Grissom every day."
Sara punched him on the arm for that but was secretly rather flattered. Nick laughed as he went off in search of Brass.
The woman's words kept repeating themselves in her mind all the way back to the lay-out room. Agent Scott had referred to her work as a war and it struck Sara as odd. It indicated to her that the agent might be too emotionally involved with her case. Something she had intimate knowledge of. Entering the lay-out room she was surprised to find Grissom working on the briefcase. He had left the morgue with Agent Scott and she had assumed he would have returned to his own case by now. She was a little unsure of how to interpret his presence. Was he really interested in the case, or was he checking-up on her?
"Did you find anything probative in the autopsy?" Grissom asked her as she entered, eyes still glued to the briefcase he was trying to open with a variety of metal pins.
"Yes actually, seems our female vic spent some time in Africa. She has what appear to be Bilharzia lesions in the liver and small intestines."
"Really? I'll go take a look." He asked, eyes shining with interest.
Taking out his pager Grissom glanced at it irritably.
"Did David not clue you in on the find?" Sara asked, not quite keeping the humour out of her voice.
Grissom's only response was a lopsided grin.
"I dropped off samples at trace and DNA," Sara replied as she leaned onto the table next to him. "Any luck here?"
"I think I almost got it…" The briefcase sprang open in reward and Grissom looked positively pleased with himself "Well, let's see what we have here".
Inside the case was something covered in tissue-paper. Gently removing these to be closer examined later, Grissom revealed a strange object nestled on some more tissue paper. It was solid, black and cylindrical, tapering to a sharp point at the one end. The other end showed tool marks where it has obviously been sawed off something.
"What on earth is that?" Sara asked as she found Grissom's eyes.
"I think it might be a Rhino-horn. Agent Scott did say that Agent Smith was working on an animal poaching case, did she not?"
"Yeah she did. But why leave the case with the Rhino-horn behind?"
"Perhaps the killers did not know it was there?" Grissom suggested as he tenderly lifted the horn out of the case. "We need to confirm it, but I'm pretty sure it's a Rhino-horn. If it is, it's worth a lot of money. "
Looking up at her, Grissom met her gaze. "Might be the be-all and the end-all."
"Shakespeare?" Sara asked, her eyes still glued on the Rhino-horn.
"Macbeth."