FIC: One Good Man 17/?
Sep. 6th, 2004 08:47 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
geekwriter143.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
nickngregAuthor: geekwriter
Fandom: CSI
Title: One Good Man -- Part 17
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Rating: R
Category: case file, angst
Warnings: same crime scene as in part 16
Summary: Greg's first murder scene and his reactions to it.
A/N: For those of you that wanted to know, I based the character of Jason Werner very loosely on a combination of Ed Gein, Andrei Chitaliko, and Albert Fish.
He'd been horrified at first. When he first saw what was in the back seat of Jason Werner's car he'd been fucking terrified. He didn't even know he was throwing up until he was on his knees, and he was too shaky at that point to give a shit. All he could think was, This isn't a movie. Those aren't props. This is real. This is real.
It was as real as it got. Heads, hands, feet, and…it was the last part that had made him vomit. How could somebody carve that out? How could anybody do that? Heads and hands he almost understood, but that? The softest, sweetest, most amazing part of a woman's body and somebody had cut it out? Greg didn't care that the woman was dead, it was wrong. It was so far past wrong he didn't even have a word for it.
Then as he shone the flashlight on it for David, he had to look again. He didn't want to look, didn't want to see such graphic proof of what human beings were capable of doing to each other. But he'd had to look, had to see it again, had to confirm that it hadn't been a trick of the light, hadn't been his overactive imagination, because he couldn't believe it was real even after seeing it with his own eyes.
And as he looked, as his eyes traced each body part in the car he became calm. He felt it happening, felt his heart rate slow, knew his brain had stopped screaming that it was wrong, that it wasn't real, and he just accepted it. It was real. It was right there. And he was OK. He was OK because he had to be OK. He had to find out what had happened and if that meant facing the fact that some kid had human heads and genitalia in the back seat of his car, fine. He could handle it. He could do it. And once his mind had calmed, the arrangement clicked and when he realized why the kid had placed the vulva where he had, he wasn't horrified. It was just like, "Oh, so that's why." Nothing huge and scary and terrifying, just evidence. Just something to analyze, a piece of the puzzle.
The knowledge that he and Nick were supposed to have been next rocked him, though. It shook his calm and for a few minutes he was back where he'd been before: scared out of his mind and wondering why he had ever, ever wanted out of the lab. The lab was secure. The lab was safe. Then he'd felt the slight itch of his scars against the collar of his shirt and he knew nowhere was safe. That only made it worse and he thought maybe he'd throw up again, especially when Brass let them know there was more. He didn't want to go. Every neuron in his brain was screaming for him not to get in the Tahoe with Nick, not to go to the next crime scene because if he was scared then, he definitely didn't want to see what state troopers thought they needed holy water for.
He remembered the Zodiac Killer. Never caught. Still out there somewhere, alive or dead. Nobody'd ever know who he was, and once he'd walked the very streets Greg walked most of his life. The Zodiac Killer never got him, though. He'd sat up nights in a cold sweat, two decades after Zodiac's kill on Washington and Cherry, absolutely positive that if he dared to close his eyes he'd be next.
The fear pulsed through him, so hot in his veins that he wanted to scream at Nick to stop the car, to fucking stop the car because were they crazy? They were going to a serial killer's lair on purpose? What was wrong with them? The fear bubbled up in him so high and then, in an instant, it was gone. It wasn't the same calm as before. It was more than that. He wasn't calm, he was detached. It was like he was watching a movie. He was in the movie, sure, but it wasn't real. He was just watching it happen from inside. He didn't even know if he could make himself move, but he tried, and the words that came out were, "Zodiac killer."
He'd stayed detached the whole time. Oh, hey, look at that, some guy strung up a bunch of fingers as decoration. And is that a human head stuck on a coat rack? How interesting. Oh, look, he's got breasts on a plate covered in Saran wrap. Geez, all that writing on the walls sure is kooky. What's that smell? Oh, look, dead guy. And somebody took off the dead guy's dick. Crikey. Guy's been fucking his dead sister? Definitely got to remember to write that one down.
He felt almost giddy, watching it from outside himself. He was in control, but none of it touched him. He could react and do his job and it didn't touch him and that felt so fucking good, because he'd been so afraid that he'd fail.
Then he saw her. He saw her move and the fear rushed back and his first thought was that it was a trap. It was a trap and everybody was in on it and he and Nick were next and…
He saw her eyes, saw her rapid shallow breaths and she was so scared. She was so, so scared and he was, too, so he reached out for her and didn't even hear it when Nick started shouting for David, started shouting for the troopers to call for air rescue.
The woman had green eyes and light brown hair matted with blood and she was naked. She was bound with rope and she had knife marks across her arms and legs and chest. She was so scared she was shaking, and he realized that she was scared of him. He fumbled with his ID card and pulled it out.
"It's OK," he said. "It's OK, miss, it's OK. My name's Greg, I'm with the crime lab. You're OK. Nobody's going to hurt you anymore."
She either didn't believe him or couldn't process his words because she was still terrified.
"I'm going to take my knife out," he said, "but I'm not going to hurt you. I'm going to cut the rope, OK? I'm going to cut the rope and get you lose and my friend David will be here soon. He's a doctor and he'll help you."
She cringed when he pulled his utility knife out of his back pocket and flipped it open. She whimpered and tried to wriggle away from him and he didn't grab her, just grabbed the ropes and slid the knife beneath them and sawed the rope until it snapped. He did the same with the rope around her legs and as soon as she was free she scampered backwards away from him until she hit the side of the bed. She pulled her knees to her chest and rocked slowly and she never took her eyes off him, never looked away from him and she was shaking and naked and…
"Shit," Greg said. "You must be freezing." He quickly undid the button-down he'd thrown on over his favorite Clash t-shirt when Grissom had told him he was going out in the field. He leaned forward, holding it out, stretching his arm as far as it would go and she snatched it from him finally and pulled it on. "My name's Greg," he whispered. "The cops are outside. A doctor's on his way. You're safe."
She yelped when David came running into the room, followed by Nick.
"It's OK," Greg said. "That's David, he's a doctor and he's here to help you. The other guy is Nick; he's a crime scene investigator. Nobody's going to hurt you, I promise."
David knelt down next to her but when he reached for her she screamed and he jerked back.
"What's wrong with her?" Nick asked softly.
"Nothing," Greg said. "She's just scared. It's OK. Here, I'll even give you this." He held his knife out towards her. "Nobody's going to hurt you, OK? Take this. You can keep it."
She eyed his knife for a long moment, then snatched it from him. Her eyes were locked on him and Greg thought that if he made eye contact he could get through to her, but she wasn't staring at him, really, she was staring at his shirt.
"You just gave a hysterical woman a knife?" David demanded, looking back at him with an incredulous expression.
Greg glanced down at his shirt, then ran his hand over it. "You like the Clash?" he asked her. "What's your favorite album? I know it's a little cliché, but I like 'London Calling' best."
"Me, too," she whispered.
"Yeah? What's your favorite song?"
"Lost in the Supermarket." She swallowed hard.
"Good song," he said, nodding. "I like 'London Calling,' of course, and 'Revolution Rock,' but I have to say my favorite on that album is 'I'm Not Down.' Kinda funny, huh? How it fits with your situation. You've been beat up, but you're not down, are you?"
She shook her head.
"No. Of course you're not. You're not giving up, are you?"
She shook her head again.
"This is my friend David. He has terrible taste in music, but he's a great doctor. Will you let him take care of you?"
She eyed David for a moment, then nodded.
"Tell her not to stab me," David said.
"Don't stab him. He may listen to Kenny G, but other than that he's a good guy."
"Kenny G is relaxing," David said.
"Kenny G is the spawn of Satan," Greg corrected, and he smiled with relief when the woman sort of smiled at that. "You're OK," he told her.
"I'm OK?" she asked.
He nodded. "Yeah. You're OK. What's your name?"
"Tara," she said.
"I told you already, I know, but I'm Greg, and this is David and Nick. There are cops outside and paramedics are on their way."
"Did you get him?" she asked in a whisper.
"Yes, ma'am," Nick said. "We got him."
She dropped her head down and she started to cry.
Once David had determined that she was all right to stand he got her out of the house and into the Tahoe, since the last place she needed to be was in a coroner's van.
Greg felt the weight of what just happened hit him and he leaned forward, hands on his knees.
"You gonna be sick?" Nick asked softly.
Greg shook his head. "I might pass out, though."
Nick quickly set his kit behind Greg and tugged on his arm. "Sit down."
Greg sat down on the evidence kit and placed his elbows on his knees, let his head hang down. Nick squatted down in front of him and stroked his hair. "You were amazing," Nick whispered. "You were so good with her."
"I was just flying by the seat of my pants, running on pure adrenaline."
"Yeah," Nick whispered, kissing the top of Greg's head gently. "That's what we all do when something like this happens."
Greg lifted his head up and looked around the room. It was real, but he wasn't scared. He wasn't detached, either. He didn't feel much of anything, and he thought maybe his senses had been so overloaded that he'd blown some kind of emotional fuse. "What do we do now?" he asked. "Where do we start?"
"We call Grissom."
He hadn't been expecting that. He'd been expecting Nick to instruct him in procedure. "We what? Nick, this is our crime scene. We found it."
Nick nodded. "Yeah, we did. But look around you. This place needs a hell of a lot more than one CSI."
"But I'm here, too!"
"I know. But you're a trainee and even if you were a CSI 3 I'd still call Grissom, because we need every pair of hands the lab's got. This room alone is going to take at least a day to process, not to mention the bathroom, the living room—just the writing on the walls is going to take hours. There are so many body parts and so much blood and this case is going to be under so much media scrutiny that it would be stupid not to call in everyone we've got."
Greg nodded. Nick was right. Of course Nick was right. He picked up his camera and headed out of the house so that they could set up for the exterior photographs.
The Life Flight helicopter got there fifteen minutes later to take Tara to Desert Palm. Fifteen minutes after that another helicopter arrived, bearing the insignia of the LVPD.
Greg held his hand up to shield his eyes from the light and the wind as the helicopter started to land. It was surreal, standing there with his camera, taking pictures of a crime scene as a police helicopter landed. It was nothing he'd ever experienced before and the lights and the noise and the wind added to the moment's strange appeal. It was a moment he'd always remember; he knew that. The contents of the house might fade in his memory, but he'd never forget the moment the helicopter landed and the door slid open and Warrick jumped out with the grace of a panther. He held his hand out to help Catherine down and her hair whipped around her head as she and Warrick bent low to avoid the worst of the blade-generated wind. Then Grissom appeared out of the helicopter and yanked the door shut and the three of them were walking together in stride, evidence kits in their hands, and they were walking towards him, towards Greg, because this time he was the one who know what was going on.
"How many bodies?" Catherine asked as they approached him.
"That's the wrong question," he said. "The right question is how many body parts?"
Grissom's mouth twitched. "All right, Greg. How many body parts?"
"A lot. Head in the living room, torsos in the bathroom and one bedroom, fingers, toes, and other assorted appendages hanging from strings in the living room, and three breasts in the refrigerator. On a blue plate and covered in Saran wrap. That was just our preliminary walk through. We got kind of distracted when we realized one of the victims was still alive."
"We heard," Warrick said. "Sara's on her way to Desert Palm to collect physical evidence. You think she's going to be OK?"
"Physically?" Greg asked. "Yes. Psychologically, well, you make up your own minds once you see what's inside. Nick's in there now doing midrange shots and I just finished up the exterior." He removed the camera strap from around his neck and started towards the Tahoe. "Oh," he said, turning around, "there's also that." He clicked his flashlight on and aimed at the ground near the side of the house.
"Cellar doors," said Grissom.
"Yeah. I couldn't quite convince the trooper to clear the scene for me, so I haven't been down there."
"We could have more survivors down there," Catherine snapped, hurrying towards the doors with her hand on her gun.
"I knocked," Greg said. "And shouted to see if anybody would answer, but I didn't hear anything."
"Why won't the trooper clear the scene?" Warrick asked, setting his kit down next to the Tahoe's front end and squatting down in front of it.
"He said he thought he should wait until backup arrived," Greg said. "But I think he just doesn't want to know what's down there. Not that I blame him. Is she going down there alone?" he asked as Catherine yanked the cellar door open.
"Damn it," Warrick said. "No, she's not." He stood up hurried after her.
Grissom was with the state trooper, speaking quickly, and though Greg couldn't hear what he was saying, he was pretty sure Grissom was pissed. He knew Grissom's pissed off expressions well enough to recognize them even when aimed at somebody else.
When Catherine and Warrick emerged from the cellar shaking their heads to let him know nothing was down there, he put on a fresh pair of gloves, then headed into the house. "Backup's here," he called, looking in the living room and then the kitchen for Nick. "Hey, Nick?"
"Bathroom," Nick called.
Greg walked down the hall and stopped behind Nick, who was taking pictures of the blood on the bathroom sink.
"Cath and Warrick and Grissom are here," Greg said.
Nick nodded. "Yeah. I figured that's what the helicopter was. Too soon for news choppers."
"Do you think they'll actually show up? The media, I mean?"
Nick looked at him and laughed. "You really are new to this, aren't you? This is prime time right here. People can't get enough of stuff this twisted."
"Yeah, but it's not like anybody knows about it. It's not like there are neighbors to call the newspaper or anything."
"There's always someone," Nick said with a sigh. "Dispatch, trooper, prison guard, somebody. Somebody always calls the media. No, this won't be a secret for long."
The news choppers arrived shortly after dawn, vans not long after that. Grissom had already had Greg set up a perimeter around the house so that the news vans couldn't get within 100 yards of it. They designated Officer King as the scene security officer, a post he liked since it meant he could stay away from the house that still made him mutter The Lord's Prayer every time he glanced at it.
Greg worked the evidence log. He knew Grissom would throw him out of the crime scene eventually, and he had. He tried not to be resentful. He knew he didn’t have the experience or knowledge to work a scene that complex, and having one person doing nothing but log evidence helped the CSIs a lot. He still wished he could be inside, though, be where the action was, actually work the case from start to finish.
He'd helped, though. He'd seen that Tara was alive when the troopers had missed it—if they'd even been that far into the house at all. He'd done a hell of a lot considering that he was just a part-time trainee.
He helped the newly-arriving dayshift put up awnings from the front door to where the vehicles were parked so that the news cameras couldn't get a view of the evidence from the ground or the air.
He wanted to stay, but he understood when Grissom told him to ride back to the lab with David. There was a lot of analysis to be done, and done well, and who was going to do it? Benson? Hodges? No, Greg knew it wasn't a slight when Grissom sent him back to the lab, but he felt a twinge of bitterness nonetheless.
He had to sit in the middle of the bench seat between David and his assistant, Carl, but he didn't really mind that. What he did mind was the soft rock David had on the stereo system and the fact that he wanted to talk about Sara. He kept asking Greg if Sara ever talked about him, if Sara ever mentioned him just in passing, if he thought Sara was dating anybody new.
"We just came from the most fucked up crime scene since 'Silence of the Lambs' and you want to talk about girls?" Greg asked.
David seemed to think about that as he tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. "We can talk about evisceration if you'd rather."
And he was serious; talking about disembowelment was actually something he considered to be an OK topic of conversation. Greg switched off the soft rock and crossed his arms over his chest, and David must have gotten the hint because they spent the rest of the ride in silence.
He would have enjoyed the awed looks he got back at the lab if he hadn't had such a mountain of evidence to process. He would have enjoyed the fact that this time he'd made the other lab rats proud, but he knew that even with Benson, Hodges, and Tracy the dayshift trace tech helping out, he was in for a hell of a long day.
He'd never worked with Tracy before, but she was chipper and efficient and didn't mind it at all when he told her what to process and in what order. Hodges was tired and cranky, but he didn't make any snide remarks, just got to work. Even Benson turned out to be a damn good DNA analyst when he wanted to be, though Greg didn't know if it was the pressure of the case that spurred him to work or the threat of Greg reaming him out again.
He and Benson slid around each other in the lab on their rolling chairs, centrifuging samples and staining the resultant pellets with Nuclear Fast Red and picroindigocarmine.
"I got Christmas," Benson said as he looked at the first slide. It meant the sample contained sperm, since the heads stained red and the tails stained blue-green.
"Christmas here, too," Greg said, looking at his slide and setting it aside for further analysis.
As they studied each sample under the microscope, they bantered back and forth.
"Santa Claus," Benson said.
"Rudolph over here," said Greg.
"Jingle bells," said Benson.
"This one's got about 17 wise men," Greg said.
They eventually ran out of Christmas metaphors and Greg couldn't help but wonder how bright Jason Werner's room had lit up under the ALS. "Have you ever in your life gotten so many semen samples from one crime scene?" Greg asked, looking up from what had to be his 30th slide.
"Once," Benson said. "But that was in the early 80's and the crime scene was also a bath house."
Greg laughed. "Interesting."
"That was before DNA, of course," Benson said, "but we estimated there were something like 100 different donors."
"Yikes," Greg said. He was about to look at his last slide when Jacqui came running in.
"Hurry up," she said. "You're going to be on TV."
"I'm what?" Greg asked.
"Just come on!" She grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him down the hall to the break room.
The room was packed considering that all of dayshift and most of nightshift were working. They cleared a path for him, though, so he could see the TV from a good angle.
"There was a teaser," Jacqui said, "showing your picture and Nick's saying that we should stay tuned for breaking news."
Greg yawned and rubbed his eyes. "What kind of breaking news?"
Jacqui shrugged, then took a deep breath as the news started.
"This is national news," Greg whispered to her. Jacqui shushed him.
"We have more information today on the gruesome discovery of a grisly murder site in the Nevada desert," the female newscaster said. "It seems that Jason Werner, dubbed The Executioner, was attempting to impersonate a police officer when he mistakenly pulled over members of the Las Vegas crime lab. Nicholas Stokes, a former Dallas police officer and current Vegas crime scene investigator, and Gregory Sanders, an expert in the field of DNA, were on their way to investigate a convenience store robbery in the tiny town of Dunville when Werner attempted to pull them over. It is believed that he intended for the occupants of the car to be his next victims, no matter who they were. In the frenzied writings released to the media, Werner repeatedly stressed the necessity of choosing victims at random in order to confuse law enforcement."
"They released his notebooks to the press?" Greg demanded.
"Shut up," Jacqui hissed.
"It is believed that by impersonating an officer, Werner was able to pull over and subdue 21 year-old Tara Meadows, a senior at Northern Arizona University, who was driving through Dunville on the way to her family's vacation house near Lake Mead. He apparently thought his next abduction would go just as smoothly, but the finely honed instincts of Investigators Stokes and Sanders foiled his plan. They managed to disarm and detain him until he could be taken into police custody."
"Finely honed instincts?" Jacqui asked with a snort.
Greg shushed her.
"Little is known about the actual contents of Werner's vehicle or home except for the fact that both contain multiple body parts, most likely belonging to his parents, Pete and Carol Werner, and his 14 year-old sister, Amanda. However, we have exclusive footage giving us insight into the men who managed to thwart the plans of such a monstrous fiend."
Greg bit his lip when he saw Mrs. Palmbach appear on the screen, surrounded by her jungle of plants.
"Oh, Greg's a good boy," she said to someone off camera. "Always works so hard, and he's so smart. He just had an article published, and I bought a copy of the magazine it was in. Had to special order it, you know, since it's not the type of thing they carry at the Safeway. Oh, I can't even begin to tell you what it was about but I've got it here," she held up the Journal of Forensic Sciences. "And the title of it is…" she looked down at the journal and scanned the contents. "'Genetic Analysis of Amplified DNA with Immobilized Sequence-Specific Oligonucleotide Probes.'" She laughed. "Now, doesn't that beat all?"
Mrs. Palmbach cocked her head as she listened to the person off camera ask a question.
"Nick?" she asked. "Oh, Nick is just the most polite man you'll ever meet. Always calls me ma'am and always asks if I need any help around the place. In fact, just yesterday morning he helped me rearrange all my pots, even the really heavy ones, and that was after a full night's work. They work all night, you know, solving murders, and they put in far too much overtime. When they get home, sometimes they look like they can barely drag themselves to the door. But they're just wonderful boys, a lovely couple, and I'm very proud of them for catching that monster."
Greg closed his eyes and shook his head. That was very, very bad.
"What's going on?" Grissom's stern voice came from the hallway. "Why aren't you working?"
"Some old lady called Nick and Greg gay on national TV," said Ginny, the daytime A/V specialist.
Grissom frowned. "What?"
Jacqui forced a laugh. "Geez, Greg, you told me your neighbor lady was batty, but where'd she come up with that one? Talk about crazy."
Greg didn't know what to say to that, so he ignored it. "We've got a leak," he told Grissom. "The media knows more about the Werner case than I do, and I was there."
Grissom sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. His evidence kit was still in the other hand, proof that he had just returned from the scene. "Yeah. I got a call from Doc Robbins about half an hour ago, seems they're missing several fingers and a toe. He thinks Carl might have taken them. Things like that go for a lot of money to murder junkies."
"Oooh," Ginny said, jumping down from her perch on the counter. "I'll go online and see if I can find any information on souvenirs from the crime scene already up for grabs."
Grissom nodded. "The rest of you, too," he said. "Back to work. We don't deal in rumor and innuendo, we deal in facts. Bring me the facts, people, hard evidence."
Greg was thankful when everybody scattered. Sometimes Grissom's imposing tone was a very good thing. He didn't make eye contact with anyone on the way back to his lab.
"Interesting newscast," Hodges said as he leaned against the door.
Greg sighed but didn't look up at him. "Don't you have any work to do?" he asked.
"I'm on break," Hodges said. "Your neighbor seemed very sweet."
"I'm sure she is," Grissom said from behind him, "but since she's not part of the Werner case I don't see why we're discussing her."
"Uh, boss," Hodges said, standing up straight. "I was just—"
"No breaks," Grissom cut him off.
"Of course, sir," said Hodges, scurrying off to trace.
"Greg?" Grissom asked.
Greg looked up at him and swallowed hard. He was starting to feel detached again. "Yeah, Gris?" he asked, trying to keep his voice light.
"Come to my office when you finish up with that. We need to talk."
Fandom: CSI
Title: One Good Man -- Part 17
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Rating: R
Category: case file, angst
Warnings: same crime scene as in part 16
Summary: Greg's first murder scene and his reactions to it.
A/N: For those of you that wanted to know, I based the character of Jason Werner very loosely on a combination of Ed Gein, Andrei Chitaliko, and Albert Fish.
He'd been horrified at first. When he first saw what was in the back seat of Jason Werner's car he'd been fucking terrified. He didn't even know he was throwing up until he was on his knees, and he was too shaky at that point to give a shit. All he could think was, This isn't a movie. Those aren't props. This is real. This is real.
It was as real as it got. Heads, hands, feet, and…it was the last part that had made him vomit. How could somebody carve that out? How could anybody do that? Heads and hands he almost understood, but that? The softest, sweetest, most amazing part of a woman's body and somebody had cut it out? Greg didn't care that the woman was dead, it was wrong. It was so far past wrong he didn't even have a word for it.
Then as he shone the flashlight on it for David, he had to look again. He didn't want to look, didn't want to see such graphic proof of what human beings were capable of doing to each other. But he'd had to look, had to see it again, had to confirm that it hadn't been a trick of the light, hadn't been his overactive imagination, because he couldn't believe it was real even after seeing it with his own eyes.
And as he looked, as his eyes traced each body part in the car he became calm. He felt it happening, felt his heart rate slow, knew his brain had stopped screaming that it was wrong, that it wasn't real, and he just accepted it. It was real. It was right there. And he was OK. He was OK because he had to be OK. He had to find out what had happened and if that meant facing the fact that some kid had human heads and genitalia in the back seat of his car, fine. He could handle it. He could do it. And once his mind had calmed, the arrangement clicked and when he realized why the kid had placed the vulva where he had, he wasn't horrified. It was just like, "Oh, so that's why." Nothing huge and scary and terrifying, just evidence. Just something to analyze, a piece of the puzzle.
The knowledge that he and Nick were supposed to have been next rocked him, though. It shook his calm and for a few minutes he was back where he'd been before: scared out of his mind and wondering why he had ever, ever wanted out of the lab. The lab was secure. The lab was safe. Then he'd felt the slight itch of his scars against the collar of his shirt and he knew nowhere was safe. That only made it worse and he thought maybe he'd throw up again, especially when Brass let them know there was more. He didn't want to go. Every neuron in his brain was screaming for him not to get in the Tahoe with Nick, not to go to the next crime scene because if he was scared then, he definitely didn't want to see what state troopers thought they needed holy water for.
He remembered the Zodiac Killer. Never caught. Still out there somewhere, alive or dead. Nobody'd ever know who he was, and once he'd walked the very streets Greg walked most of his life. The Zodiac Killer never got him, though. He'd sat up nights in a cold sweat, two decades after Zodiac's kill on Washington and Cherry, absolutely positive that if he dared to close his eyes he'd be next.
The fear pulsed through him, so hot in his veins that he wanted to scream at Nick to stop the car, to fucking stop the car because were they crazy? They were going to a serial killer's lair on purpose? What was wrong with them? The fear bubbled up in him so high and then, in an instant, it was gone. It wasn't the same calm as before. It was more than that. He wasn't calm, he was detached. It was like he was watching a movie. He was in the movie, sure, but it wasn't real. He was just watching it happen from inside. He didn't even know if he could make himself move, but he tried, and the words that came out were, "Zodiac killer."
He'd stayed detached the whole time. Oh, hey, look at that, some guy strung up a bunch of fingers as decoration. And is that a human head stuck on a coat rack? How interesting. Oh, look, he's got breasts on a plate covered in Saran wrap. Geez, all that writing on the walls sure is kooky. What's that smell? Oh, look, dead guy. And somebody took off the dead guy's dick. Crikey. Guy's been fucking his dead sister? Definitely got to remember to write that one down.
He felt almost giddy, watching it from outside himself. He was in control, but none of it touched him. He could react and do his job and it didn't touch him and that felt so fucking good, because he'd been so afraid that he'd fail.
Then he saw her. He saw her move and the fear rushed back and his first thought was that it was a trap. It was a trap and everybody was in on it and he and Nick were next and…
He saw her eyes, saw her rapid shallow breaths and she was so scared. She was so, so scared and he was, too, so he reached out for her and didn't even hear it when Nick started shouting for David, started shouting for the troopers to call for air rescue.
The woman had green eyes and light brown hair matted with blood and she was naked. She was bound with rope and she had knife marks across her arms and legs and chest. She was so scared she was shaking, and he realized that she was scared of him. He fumbled with his ID card and pulled it out.
"It's OK," he said. "It's OK, miss, it's OK. My name's Greg, I'm with the crime lab. You're OK. Nobody's going to hurt you anymore."
She either didn't believe him or couldn't process his words because she was still terrified.
"I'm going to take my knife out," he said, "but I'm not going to hurt you. I'm going to cut the rope, OK? I'm going to cut the rope and get you lose and my friend David will be here soon. He's a doctor and he'll help you."
She cringed when he pulled his utility knife out of his back pocket and flipped it open. She whimpered and tried to wriggle away from him and he didn't grab her, just grabbed the ropes and slid the knife beneath them and sawed the rope until it snapped. He did the same with the rope around her legs and as soon as she was free she scampered backwards away from him until she hit the side of the bed. She pulled her knees to her chest and rocked slowly and she never took her eyes off him, never looked away from him and she was shaking and naked and…
"Shit," Greg said. "You must be freezing." He quickly undid the button-down he'd thrown on over his favorite Clash t-shirt when Grissom had told him he was going out in the field. He leaned forward, holding it out, stretching his arm as far as it would go and she snatched it from him finally and pulled it on. "My name's Greg," he whispered. "The cops are outside. A doctor's on his way. You're safe."
She yelped when David came running into the room, followed by Nick.
"It's OK," Greg said. "That's David, he's a doctor and he's here to help you. The other guy is Nick; he's a crime scene investigator. Nobody's going to hurt you, I promise."
David knelt down next to her but when he reached for her she screamed and he jerked back.
"What's wrong with her?" Nick asked softly.
"Nothing," Greg said. "She's just scared. It's OK. Here, I'll even give you this." He held his knife out towards her. "Nobody's going to hurt you, OK? Take this. You can keep it."
She eyed his knife for a long moment, then snatched it from him. Her eyes were locked on him and Greg thought that if he made eye contact he could get through to her, but she wasn't staring at him, really, she was staring at his shirt.
"You just gave a hysterical woman a knife?" David demanded, looking back at him with an incredulous expression.
Greg glanced down at his shirt, then ran his hand over it. "You like the Clash?" he asked her. "What's your favorite album? I know it's a little cliché, but I like 'London Calling' best."
"Me, too," she whispered.
"Yeah? What's your favorite song?"
"Lost in the Supermarket." She swallowed hard.
"Good song," he said, nodding. "I like 'London Calling,' of course, and 'Revolution Rock,' but I have to say my favorite on that album is 'I'm Not Down.' Kinda funny, huh? How it fits with your situation. You've been beat up, but you're not down, are you?"
She shook her head.
"No. Of course you're not. You're not giving up, are you?"
She shook her head again.
"This is my friend David. He has terrible taste in music, but he's a great doctor. Will you let him take care of you?"
She eyed David for a moment, then nodded.
"Tell her not to stab me," David said.
"Don't stab him. He may listen to Kenny G, but other than that he's a good guy."
"Kenny G is relaxing," David said.
"Kenny G is the spawn of Satan," Greg corrected, and he smiled with relief when the woman sort of smiled at that. "You're OK," he told her.
"I'm OK?" she asked.
He nodded. "Yeah. You're OK. What's your name?"
"Tara," she said.
"I told you already, I know, but I'm Greg, and this is David and Nick. There are cops outside and paramedics are on their way."
"Did you get him?" she asked in a whisper.
"Yes, ma'am," Nick said. "We got him."
She dropped her head down and she started to cry.
Once David had determined that she was all right to stand he got her out of the house and into the Tahoe, since the last place she needed to be was in a coroner's van.
Greg felt the weight of what just happened hit him and he leaned forward, hands on his knees.
"You gonna be sick?" Nick asked softly.
Greg shook his head. "I might pass out, though."
Nick quickly set his kit behind Greg and tugged on his arm. "Sit down."
Greg sat down on the evidence kit and placed his elbows on his knees, let his head hang down. Nick squatted down in front of him and stroked his hair. "You were amazing," Nick whispered. "You were so good with her."
"I was just flying by the seat of my pants, running on pure adrenaline."
"Yeah," Nick whispered, kissing the top of Greg's head gently. "That's what we all do when something like this happens."
Greg lifted his head up and looked around the room. It was real, but he wasn't scared. He wasn't detached, either. He didn't feel much of anything, and he thought maybe his senses had been so overloaded that he'd blown some kind of emotional fuse. "What do we do now?" he asked. "Where do we start?"
"We call Grissom."
He hadn't been expecting that. He'd been expecting Nick to instruct him in procedure. "We what? Nick, this is our crime scene. We found it."
Nick nodded. "Yeah, we did. But look around you. This place needs a hell of a lot more than one CSI."
"But I'm here, too!"
"I know. But you're a trainee and even if you were a CSI 3 I'd still call Grissom, because we need every pair of hands the lab's got. This room alone is going to take at least a day to process, not to mention the bathroom, the living room—just the writing on the walls is going to take hours. There are so many body parts and so much blood and this case is going to be under so much media scrutiny that it would be stupid not to call in everyone we've got."
Greg nodded. Nick was right. Of course Nick was right. He picked up his camera and headed out of the house so that they could set up for the exterior photographs.
The Life Flight helicopter got there fifteen minutes later to take Tara to Desert Palm. Fifteen minutes after that another helicopter arrived, bearing the insignia of the LVPD.
Greg held his hand up to shield his eyes from the light and the wind as the helicopter started to land. It was surreal, standing there with his camera, taking pictures of a crime scene as a police helicopter landed. It was nothing he'd ever experienced before and the lights and the noise and the wind added to the moment's strange appeal. It was a moment he'd always remember; he knew that. The contents of the house might fade in his memory, but he'd never forget the moment the helicopter landed and the door slid open and Warrick jumped out with the grace of a panther. He held his hand out to help Catherine down and her hair whipped around her head as she and Warrick bent low to avoid the worst of the blade-generated wind. Then Grissom appeared out of the helicopter and yanked the door shut and the three of them were walking together in stride, evidence kits in their hands, and they were walking towards him, towards Greg, because this time he was the one who know what was going on.
"How many bodies?" Catherine asked as they approached him.
"That's the wrong question," he said. "The right question is how many body parts?"
Grissom's mouth twitched. "All right, Greg. How many body parts?"
"A lot. Head in the living room, torsos in the bathroom and one bedroom, fingers, toes, and other assorted appendages hanging from strings in the living room, and three breasts in the refrigerator. On a blue plate and covered in Saran wrap. That was just our preliminary walk through. We got kind of distracted when we realized one of the victims was still alive."
"We heard," Warrick said. "Sara's on her way to Desert Palm to collect physical evidence. You think she's going to be OK?"
"Physically?" Greg asked. "Yes. Psychologically, well, you make up your own minds once you see what's inside. Nick's in there now doing midrange shots and I just finished up the exterior." He removed the camera strap from around his neck and started towards the Tahoe. "Oh," he said, turning around, "there's also that." He clicked his flashlight on and aimed at the ground near the side of the house.
"Cellar doors," said Grissom.
"Yeah. I couldn't quite convince the trooper to clear the scene for me, so I haven't been down there."
"We could have more survivors down there," Catherine snapped, hurrying towards the doors with her hand on her gun.
"I knocked," Greg said. "And shouted to see if anybody would answer, but I didn't hear anything."
"Why won't the trooper clear the scene?" Warrick asked, setting his kit down next to the Tahoe's front end and squatting down in front of it.
"He said he thought he should wait until backup arrived," Greg said. "But I think he just doesn't want to know what's down there. Not that I blame him. Is she going down there alone?" he asked as Catherine yanked the cellar door open.
"Damn it," Warrick said. "No, she's not." He stood up hurried after her.
Grissom was with the state trooper, speaking quickly, and though Greg couldn't hear what he was saying, he was pretty sure Grissom was pissed. He knew Grissom's pissed off expressions well enough to recognize them even when aimed at somebody else.
When Catherine and Warrick emerged from the cellar shaking their heads to let him know nothing was down there, he put on a fresh pair of gloves, then headed into the house. "Backup's here," he called, looking in the living room and then the kitchen for Nick. "Hey, Nick?"
"Bathroom," Nick called.
Greg walked down the hall and stopped behind Nick, who was taking pictures of the blood on the bathroom sink.
"Cath and Warrick and Grissom are here," Greg said.
Nick nodded. "Yeah. I figured that's what the helicopter was. Too soon for news choppers."
"Do you think they'll actually show up? The media, I mean?"
Nick looked at him and laughed. "You really are new to this, aren't you? This is prime time right here. People can't get enough of stuff this twisted."
"Yeah, but it's not like anybody knows about it. It's not like there are neighbors to call the newspaper or anything."
"There's always someone," Nick said with a sigh. "Dispatch, trooper, prison guard, somebody. Somebody always calls the media. No, this won't be a secret for long."
The news choppers arrived shortly after dawn, vans not long after that. Grissom had already had Greg set up a perimeter around the house so that the news vans couldn't get within 100 yards of it. They designated Officer King as the scene security officer, a post he liked since it meant he could stay away from the house that still made him mutter The Lord's Prayer every time he glanced at it.
Greg worked the evidence log. He knew Grissom would throw him out of the crime scene eventually, and he had. He tried not to be resentful. He knew he didn’t have the experience or knowledge to work a scene that complex, and having one person doing nothing but log evidence helped the CSIs a lot. He still wished he could be inside, though, be where the action was, actually work the case from start to finish.
He'd helped, though. He'd seen that Tara was alive when the troopers had missed it—if they'd even been that far into the house at all. He'd done a hell of a lot considering that he was just a part-time trainee.
He helped the newly-arriving dayshift put up awnings from the front door to where the vehicles were parked so that the news cameras couldn't get a view of the evidence from the ground or the air.
He wanted to stay, but he understood when Grissom told him to ride back to the lab with David. There was a lot of analysis to be done, and done well, and who was going to do it? Benson? Hodges? No, Greg knew it wasn't a slight when Grissom sent him back to the lab, but he felt a twinge of bitterness nonetheless.
He had to sit in the middle of the bench seat between David and his assistant, Carl, but he didn't really mind that. What he did mind was the soft rock David had on the stereo system and the fact that he wanted to talk about Sara. He kept asking Greg if Sara ever talked about him, if Sara ever mentioned him just in passing, if he thought Sara was dating anybody new.
"We just came from the most fucked up crime scene since 'Silence of the Lambs' and you want to talk about girls?" Greg asked.
David seemed to think about that as he tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. "We can talk about evisceration if you'd rather."
And he was serious; talking about disembowelment was actually something he considered to be an OK topic of conversation. Greg switched off the soft rock and crossed his arms over his chest, and David must have gotten the hint because they spent the rest of the ride in silence.
He would have enjoyed the awed looks he got back at the lab if he hadn't had such a mountain of evidence to process. He would have enjoyed the fact that this time he'd made the other lab rats proud, but he knew that even with Benson, Hodges, and Tracy the dayshift trace tech helping out, he was in for a hell of a long day.
He'd never worked with Tracy before, but she was chipper and efficient and didn't mind it at all when he told her what to process and in what order. Hodges was tired and cranky, but he didn't make any snide remarks, just got to work. Even Benson turned out to be a damn good DNA analyst when he wanted to be, though Greg didn't know if it was the pressure of the case that spurred him to work or the threat of Greg reaming him out again.
He and Benson slid around each other in the lab on their rolling chairs, centrifuging samples and staining the resultant pellets with Nuclear Fast Red and picroindigocarmine.
"I got Christmas," Benson said as he looked at the first slide. It meant the sample contained sperm, since the heads stained red and the tails stained blue-green.
"Christmas here, too," Greg said, looking at his slide and setting it aside for further analysis.
As they studied each sample under the microscope, they bantered back and forth.
"Santa Claus," Benson said.
"Rudolph over here," said Greg.
"Jingle bells," said Benson.
"This one's got about 17 wise men," Greg said.
They eventually ran out of Christmas metaphors and Greg couldn't help but wonder how bright Jason Werner's room had lit up under the ALS. "Have you ever in your life gotten so many semen samples from one crime scene?" Greg asked, looking up from what had to be his 30th slide.
"Once," Benson said. "But that was in the early 80's and the crime scene was also a bath house."
Greg laughed. "Interesting."
"That was before DNA, of course," Benson said, "but we estimated there were something like 100 different donors."
"Yikes," Greg said. He was about to look at his last slide when Jacqui came running in.
"Hurry up," she said. "You're going to be on TV."
"I'm what?" Greg asked.
"Just come on!" She grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him down the hall to the break room.
The room was packed considering that all of dayshift and most of nightshift were working. They cleared a path for him, though, so he could see the TV from a good angle.
"There was a teaser," Jacqui said, "showing your picture and Nick's saying that we should stay tuned for breaking news."
Greg yawned and rubbed his eyes. "What kind of breaking news?"
Jacqui shrugged, then took a deep breath as the news started.
"This is national news," Greg whispered to her. Jacqui shushed him.
"We have more information today on the gruesome discovery of a grisly murder site in the Nevada desert," the female newscaster said. "It seems that Jason Werner, dubbed The Executioner, was attempting to impersonate a police officer when he mistakenly pulled over members of the Las Vegas crime lab. Nicholas Stokes, a former Dallas police officer and current Vegas crime scene investigator, and Gregory Sanders, an expert in the field of DNA, were on their way to investigate a convenience store robbery in the tiny town of Dunville when Werner attempted to pull them over. It is believed that he intended for the occupants of the car to be his next victims, no matter who they were. In the frenzied writings released to the media, Werner repeatedly stressed the necessity of choosing victims at random in order to confuse law enforcement."
"They released his notebooks to the press?" Greg demanded.
"Shut up," Jacqui hissed.
"It is believed that by impersonating an officer, Werner was able to pull over and subdue 21 year-old Tara Meadows, a senior at Northern Arizona University, who was driving through Dunville on the way to her family's vacation house near Lake Mead. He apparently thought his next abduction would go just as smoothly, but the finely honed instincts of Investigators Stokes and Sanders foiled his plan. They managed to disarm and detain him until he could be taken into police custody."
"Finely honed instincts?" Jacqui asked with a snort.
Greg shushed her.
"Little is known about the actual contents of Werner's vehicle or home except for the fact that both contain multiple body parts, most likely belonging to his parents, Pete and Carol Werner, and his 14 year-old sister, Amanda. However, we have exclusive footage giving us insight into the men who managed to thwart the plans of such a monstrous fiend."
Greg bit his lip when he saw Mrs. Palmbach appear on the screen, surrounded by her jungle of plants.
"Oh, Greg's a good boy," she said to someone off camera. "Always works so hard, and he's so smart. He just had an article published, and I bought a copy of the magazine it was in. Had to special order it, you know, since it's not the type of thing they carry at the Safeway. Oh, I can't even begin to tell you what it was about but I've got it here," she held up the Journal of Forensic Sciences. "And the title of it is…" she looked down at the journal and scanned the contents. "'Genetic Analysis of Amplified DNA with Immobilized Sequence-Specific Oligonucleotide Probes.'" She laughed. "Now, doesn't that beat all?"
Mrs. Palmbach cocked her head as she listened to the person off camera ask a question.
"Nick?" she asked. "Oh, Nick is just the most polite man you'll ever meet. Always calls me ma'am and always asks if I need any help around the place. In fact, just yesterday morning he helped me rearrange all my pots, even the really heavy ones, and that was after a full night's work. They work all night, you know, solving murders, and they put in far too much overtime. When they get home, sometimes they look like they can barely drag themselves to the door. But they're just wonderful boys, a lovely couple, and I'm very proud of them for catching that monster."
Greg closed his eyes and shook his head. That was very, very bad.
"What's going on?" Grissom's stern voice came from the hallway. "Why aren't you working?"
"Some old lady called Nick and Greg gay on national TV," said Ginny, the daytime A/V specialist.
Grissom frowned. "What?"
Jacqui forced a laugh. "Geez, Greg, you told me your neighbor lady was batty, but where'd she come up with that one? Talk about crazy."
Greg didn't know what to say to that, so he ignored it. "We've got a leak," he told Grissom. "The media knows more about the Werner case than I do, and I was there."
Grissom sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. His evidence kit was still in the other hand, proof that he had just returned from the scene. "Yeah. I got a call from Doc Robbins about half an hour ago, seems they're missing several fingers and a toe. He thinks Carl might have taken them. Things like that go for a lot of money to murder junkies."
"Oooh," Ginny said, jumping down from her perch on the counter. "I'll go online and see if I can find any information on souvenirs from the crime scene already up for grabs."
Grissom nodded. "The rest of you, too," he said. "Back to work. We don't deal in rumor and innuendo, we deal in facts. Bring me the facts, people, hard evidence."
Greg was thankful when everybody scattered. Sometimes Grissom's imposing tone was a very good thing. He didn't make eye contact with anyone on the way back to his lab.
"Interesting newscast," Hodges said as he leaned against the door.
Greg sighed but didn't look up at him. "Don't you have any work to do?" he asked.
"I'm on break," Hodges said. "Your neighbor seemed very sweet."
"I'm sure she is," Grissom said from behind him, "but since she's not part of the Werner case I don't see why we're discussing her."
"Uh, boss," Hodges said, standing up straight. "I was just—"
"No breaks," Grissom cut him off.
"Of course, sir," said Hodges, scurrying off to trace.
"Greg?" Grissom asked.
Greg looked up at him and swallowed hard. He was starting to feel detached again. "Yeah, Gris?" he asked, trying to keep his voice light.
"Come to my office when you finish up with that. We need to talk."
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no subject
Date: 2004-09-06 09:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-09 03:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-06 09:46 pm (UTC)I am a Junior at NAU! :) You mentioned my school!
Anyways, I have been reading this forever, and I am not entirely sure if I have commented or not. I am really digging this, and I love how it feels like it could be an episode of CSI, if they just would open up and realise that Nick and Greg are "here, they're queer, get over it."
Fantastic. :)
L.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-09 03:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-06 09:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-06 11:11 pm (UTC)Marry me.
Marry me
Date: 2004-09-07 12:34 am (UTC)I've run out of compliments to give you and hopefully you already know you're brilliant so I'll just sit in awe and wait for the next chapter
no subject
Date: 2004-09-07 12:57 am (UTC)Oh my, what's next, I wonder...
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Date: 2004-09-07 03:39 am (UTC)*snickers*
You're evil, evil and cruel.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-07 04:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-07 08:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-07 08:44 am (UTC)And uh. I really like Ms Palmbach. So very nice and talkative. ;)
no subject
Date: 2004-09-07 10:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-07 02:03 pm (UTC)Perfect chappie yet again dearest, keep it up. I love every bit of it. And you better update soon ... I NEED to know what Gris has to say!!
<3
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Date: 2004-09-07 10:36 pm (UTC)I'm still freaked out by the whole Werner case, but I'm pretty okay now. I must say again how impressed I am with your writing and characterizations. It is all completely believable and so true to the show.
Great job. I can't wait to read more.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-09 03:26 pm (UTC)And I'm terrified of serial killers, too. There's something so horribly fascinating about a person who presents such a perfect facade to the world that no one suspects their sickness within. I do the same thing of not being able to stop reading about them and watching shows about them even though they scare me half to death. I was going to college in Waterloo, IA at the time I discovered that John Wayne Gacy had once been a prominent community leader and owner of a KFC franchise in...Waterloo, IA. I don't care that he's dead, now, I just about crawled out of my skin! And then there's the whole Pogo the Clown thing, and I'm terrified of clowns which I think goes back to the whole "presenting a facade to the world" thing and how I don't like it when you can't see what people really look like.
Anyway, I'm obviously both terrified and fascinated by them, since I put one in my story. I based a lot of him on Ed Gein, which actually puts me in pretty good literary company since he was also the basis for Norman Bates in "Psycho," Buffalo Bill in "Silence of the Lambs," and (very, very loosely) Leatherface in "Texas Chainsaw Massacre."
OK, I need to stop talking about this because I'm giving myself chills.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-09 05:29 pm (UTC)I really really have enjoyed the story. I just shouldn't have been reading chapter 16 in the dark at 11 o'clock at night.
I live in Wichita, KS. We've resently had a serial killer called BTK resurface. He killed in the seventies and wrote letters to the tv station and newspaper. Then he went silent and it was assumed he was dead, but now he's started writing letters again. Like I wasn't freaked out by serial killers enough without having one living in my city.
As creepy as your chapter was, I really liked that you involved a case file like that in your story. It just made it all the more CSI. So, don't worry about freaking me out. Just means your writing is worthwhile if you can achieve that effect.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-08 10:27 am (UTC)I loved how you described Greg initial emotions at the crime scene. I completely recognized it. I had a similar experience where a certain situation can be so upsetting at first (mine included various body parts as well, though thankfully not as gross), your brain just overloads and goes to this weird emergency mode where your emotions just tune out and you can deal with it calmly. You described it really well!
And I loved the 'outing' :-)
Can wait to see how everyone is gonna react when Nick comes back to the lab.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-08 11:06 am (UTC)The break room scene had me giggling even more than the phone talk during breakfast.
You just know what's going to happen.. and your read with such an anticipation.. and in a way a voice inside you is screaming "No! No!", though, on the other hands, a sinister "Yes..." can be heard as a faint hiss, too.
This is just fab!
no subject
Date: 2004-09-13 06:31 am (UTC)::bites knuckles to keep from squeeling out loud and waking entire household::
Lovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelove!
::deep breath::
Moremoremoremoremoremoremoremoremoremoremore!
;-)