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Valentine
Chapter
Nine – Tightening the Net
The
teenage couple were badly beaten. Matt Hawkins, 18, had a broken nose and
several lacerations to his head and arms. Karen Walker, also 18, was so
battered and bloody that it was difficult to pinpoint her exact injuries.
They’d
been together for a little over six months, and this had been their first
Valentine’s Day together. As such, Matt had done it right, presenting Karen
with a dozen red roses and a silver charm bracelet before whisking her off for
a romantic dinner for two. Afterwards, he made the mistake of taking her to see
a movie at the Playhouse Movie Theatre, just off the strip. It was from there
that they were followed, just like seven teenaged couples before them. And just
like the previous couples, the murderous couple, styling themselves as Clarence
and
Miraculously,
they were both still alive.
Just
as the violence was spiralling towards the final climactic double murder, a
police patrol car came along the quiet stretch of desert road the killers had
brought their victims to. Seeing the cop car, Clarence and
‘So
much for my needle in a haystack theory,’ Sara mused, feeling both relieved and
frustrated. Sure, this couple had been saved from a horrific death, but what
about the next victims? Their killer couple had escaped and there was still no
way to track them.
‘They’ll
strike again. Soon,’ Grissom statement was not a guess, it was a fact. Aside
from bugs, serial and signature killers were his area of expertise. ‘Their
failure here will drive them to find another victim. They’ll escalate. And it’s
still Valentine’s… they’ll try to find a new couple tonight.’
He
looked towards the rest of his team. Catherine was already at the hospital,
waiting for one of their victims to be ready to give a statement, as well as to
collect their clothing for evidence. Warrick and Nick, however, were still at
the crime scene – Warrick was currently casting a promising tread mark on the
road, while Nick scanned the area for the smallest piece of evidence.
Grissom
turned to Sara. ‘Can you get over to the hospital and help Catherine.’ he asked
her. ‘These victims may be the only lead we have.’
Sara
nodded and walked quickly to the Tahoe as Grissom approached Warrick.
‘What
have you got?’
‘Fresh
tread,’ Warrick answered, not looking up from his work. ‘Hopefully it’s our
suspects’ vehicle. I’ll run it as soon as we get back to the lab.’
‘Good.
I’m going to check in with Brass, see if he has anything,’ Grissom said. ‘He’s
still running surveillance on the movie theatre, in case our perps go back tonight.’
‘Yeah.’ Warrick finished casting and looked up at Grissom.
‘Sorry this messed up your date.’
Grissom
frowned. ‘Date? Who said I was on a date?’
Warrick
had a playful glint in his eye, but shrugged and went back to his work. ‘Guess
I heard wrong. My bad…’
---
Sara
arrived at the hospital and found Catherine being handed two brown bags filled
with clothing.
‘Thanks,’
she told the nurse who’d collected the clothing for her. She turned as she
sensed Sara’s approach. ‘Hey.’
‘Hey,’
Sara replied. ‘Have you spoken to either victim yet?’
Catherine
shook her head. ‘The girl still isn’t conscious. The boyfriend is stable, but
they wanted to clean him up, get him on some painkillers before they let me see
him.’
Sara
nodded towards the bags Catherine now held. ‘Want me to get those to the lab
for you?’
‘Greg’s
on his way to pick them up,’ Catherine told her. ‘So you can keep me company
‘til they let us in to see Matt.’
Sara
shrugged. ‘Okay.’
They
sat down in a quiet corner of the waiting area and Sara stared pensively at the
wall in front of her. She couldn’t get her head around the fact that, just over
an hour ago, she was in Grissom’s arms, and now she was on the job, again.
There was a time she welcomed ever scrap of overtime she could get her hands
on. Now she was amazed to find it inconvenient and more than a little annoying.
Maybe she was growing…
She
wondered how long it would take Catherine to bring up Sara’s fledgling
relationship with their enigmatic boss. She didn’t have to wonder long.
‘So.
You and Grissom...’
Sara
didn’t look at her. ‘Uh huh.’
Catherine
raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that all I get? An ‘uh huh’?’
‘Yup.’
Catherine
sighed. ‘Fine. Whatever. I
don’t need to know details.’
‘Good.’
Catherine
shot Sara a look of frustrated disbelief. She’d only been dating Grissom for
five minutes and already she had adopted his tight-lipped, closed-off routine.
Always up for a challenge, Catherine wasn’t going to let this fact deter her
from getting as many details as possible.
Catherine
took a breath, ready to try again when a doctor approached the waiting CSIs.
‘You
can talk to Matt for a few minutes now.’
---
‘They
were crazy,’ Matt was saying, his voice muffled from
the painkillers and the surgical packing around his broken nose. ‘The girl was
wild, she scratched and punched Karen, waving her knife around and ranting
about ‘true love’.’
Despite
being in the relative safety of his private hospital room, Matt was still
visibly shaken and very scared. His eyes kept darting towards the door as if he
expected the murderous pair to burst in and finish him off.
A
flash of fear suddenly passed across his face. He tried to still up, but the
drugs and his injuries made him sink back into his pillows with a groan. But
the urgency in his eyes never diminished. ‘Karen! Where is she? Is she okay?’
‘She’s
fine,’ Sara reassured him. ‘The doctors are with her and she’s going to pull
through.’
With
a sigh of relief, Matt lay back and closed his eyes, the weight of his fear
dispelling temporarily.
‘Is
there anything you can tell us, Matt?’ Catherine asked him. ‘Anything at all
that can help us catch your attackers. Their car, maybe?’
Matt
thought for a moment, trying to focus his pain and drug-hazed mind. There was
something… Something he had told himself to remember. To tell
the police…
‘The
car,’ he said, the information finally coming to him. ‘Dark
colour. Dark blue or… black, maybe? A Jetta.’
Sara
and Catherine exchanged a hopeful glance. ‘Did you see the plate number, Matt?’
Sara asked him.
‘I
can’t remember it all…’ he said, angry with himself. ‘I saw it as they drove
away… 9, 3, 6, M… T… I can’t remember the last letter… I’m sorry.’
‘No,
that’s great, Matt,’ Sara told him with a reassuring smile. ‘You did great.’
---
Warrick
frowned at the computer as it took it’s time coming up with a response. He had
fed the tread mark that he lifted from the scene into the computer, and now the
seconds ticked by slowly while the database compared it with everything on
record.
Greg
had called a quick ‘hello’ to him five minutes before, as he arrived with the
evidence collected from Catherine at the hospital. Ever the scientist, Warrick
knew that Greg would be doing double-time helping Mia to process the evidence,
to ensure they had an answer ASAP. Everyone was working flat out to come up
with something. But Warrick couldn’t help but feel a little pessimistic. No
matter what came of the evidence in the lab, nothing was going to tell them
where their suspects were right then and there, which was the only information
that mattered tonight.
They
might, at this very second, be torturing and killing their next victims. The
very thought sent a wave of cold nausea through Warrick’s stomach.
A
beeping and whirring sound of the computer’s printer springing to life brought
Warrick out of his reverie. He just had to hope that the computer was providing
him with a lead and not another dead-end.
---
Catherine
and Sara practically ran out of the hospital as Sara flicked open her cellular
phone and hit speed-dial. Her quarry answered almost immediately.
‘Brass? It’s Sara. Need you to run something through DMV for
me,’ she said urgently as she reached her vehicle and unlocked the door.
Catherine was climbing into her own Tahoe nearby. ‘We’ve just spoken to our
victim, and he has a partial plate number for us. 9-3-6-Mike-Tango.
The vic didn’t get the last
letter… Yeah, we’re heading back to the lab now. Let me know if you get
something…’
She
hung up and started the car, pulling out of the car park behind Catherine and
following her back to the lab. As she did so, she said a silent prayer that
this was the break they had been waiting for.
---
‘Treads
come back to a Volkswagen Jetta,’ Warrick told
Grissom. ‘So it’s either completely unrelated or the suspects have changed
cars.’
‘Those
treads were fresh,’ Grissom reasoned. ‘There’s a good chance they were from the
suspect’s car.’
‘Let’s
hope so. They’re the only lead we’ve got right now.’
‘Oh
ye of little faith,’ Catherine said as she and Sara entered the lab. ‘We got a
plate number. Brass is running it as we speak.’
‘It
didn’t happen to be from a Jetta, did it?’ Warrick
asked hopefully.
Sara
smiled. ‘A black or dark blue Jetta.’
‘Yes!’
Just
then Sara’s phone rang. ‘Sidle… Jim… You did? That’s great… Yeah. Will do…
Thanks.’
She
looked at the others. ‘We got a name and address for the owner of the car.
Brass wants us to meet him there.’
---
The
apartment was rented by J.D. Murray, 25. Several squad cars had already
surrounded the apartment building by the time Grissom, Sara, Catherine and
Warrick arrived. They had no sooner parked than Jim Brass pulled up behind them
and hopped out of his unmarked car, brandishing a search warrant. Although
itching to get started on the scene, the CSIs held back while Brass and his
team secured the apartment.
‘All
clear,’ Brass called down to them after a few minutes. ‘We must have missed
them.’
‘Damn
it!’ Sara murmured so that only Grissom could hear her. Her tone was tight and
angry. ‘They’re probably out grabbing another couple right now!’
‘Sara,
this is the best lead we’ve got,’ Grissom told her in the calm, firm tone she
hated him using on her. When he directed it her way, it usually meant ‘Calm down. No emotions at the crime scene.’
The
interior of the apartment was simple and stark, neither clean nor tidy. The
only homey touches to the living room were dozens of framed photographs, all of
a smiling couple, staring lustfully at one another. Lana
Tyler and J.D Murray.
While
Catherine and Warrick started processing the living room, Sara moved towards
the lone bedroom. The bed looked like a tornado had hit, and the room smelled
of recent sexual activity. Sara was about to bag the sheets for DNA comparison
when a stack of papers and what looked like a diary caught her attention on the
bedside table.
Flipping
the diary open, she discovered the scratchy, spider-like writing of Lana Tyler,
rhapsodising at length on the subjects of murder and mayhem. Sara was stunned
to find in depth details of each of the murders they were investigating, as
well as several more that they didn’t yet know about.
More
startling still was a sheet of paper that lay under the diary. Written in a
different hand, which Sara suspected was that of J.D, was a list of names,
credit card details and addresses, along with descriptions of significant
others and movie preferences. Several of the names had been crossed off the
list in red ink. Suddenly, everything was sliding into place, and Sara couldn’t
believe they hadn’t thought of it before.
‘What
have you got?’ Grissom’s voice startled Sara, and she jumped and let a small
yelp out involuntarily.
‘Jeez,
Gris, don’t sneak up on a person at a crime scene,’
she said, turning towards him breathless and shaken by more than just his
sudden appearance.
‘Sorry.
What did you find?’
‘The
killings weren’t random,’ Sara told him. ‘I can’t believe we didn’t realise it
before. They had a list…’
Sara’s
voice brought Warrick and Catherine to the door of the bedroom.
‘Find
something?’
‘They
have a list, with all our victims on it, plus a few more beside. Descriptions
of their girlfriends or boyfriends, cars, addresses, credit card numbers, even
the types of movies they like to watch…’
Catherine
shook her head at their mistake. ‘And we thought they just picked kids at
random at the movies.’
Warrick’s
attention was on the dresser top. Walking swiftly to it, he picked up something
with his gloved hand and examined it. ‘They did pick up kids at random at the
movies,’ he told them, holding up a name badge for them to see. ‘J.D. worked at
the Playhouse. Box Office.’
‘That’s how he got names and addresses,’
Sara realised. ‘Taking ticket bookings…’
‘I’ll
let Brass know,’ Warrick said. ‘He’ll want to talk to the manager of the
Playhouse.’
As
he left the room, an idea dawned on Sara. ‘The couple that
escaped tonight. Matt and Karen? They’re on
this list.’
‘Well,
that makes sense if they gathering information on their victims are in
advance,’ Grissom reasoned.
‘Yeah,
but they failed tonight,’ Sara said. ‘Matt and Karen got away. If they’re
escalating the way we suspect, makes sense they’ll go after another couple on
their list…’
Grissom
and Catherine’s eyes widened as Sara’s point hit home.
‘How many more names on that list?’ Catherine asked, taking her cell phone
out of her pocket.
Sara
checked. ‘Eight.’
‘We’d
better start calling then,’ Grissom said.
Five
minutes later, Catherine was finishing up her last call as Sara hung up her
cell. Each of the numbers she had called turned up nothing. One couple was
having a quiet dinner at home. Another had gone to
The
urgency in Catherine’s voice made them both turn to watch her. ‘Are you sure
that’s where they’ve gone? ... What time? … Can you give me a description of
the car they took? …’ Catherine paused as she jotted something down. ‘No…
ma’am, I’m sure everything’s fine. But just in case, can you call your son’s
cell phone? Sure… okay, you have my number. Can you call me back when you’ve…?
Great… Thank you.’
The
look on her face as she hung up said it all. Brass and Warrick entered the room
as she filled them in. ‘Darren McKenzie and Lucy Bell. Dinner followed by a
movie at the Playhouse. Apparently they go there all the time…’
‘I’m
heading back there now,’ Brass said. ‘Have you got this couple’s car details?’
‘Here
you go.’ Catherine handed him the slip of paper.
‘Meanwhile,
I’m calling in some favours with the local media,’ the Captain informed them.
‘In half an hour, I plan to have our two suspects’ pictures, along with their
car details, spread all over the TV news. I’ll issue a BOLO on this new
couple’s car as soon as we confirm they’re missing.’
As
if on cue, Catherine’s cell phone rang. ‘Willows… Mrs McKenzie… He’s not
answering? ... Okay. Don’t worry… We’re looking into it now… I’ll let you know
as soon as we have anything…’
She
disconnected again and looked at Brass. ‘There’s your confirmation. Movie let
out over an hour ago and Darren’s not answering his phone. Put that BOLO out.’
Brass
nodded. ‘Will do. It’s time to tighten the net people.
I don’t want our suspects to be able to make a move tonight without us knowing
about it.’
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