Troubleshooting Part III
"How where her chances to survive?" Horatio asked after a short silence, looking at Alexx expectantly.
"From the amount and concentration of drugs in her blood I guess she was seriously ill. But you must ask the doctor who prescribed these drugs to give you an exact information on it. But it's odd the doctor didn't have the twin sister donating marrow to save her."
Alexx paused and watched Horatio for a while.
"I wonder, what is truly going on. The crime scene just looked just like you said: Viviane shot her sister, then she committed suicide. But the pieces of this puzzle don't fit together at all..."
"Yes, that's true. So, now what we have to do is find the missing pieces."
With that Horatio stood up and smiled slightly at Alexx.
"I will take Wolfe and go to the girls' address. I still have to tell the parents about their death and maybe they will be able to tell us something about their sickness. I see you later."
Navigating Miami's midday traffic seemed like suicide, but Calleigh and Eric finally made it back to the park – thanks to a heroic evading maneuver of Eric's that nearly made them hit a mailbox. "Fortunately, it would have been your own car, if you'd driven us against a stone wall or something," Calleigh teased him while he closed the trunk.
The crowd of curious onlookers that had watched the investigation in the morning had vanished, so they ducked under the yellow tape to enter the crime scene without being bothered. Detective Monroe was still here though and he watched Calleigh and Eric closely while he ate his donut and leaned back against his car.
"So, what do we do now?" Eric asked.
"We do, what we came for: Search my missing bullet. It could be nearly everywhere though. We have no idea where the offender was standing before he shot the girls." Calleigh looked around and smiled slightly. "Looks like we have lots of work to do. I will start over there." With that she made her way to one edge of the bars and began searching for any trace of the bullet.
"Alright then... I'll search the place, where Viviane was shot though!"
Eric put on his sunglasses to shield his eyes from the blinding bright sunlight and walked over to the place framed with white chalk. He tried to reconstruct the shotline... If Viviane had fallen down right after the bullet hit her heart, he thought in full concentration, and if it was a frontal attack, the agitator might have stood over there.
His feed began to move and suddenly he found himself in front of an old tree with lankily roots and a bark full of rents. "Calleigh?" he shouted in a slow tone, "Did you search the trees?"
He leaned forward to follow the slim chaps on the bark of the tree in front of which he stood.
"Which one exactly?" Calleigh asked in return while looking up.
"This one." He pointed at a small hole in the bark that seemed to be the abandoned home of a bird. "If Viviane had fired the shot toward her offender right where we found her, the bullet could have traveled all the way here."
He opened the toolbox and pulled out a new pair of gloves, then touched the morbid brims of the woodpecker's hole.
Calleigh collected her toolcase and got over to Eric, where he watched him fully interested. "And? Any trace of my bullet?"
"No, but maybe it didn't hit the bark."
He activated a small flashlight and let a ray of light shine into the hole. All they could see was a dark and gleamy mass that seemed to move.
"Are this worms?" Eric asked.
Calleigh looked over his shoulder before she gave him an amused grin. "Looks like it, if you ask me. Well then have fun"
Eric stared at her and blinked.
"Typical!" he muttered before he got out of his jacket and slowly reached into the hole. He had a feeling like touching something slimy. He could feel the mass of bugs and worms crawl over his fingers while he searched for the bullet. "You owe me one!"
"Sure thing" Calleigh said half laughing. "Just keep searching"
Eric swept some worms and bugs aside, now searching deeper in the tree trunk. Suddenly, something gave a sickening crack and then his fingers touched something hard, something that didn't move.
"Ah, It's coming up!"
He grabbed the cool piece of metal as firmly as possible and – with some effort – extracted it from the backside of the hole. He hurried to knock off a bug that crawled up his forearm and tickled his skin with its antenna.
Calleigh just grinned at him and took the bullet out of his hand. "9mm. Well, looks like we found the missing one! Should we look some more or head back to the lab?"
"Just give me a second," Eric said and flicked away an earthworm.
Calleigh watched patiently as he took a sample of the liquid at the brim of the tree trunk an stuffed it into a small plastic bag. "I don't have much hope, but maybe we can find something that isn't contaminated by insects," he commented dryly.
"It would be good if we have a little luck in this, wouldn't it? Right now we don't know anything at all. I mean we know that Viviane didn't shoot herself and that they were definitely murdered. But beside that..."
"... we don't have anything." he finished the sentence and gave Calleigh a serious look. "I'll go back to the lab and see, if that bullet you got there hit anything besides the tree and compare it with Vivian's gun." Calleigh smiled at him encouragingly. "Don't you worry too much right now. We'll get him soon enough." She packed the bullet into another bag and put it into her own toolcase. "Oh, by the way, I still have to find out who purchased the gun. We don't know if it was really Vivian's gun or if she had got if from someone else. This might also help. I'll see what I can find."
"You do that," Eric said being totally back to business, greeting Monroe as they passed by on the way back to his car.
"They... they are.. dead?"
Catherine McMiller felt pain and grief overwhelming her entire being as Horatio's words violently forced the terrible news onto the stirring surface of her mind. "It can't be!" she screamed, unable to control her voice, "Tell me, this isn't true!"
All this time she had thought the two of them wanted a break and went to have a little time for themselves. For Viviane it wouldn't have been the first time to do something like that, but now she had to ask herself if she could have prevented it. Maybe if she had been a little more demanding…
She was about to collapse as she spilled dreadful tears and mourned the death of her beloved children and Horatio himself felt a painful stitch in his heart. The loss of Viviane and Julie was nothing but a senseless waste. Jeffrey McMiller who sat beside her on the old-fashioned sofa wrapped his arms around his wife and tried to calm her down in vain.
The family lived in a well-to-do neighborhood in West Miami. Mrs. McMiller had inherited the comfortable colonial style house from her grandmother only three years ago, right after her ex-husband George had abandoned his family, moved to Alaska and left his wife with an enormous burden of debt. Although the family suffered through a hard time, Catherine McMiller - formerly known as Catherine Carson - denied nothing to her daughters and worked in the night shift of the Miami children's hospital to feed her family. Her new husband Jeffrey was a tradesman and worked for 'Advansa WorldWide', a company down at the harbor that shipped goods from all over the world. When their marriage had been contracted almost two years ago he became the new bread-winner of the McMiller-patchwork-family.
"You have to find whoever did this to our girls. They never did anything wrong. They both fought so hard for Julie to get better and now..." He let his hand ran in soothing circles over Catherine's back, while he watched the Lieutenant.
"I promise you that I will find whoever did this."
Horatio looked at the two of them and nodded slightly. He knew they wanted the truth about what had happened. They wanted and needed to know who would have had reasons to do something like that to their children and more importantly why and he was dead set on figuring it out.
Ryan who'd readily agreed to accompany him was in the twin's bedrooms and searched for anything that might help them, but he hadn't called for Horatio and that was no good sign. Their high hopes of getting a new trace seemed to be let down fatally again.
"Whoever did this, he deserves to die..." said Mrs. McMiller after a while, her voice clear but the desperation she felt could sill be heard. She was trying hard to keep her tears at bay, but they didn't stop running down her cheeks like a silvery stream of salt and water.
"Please... Lieutenant Caine... is there anything we can do?"
"There is indeed, Madam. Can you tell me anything about what your daughters used to do? Who were their friends? Was there anyone who could have wanted to hurt them?"
Mrs. McMiller thought for a while before she slowly said: "No. Viviane used to be a headstrong rogue. She didn't have what you call friends. The only one she cared about was her sister and she suffered to see her dying. She couldn't stand it that there was nothing she could do about Julie's disease."
She looked up at Horatio and her tears finally dried.
"And Julie... she was quite popular at school. Although she was sick, she joined her highschool's cheerleading team and took piano lessons. She stayed away from ominous people; she did her homework... She worked hard to fulfill her dreams because she knew there wasn't much time left for her. Though... I... remember her being in love with this boy from her school... what's his name again?"
She searched for Jeffrey's eyes and tried to find the truth written within them.
"Sebastian So-and-So... Arnet, I believe... yes, Sebastian Arnet. He's in my dauthers' class, but Julie didn't tell Sebastian how she felt about him. She hardly talked about him either for Viviane didn't like him..."
Horatio nodded in appreciation.
"Thank you, Mrs. McMiller. If you remember something else that could be important please call me immediately. I hope, we have your approval to consult Julie's doctor?"
"Of course you have!" she said immediately and leaned against her husband's comforting shoulder, "Right, darling?"
"Of course. If it helps to find whoever did this" he nodded and squeezed his wife's hand. "Although I doubt that Doctor Corfield can help to shed light on this matter."
"Leave that to us, Mr. McMiller."
The short silence that followed was only pierced by the last desperate sobs of Mrs. McMiller and a faint rustle from Viviane's room as Ryan searched the wardrobe.
"Lieutenant, may I ask you something?" Mrs. McMiller said cautiously.
"Of course, Madam" Horatio answered and looked at her inquiringly.
"Do you have any suspects yet? I know, you just started your investigation on this, but please, inform me, when you got him or her. I want to see the face of the person that slaughtered my daughters, so I won't ever forget it."
Horatio watched her grief turning into rage and anger, a process that seemed all too natural and was more than familiar to him. Old and bittersweet memories crossed his mind and he remembered the dark emotions that rested inside his heart when his brother was killed in the line of duty. Sadness, confusion and anger nearly made him lose his mind and he knew he had to atone for his brother's dark deeds – possibly for the rest of his life.
He closed his eyes for a second and willed the awful thoughts aside before he nodded once more.
"Of course, I will inform you the minute we found your daughters' murderer."
Mrs. McMiller rose from the couch and stepped up to the CSI. Laying a hand on his forearm she gave him an intensive glance. "God bless you, lieutenant."
He smiled softly.
"Thank you, Madam."
That very moment, Ryan returned from the twin's bedrooms and wiped his gloves. He didn't seem all too happy and barely said a word, but he'd been like this ever since they had left the laboratory.
Horatio swallowed and fiddled with the bows of his sunglasses.
"Well, I thank you for your cooperation." he said and struggled through to another faint smile.
Mrs. McMiller lead them back to the hall, gave Horatio a small piece of paper with Doctor Corfield's address and phone number and opened the front door. "We'll keep in touch." Horatio said, then stepped out into the bright afternoon sunlight and put his sunglasses back on.
"Nothing unusual, neither in Viviane's room, nor in Julie's," Ryan explained quietly as they left "Viviane's room was quite sterile. Only a few personal belongings such as CDs, DVDs, books e.t.c., but I found a diary and a photography on Julie's bedside table."
"A photo of whom?" Horatio asked.
"A guy. Short brown hair, muscular stature. Looked like a football player or something."
Horatio frowned and unlocked the doors of his car.
"That could be the guy their mother talked about. His name is Sebastian Arnet."
They drove off to the highschool Viviane and Julie had attended up to the previous day and waited outside the building for school to end. Luckily, some of the students passing the car knew Sebastian Arnet and told them he was still in his P.E. lesson, but it didn't take a long time for Horatio and Ryan to find him.
Sebastian wore a deepblue muscleshirt combined with tattered jeans and carried a bag with his sportswear when he left the building with his team mates. The CSIs waited by the car and finally caught up with him as he separated from his friends.
"Sebastian Arnet? My name's Horatio Caine, Miami-Dade police. I'd like to talk to you about the McMiller sisters."
The color drained from his face when Sebastian's gaze fixed on Horatio's badge, but he recovered his self-possession quickly. He snorted and shook his head in sardonic amusement. "M.D.P.D., hm? What kind of trouble Viviane got herself into this time?"
"We're trying to figure that out," Horatio said dryly and pulled out a photography of the twins Eric had taken on the crime scene, "They were killed and you might be able to help us finding their murderer."
Sebastian Arnet did not budge while the CSIs took him to the lab and lead him into the interrogation room. Indeed, Arnet leaned back and tried to play it cool. Horatio sat down on the opposite side of the table, Ryan standing right by his side.
After telling Arnet what happened they started questioning him about the twins.
"I heard Viviane didn't like you? Did she have any reason to do so?" Horatio asked calmly as he stared intently at the boy.
"Damn right, she didn't! And all just because I flirted with her precious little sister once, can you believe that? Thought she wanted to rip my eyes out, honestly. Scary woman, I can tell you, but next to Julie she was like another person. Calm, funny and totally caring."
"So you couldn't date Julie, because Viviane wouldn't let you?"
The young man nodded. "Yes, wouldn't even let me anywhere near her without glaring daggers at me."
"Do you know if Viviane or Julie purchased a gun?"
"Sure thing I do," he said and leaned forward, his elbows on the edge of the table. "Viviane came to me one day and flatly told me that she couldn't stand the sight of me and that she would gladly kill me, if I ever touched her sister… and that she needed my help. You have to know that I purchased a gun a while ago, all totally legal, I swear! But, well, I asked her what she wanted with my gun and all she told me was that she had to protect her sister, that her father was crazy and that she feared he would hurt them or something like that. Well... and after that I gave her my gun."
Horatio blinked unwillingly at this words and narrowed his eyes.
"So, you just gave her the gun?" Ryan asked in a voice of disbelieve, "I'm rather curious why you gave the weapon away so willingly, although Viviane didn't like you and may have lied to you all along."
Sebastian shifted nervously in his chair.
"Yeah, you got me." he admitted and sweat began to wetten his forehead. "It's just... Viviane could be mean, yes, but only when someone threatened her or her sister. I liked her temper somehow. She really got a fire raging in her soul and I liked that, but she wouldn't wanna hear it, you know. Besides... I mean, hell, everyone knew that guy was creepy. I had no reason not to believe 'er!"
Horatio pulled a photograph of the gun out of a folder and showed it to him. "Is that your gun?"
"Yeah, that's the thing," Arnet said and H looked at the picture again.
"When did she ask you for your help?"
"Tuesday afternoon after school ended. They had an appointment after that as far as I know."
Even though, Arnet had a motive to kill Viviane, whether it was because she wouldn't let him near Julie or because she didn't show much affection for him, Horatio doubted he did it. Either way, Julie was Viviane's tender spot - and the offender knew it. But from what Arnet had told them, probably everyone who knew them were aware of that.
"So, where have you been yesterday evening, about 9 p.m.?" Ryan asked and looked at Arnet with a straight face. "We had a special training for our next match", the young man explained, "And after that I took Pearce and Sykes from my team over to my place. We had supper, played videogames 'til 11 p.m. and then I dropped 'em off at their houses with my mother's car."
Ryan and Horatio exchanged a quick look.
"We'll need a sample of your DNA and your fingerprints for further examination. And it would be kind, if you'd give us your teammates addresses as well."
Arnet nodded and waited for Ryan to secure his saliva sample on a cotton bud and ink his fingertips.
When Sebastian cleaned his hands with a cloth and Ryan stuffed the paper with the fingerprints into the case folder, Horatio got out of his chair.
"Thank you, Mr. Arnert" he said with a smile tugging at his lips as he turned to the door.
It looked like they finally got something to work with.
