Disclaimer: I don't own them, I didn't create them, and I don't profit from them, but I'd always welcome George and Jorja for coffee if they had the time or inclination.
Author's Note: This is somewhat of a departure from my typical story, but some people just needed a little dose of Yo!Bling.
Detective Sam Vega met Warrick Brown and Catherine Willows outside of a mobile home that had clearly seen better days. Warrick's easygoing manner belied the careful precision that he approached each investigation with. "What do we have, Vega?"
The detective motioned for them to follow him through the back door. "Young man in his mid-twenties. Appears to have died from some sort of puncture wound. Neighbor heard a commotion and called it in." He stepped into the trailer followed by Warrick and Catherine. Vega motioned towards an open door a few feet from the door they had just walked in. "Vic's in the bedroom right there. I'll be outside."
As the pair of CSIs stepped into the bedroom, David the assistant coroner was pronouncing the body so the investigation could proceed. He glanced up and greeted the CSIs. "Catherine. Warrick. He's been dead I'd say about an hour or so. He's got some sort of puncture wound. A bit irregular in shape, not your typical knife wound. Bled out, mostly internal."
"Thanks, David." Catherine replied taking in the scene in the bedroom and wondering what an assailant would have used to stab their victim.
"I'll be outside when you're ready for me to take the body." David stood up and gathered his gear.
Warrick just stood there studying the room. Something seemed strange to him; not consistent with what he had first thought when he'd walked in.
Finally Catherine looked at him. "What are you thinking?" She too had thought that all the pieces didn't seem to be there.
"I don't think he was stabbed in here. There's no cast off and no sign of a struggle." Warrick continued to study the scene.
"That leaves the rest of the house or maybe outside. The back door is near the bedroom." Catherine reasoned. With that she began to carefully walk out of the bedroom in the direction they'd come in. "If he was stabbed elsewhere in the house, he probably came this way." She looked for evidence of obvious blood drops as she walked towards the living room. "The brown carpet certainly doesn't help."
"You can say that again." Warrick could tell that there was some sort of dried crud on the carpet, but the problem was that the carpet was so old, there was no telling what was new and what was old in the stain department.
As they approached the living room, Catherine glanced back at Warrick with a befuddled expression on her face. "What do you make of this?"
"Not sure." Warrick shook his head as he took it all in. "I guess we'll tag and bag."
All over the living room carpet were shards of glass and some sort of greenish blue goo was splattered on the walls. Warrick took a swab out of his kit to get a sample of the goo. As he did, he narrowed his focus on the wall. "Cath, take a look at this."
She carefully walked over to where he was and looked at what he was pointing at. "There's glass embedded in the walls."
As sense of déjà vu swept over the pair they realized that something must have exploded to cause the force necessary for the glass to dig that deep into the walls. They both mentally stepped back and surveyed the scene, noting for the first time that the glass and goo seemed to spread outward from the wood burning stove that sat in the corner and appeared to have been part of a poor remodeling job. The stove was rather warm.
"If there's one thing I've learned, heat and glass don't mix well." Catherine commented a bit dryly as she began to process the scene.
She and Warrick spent the better part of three hours picking glass shards out of the wall and swabbing the carpet for traces of blood and goo. After working the perimeter of the trailer, they came to the conclusion that there was no sign of forced entry and no sign that anyone else had been in the trailer besides the victim. They would have to wait until the autopsy to determine if their theory was correct, but from all they could tell from the evidence so far, it appeared that their victim had died in a freak accident.
When they arrived back at the lab and had checked the evidence in, they made their way to the morgue where Doc Robbins was just getting read to post their victim. He glanced up as the pair walked in. "I was just getting ready to start." He pointed at the strangely shaped incision just over the victim's heart. "It appears that he has something lodged in his chest."
Warrick glanced over at Catherine. "My money is on glass."
Doc Robbins glanced up a bit curious. "That might explain the irregular shape." He made a Y-incision and as he opened up the chest cavity, it appeared that Warrick was correct. Doc Robbins held up a long shard of glass that he extracted from the victim's heart with a pair of forceps. "This is what killed him. Pierced the left ventricle and he bled out probably in a matter of minutes."
"Now we just need to know what that glass came from." Catherine took the glass and put it into an evidence bag.
It was near the end of shift and they were waiting for the results from Trace on what exactly that greenish blue goo was. Warrick had a hunch, but he wanted to be certain rather than to jump to conclusions.
When his pager went off, he made his way down to the trace lab to see what Hodges had come up with. Hodges started talking before Warrick had an opportunity to say a word as he handed over the printout of the analysis. "Your goo is a mixture of mineral oil, rubbing alcohol and food coloring."
Warrick just nodded and tuned out Hodges as he turned and went in search of Catherine.
She was sitting in her newly acquired office and she glanced up as he walked in noticing the printout in his hand. "You beat me to Trace."
Warrick smiled at her and sank his lanky form into the chair opposite her desk. "Death by homemade lava lamp."
She smiled at him. "So you were right then." They seemed to stare at each other a bit longer than necessary as a somewhat awkward silence settled over the room.
Warrick just nodded, but as he sat there he considered whether now was the right time to bring up what had almost happened between them in that drainage culvert several months previous; they'd never talked about it but he hadn't stopped thinking about it.
Catherine beat him to it. "Look, this may not be the best time to bring this up, but since I'm your supervisor now, I thought we should clear the air about the culvert." She wasn't sure what to say next and so she paused to collect her thoughts hoping that he wouldn't think she was being too forward.
Warrick had a somewhat unreadable expression on his face, but the first hint of a smile tugged at his lips. "I'm not sure what there is to air, Cath. I think we both wanted it; we just got interrupted."
Catherine looked at him a bit incredulously. She had seriously thought he would just blow the whole thing off. Her smile was a dead giveaway. "I am your supervisor, it could complicate things."
Warrick let out a soft chuckle. "When has complicated ever stopped either one of us?" He knew that she wasn't saying no, he just wasn't sure if she was saying yes.
"True." Catherine had firmly made up her mind. "I'm not Gil Grissom."
Warrick couldn't restrain a deep throaty laugh. "No, you're not, and I think Nick's glad too. He got the girl." He was referring to a fairly new development around the lab. After Ecklie had split up the team, Nick had finally been bold enough to ask Sara out after shamelessly flirting with her for four and a half years and wonder of wonders, she'd said yes. They both seemed very happy.
Catherine arched her brows a bit suggestively. "Well, he might not be the only one to get the girl." Her implication was clear. What he didn't know was that Lindsey was at her sister's for the weekend and she had plenty of time to be sure he knew exactly what she wanted.
The End