Characters: Mac Taylor, mentions of other CSI:NY cast members

Set: Between season 7 and 8

Rating: M

Warnings: Descriptions of death and some violence.

Disclaimer: I do not in any way own CSI NY or affiliates. I'm using the characters to no profit.

Challenge: Who = Mac Taylor. What = A letter (I used that in two senses of the word...). Where = Subway train or station.

A/N: This is my entry for the 'Who, What, Where?' challenge hosted on the CSI:NY forum in Fic Challenges by the ever amazing Smuffly. Thank you so much for setting the challenge. Smuffly and Mahala have amazing writing styles and they inspired me here. Please enjoy.

The Writer

Clatter.

Squeal.

The hiss of air pressurised brakes.

And then, the gasps of the disembarking commuters as they realised that the station they were getting off at was, in fact, a crime scene.

Mac allowed a flicker of amusement to pass through him as yet another lot of passengers on their daily routes stopped and gawked at the scene. While it thankfully not a bloody one, the sight of a dead body slumped against a support pillar was not a normal sight for most. At least, if you weren't a CSI.

That amusement quickly passed as he gazed down at the evidence he was focussing on. It seemed to mock him – a serial killer's signature, a few Scrabble tiles left within 10 feet of the body. Three tiles, this time. A deviation from the three previous bodies that had died in the same fashion.

It had begun a month ago with the first victim, Lennie Donovan – 31, an author having recently released her first romance novel with publisher Truly Written Press. She had been found sprawled out in the Canal Street subway station. After the autopsy, it had been all too clear that the cause of her death was poisoning due to bleach. When the investigation had gone through all the usual processes of checking for evidence and clues as to who would poison someone with bleach and be able to get away with it, there had been no clear direction as to which suspect to pinpoint. There had been a large pool of suspects – everyone at the publishing press had been jealous of her instant success and her friends had become distant from her as she rode the wave of literary success. Her family had been cleared as all of their alibis had checked out. The bleach that was used to poison her was ordinary household cleaner and the pungent smell had been disguised by putting it in a particularly strong smelling red wine. The only real evidence that the CSI team had found was traces of the paper that made her novels and two Scrabble tiles that had been tucked into her left hand. The 'T' tile and the 'H' tile.

It was looking to be an unsolved homicidal poisoning when the second victim had convulsed due to the poisoning and fell into the path of an oncoming train at Court Square Station not far from his home.

Ignatius Thomson, 54, had enjoyed literary success with his first two murder mysteries also published with Truly Written Press. However, the two following ones had not been favoured in the eyes of the public and had poor sales. Word in the publishing world was that the next one he had been waiting on promised to be better than the dismal previous ones. He had been murdered in the same fashion, with bleach poisoning – vodka being the disguising vessel. And like Lennie, two scrabble tiles had been left on the station at the spot Ignatius had fallen onto the tracks. E. W.

The connections between the two cases were easy to spot.

Both victims had been published with Truly Written Press and both had been poisoned in the same manner, with the consumption of the bleach leading to their internal corrosion and fatally killing them. That narrowed the field of suspects to only those at the publishing company. And the Scrabble tiles.

It had boggled the CSI's as to the importance of the tiles. Neither Lennie or Ignatius owned the game, and the letters were not specific enough to shed light on the significance.

So things had been at a standstill for another week. No matter how many times Detective Flack kept looking up the victims financial records and any other records, or kept asking questions of the suspects, there was nothing to go on.

It was confirmed as a serial killer when the cancer survivor Angela Wren, 24, the third victim was found in the Columbus Circle/59th Ave Station.

The link was clear to the Truly Written Press. She had released her story and published it with them on how she had beaten the odds with her cancer. It had been a bestseller. Due to the famous nature of the victim, tremendous pressure had been put on Mac and his team to solve the murders of who the media had called, 'The Subway Poisoner."

The investigation had taken a surprise turn when Dr. Hammerback found something odd in his autopsy of the young woman.

Angela had never had cancer. Nothing in her body – no surgical scars to remove the tumour, no after effects of chemotherapy – had been found. It was too soon after her purported disease for her systems to disguise it. With a little extra digging on the part of Adam and Hawkes, the truth had been found. Her story of survival and struggle had been a farce, aided and abetted by the doctors who had falsified official paperwork in order to get a cut of the profits from her autobiography.

Although the news had shocked New York, Mac was starting to think that the killer was someone who was bitter at the success of the authors. Like they didn't deserve it at all.

The Scrabble tiles that had been found three feet from Angela's feet were R and I. Again, no further evidence left apart from traces of printing paper for novels and the method of murder was the same. Bleach in Angela's 'cancer-beating solution' which had so many different powders and other ingredients that it covered the scent and taste of the bleach within it.

Another week had passed.

Mac had expected a fourth victim, and he had been called out as soon as he stepped foot in his office this morning at 8.30am.

Flack had been waiting, stoic and knowing. Before Mac had even ducked under the crime scene tape, the ever diligent detective had informed him of all the information he had retrieved.

Their latest victim was Robin Quiggs, 42. While they would have to wait for an official autopsy to confirm the cause of death and links to the three previous victims anatomically, Flack had already discovered that Quiggs had recently been signed to Truly Written Press and was about to release a book on how being a stay at home father changed his life. It was slated to be a high interest book and Quiggs was preparing for a book tour.

"Mac," Flack said, sidling up to the ex-Marine. "Hawkes has gone off with the ME's back to the morgue. The security guards are pushing me to get this cleared."

"Of course they are," replied Mac, "it's Grand Central Station."

Flack canted his head to the side as he spotted what Mac was peering at. "More of those Scrabble tiles?" he asked, having worked the previous three poisonings. He knew the earmarks of this serial by now.

"Yes. T. E. R. A deviation, usually he leaves two."

"Maybe one slipped out of his hand accidentally?" Flack suggested. "I don't know the language of idiots – although I have to learn it for my cases."

Ah, Flack, always good for a smartass comment or two. Working a case with Flack was never normal unless he made some sort of quip or comment, mused the older man. Still, he tagged them, photographed them from every conceivable angle – to which Flack muttered 'Overkill, much?' – and then placed them in an evidence bag.

Mac stood and looked around.

It was killers like these that sent that cold chill up his spine, the one that still affected him after all these years of this demanding job. The ones that were so good, so deliberate, as to not leave any further clues that what had previously been given.

He hadn't been third time lucky.

Mac hoped that the fourth would be the last. Four victims for this serial were four too many.

"Mac."

He sighed, the gust of breath passing his lips seeming loud in the quiet of the NYC lab at night. Jo leaned against the doorway to the layout room, a steaming cup in her hands. Mac looked up and met her penetrating gaze, that eyebrow risen in an unspoken question.

"One more hour, and then I promise I'll give it a rest for today," he replied.

She walked in and placed the cup of tea on a ledge near the doorway – a designated spot for refreshments for a few minutes. "For you, if you want it. It's not black, but I think you need something a little different. And you need to take a rest soon. As much as we want to get the subway station serial, you can't push yourself," she reminded kindly.

He shrugged. "I know. But something about it is bugging me. I can't shake it."

Jo took pity on her driven friend and decided to help him. "Didn't we and the whole team go over all four cases this morning?"

"We did. And while we know that the tiles in order spell 'The Writer'-"

"Good on Lindsay for finding that out. Knew she was a Scrabble freak," Jo interrupted with a chuckle.

Mac quickly smirked and went on, "The Writer. I have a feeling that's the key we're looking for, Jo."

They looked out over all the evidence from the serial case. While there was the victims clothing, their personal belongings, and a sample of the bleach from within that had killed them, apart from the Scrabble tiles, there was very little to go on.

The only new piece of evidence that had shown up was the presence of a smear on Robin Quiggs' jacket. Upon examination of it, Danny had found earlier that day that a faint handprint was visible, like someone had clapped the author on the shoulder – and had, in the process, left a smear of ink. And not just every day, ordinary ink. No, it was a specialised burgundy colour made locally in the Bronx and distributed to two locations. One was a brewery which had no connection to the victims whatsoever. The other was the Truly Written Press. It only cemented that the suspect either knew the Press well, or worked at the Press.

Mac had one more ace up his sleeve that he was waiting for.

Over the past month he had Adam collect all of the surveillance footage from each subway station to scan for a person who had been at all four scenes at the time of the deaths in order to leave the Scrabble tiles as clues. Adam would have gotten to it sooner if it wasn't for the fact that Chief Sinclair had pulled rank and ordered him to attend to some evidence in gangbanger shootings that were less forgivable in the eyes of the media. The program took time, and because of the sheer mass of people at the train stations, it was taking longer than expected. With the addition of the fourth scene camera footage, Mac could only hope it would yield a result.

Jo, always the better thinker visually, went to the windows and grabbed a washable marker from the small box available. "Okay, we know the victims names, their occupations which ties them together, their ages, and the fact that the stations they died in weren't far from their places of residence." As she spoke, she scribbled it all down.

Above it, she wrote 'The Writer.'

Then, to the side, she detailed the rest of the evidence.

The traces of paper from the stock the Press used to print their novels. The bleach which was found in any household cleaner. The samples from the victims and the vessels the bleach was found in. "we know that there was no fingerprints or DNA from the killer left on the bottles and containers," she kept speaking as Mac watched her work with an observant eye. "There was also no reports from any of the victims to any police station of a break and enter, so either the drinks were a gift or the person who laced them with the bleach was someone they knew and trusted enough to let into their homes."

"Someone from the Truly Written Press, perhaps, to come and talk about a contract or their books ," Mac put forward.

"Makes sense," agreed Jo, scrawling 'contract/friend/work partner' next to 'The Writer.'

Mac, however, had been looking over the information when something had caught his attention. A hunch told him he was onto something.

Jo had written the victim's names down in order.

Lennie.

Ignatius.

Angela.

Robin.

Jo's writing was such that the first letter of every sentence was capitalised, and it was capitalised large. It was thanks to this particular style of writing that Mac saw it.

L.

I.

A.

R.

Liar.

"The murderer is trying to tell us something. He believes that the victims are liars," he realised, and then reached forward, took the pen from Jo and then underlined the letters.

Jo made an 'ah-ha!' sound and then connected 'The Writer' to a new written word. Liar. "Then…this could possibly mean that the killer thinks or knows that whatever the victims wrote about were lies. Remember how we discovered that Angela wasn't a cancer survivor? Maybe that's the point this person is making."

"Which means…we have to do more investigating," Mac said with a certain relish.

The female eyes narrowed at him. "You said one more hour. That was twenty minutes ago. Anything that we can't get done in the next forty minutes can wait until tomorrow," she said with a hint of sharpness to her tone.

Sensing that Jo was in one of those moods where she would get her way one way or another, Mac nodded and replied, "Deal."

Unfortunately for Mac, they couldn't find anything else so Jo sent him off home. But he came back to the task the next day refreshed and reinvigorated. They had finally found a lead and he was going to try and run with it. Walking back into the layout room, Mac perused all of the information. Nothing else straight out jumped out at him, so he resolved to look further into everything.

And he was going to start with the suspects.

There were three from Truly Written Press that had no alibi or unreliable ones on each time the victims had died from the poisoning.

Norah Pickett, a receptionist with the Press whose ex-boyfriend had been Lennie Donovan's current boyfriend. She had no alibi at all four times, but she contended that she had been at home, cooking or reading.

Mac wasn't convinced she could be the killer. She was the only real suspect that had her car and confessed she was deathly afraid of being enclosed underground and hence avoided the subway. Not only that, but she had been on fine terms with the other three authors – Lennie was the only one Norah could have connectable motive for.

There was Rhet Rewit, one of the senior editors at the Press. While he was polite and friendly, something about him had rubbed Mac the wrong way. Each time he heard about his star authors, he was genuinely concerned, but there was a blankness hiding behind that concern. Apathy of some kind. Rewit was also closely connected with the victims as he dealt with their manuscripts and the editing once he and the other editor reviewed them.

Which brought Mac to the last of the three viable suspects.

Kaine Turner was the other editor with the Press. He and Rewit worked closely together and so he too knew all four victims well. Like Rewit, Mac had his suspicions from the first time he had ever interviewed Turner, simply because the man brushed off the deaths like it was crumbs off his tie after lunch. The first thing he had done was smile and say, "The show must go on."

Surprising, given that Turner counted both Robin and Ignatius among his closer circle of friends.

Turner also had another attribute that had Mac suspecting him over the others.

He took the subway everywhere. When asked about it, the man had rattled off facts and information on the routes through New York, much to a bored Flack's dismay.

Now, to connect them to at least one of the murders.

Turner's alibi was that he had been on the train to work. Could be true…however, that wasn't an airtight reason given that the guy practically lived for the worn floors of the subway.

Rewit had stated that he, too had been making his way to work each time. Again, fallible.

Mac couldn't help but stare at the words 'The Writer,' helpfully bolded by Jo. It had to be the key. Why else would the killer leave them at the dead bodies? It was unlikely it was a red herring.

The seasoned detective was just sighing and rubbing the bridge of his nose to stave off a migraine when he noticed Adam dart out of the AV centre, twisting his head this way and that rapidly. Hoping that the younger man was looking for him, Mac stepped out and into Adam's field of vision. Relief showed instantly on the lab tech's face and he beckoned, hand flapping around hastily.

The exuberance gave a pep to Mac's walk as he went to Adam. "You have something for me?"

"The program finished running," Adam said.

Mac felt his senses go on high alert as they always did when a new piece of evidence was presented to him. "Show me."

Adam, eager as always to impress, jumped back onto his chair and instantly went into geek mode. "The program has a 99.8% chance based on facial structure and algorithms and comparing it to the suspect photos that the man who has been matched to all four stations within five minutes before and after the murder-"

"Breathe, Adam," reminded Mac not unkindly.

He blew out a breath and continued, "He changed what he wore each time, and he always had a baseball cap on so sometimes we couldn't see his eyes. It was like he knew where the cameras were. But I'm sure we got him Mac. It's this guy."

Adam pulled up the photo of the facial structure from the camera footage and placed it over the photo of the suspect.

Mac let a gleam of satisfaction enter his eyes. "Perfect match. Got him. Great job Adam."

"Thanks boss."

"You want to know why I did it?"

Mac took in the man opposite him, letting the silence grow as he thought. He was dissatisfied with just how calm the man was. He had just shown him all of the evidence against him, and there was no flicker of passion or anger. It was like he had expected it.

Brown eyes met his blue ones and Mac leaned back, murmuring, "They were liars."

"Ah, you are smarter than I thought, Detective Taylor. Nice to see you noticed the particular order I placed my victims in."

"You're proud of yourself."

"I always wanted to be famous, although I suppose now that is infamous after what I've done. I'm also proud of the fact it took all four before the clues were put together. But no matter, Detective. You have spent your resources to catch me and you deserve some form of explanation. I owe that much, at least."

Rhet Rewit cleared his throat and calmly took a drink of water from the glass offered.

The balding man had been calm and almost pleasant since he had been brought into the precinct. He looked unlikely as a serial killer with his tweed vest over his shirt and pants, but the evidence didn't lie. He had been at all four scenes and the traces of book paper connected from his job to the scene and to each other victims homes. It was enough for a conviction once this confession was recorded and signed.

"My breaking point was with Angela," Rhet began. "I found after the first publishing of the book that her so called struggle for survival was all fake. She was a little rich girl who knew she couldn't make it through college and so decided to get richer quicker. Pay off a bunch of quacks to go along with her harebrained scheme in the hope it would work. It did. So I'd show her a struggle for survival. But I knew that I couldn't go after her first. It would be too obvious."

"Then why the others?" pressed Mac lowly.

Rewit's lips quirked in a smirk that, if Mac would have been a lesser man, would creep a person out. "They had their secrets too. And I knew them. I was the 'nice' editor. The one that gave them the best advice. They'd invite me to their homes and then, because I had earned their trust, they would spill everything. Lennie, the new romance novelist, has never had a true romance in her life. She uses men like rags, taking them until they have nothing else to give and then leaving them for some other woman to pick up the pieces. Ignatius, while his first two books were fantastic, were actually written by his wife, not him. His subsequent work was all his own which is why critics panned it and the sales were low. His new one was co-authored by his wife but he refused to give her any credit. I found that unfair. As for Robin," the killer paused for intentional effect, "Stay at home father? Ha! His children look after themselves, especially when their father is an alcoholic and shouldn't be allowed to look after a goldfish, let alone children. I found out how his book was so convincing when Kaine and I read it. The dolt had gathered various research from all over the internet and libraries and translated it into his own words and then threw it all together in one book and made it look like his own personal life experiences."

"So you felt like killing them," Mac stated disdainfully.

"Not just felt. Felt is such a small word for the passion arose in me when I came across an old article about a woman, a nurse, who killed her patients by injecting bleach into their veins. There it was. The way to inflict pain. I made sure to wear gloves when handling the containers and I made sure not to leave any hair or other DNA behind. And I knew bleach could take a while if they only had a few sips of the drink at a time, so I followed them to and from work every day until they dropped. Like tenpins in bowling. And once I killed one, I would go to the next and disguise the bleach in their poison of choice," Rewit explained.

"I'm still not 100% sure on the Scrabble tiles you left at each scene. The spell 'The Writer.' What-"

"It is my name. I am The Writer. I should be the one writing, not just publishing books. Not the liars. But no, Kaine thought it would playing favourites if he let my novels be published." Rhet suddenly scowled. "He would have been next if he had refused my next request. Another reason I chose to spell that…well, it's quite clever really. And anagram. Of my name," he finished.

Mac had a suspicion that was the answer, and it was confirmed. The pieces to the puzzle were there. Once Adam had shown him the picture of Rhet Rewit, he had gone back to the layout room and spelt them out.

Rhet Rewit.

The Writer.

A perfect anagram.

"You know what wasn't clever?" Mac asked quietly.

"Do tell," Rhet drawled in a bored tone.

The older man's smirk was mocking. "It wasn't clever to murder four people that have fans. Fans that will have no problem trying to prosecute you in the media. And four such adored writers too." Mac stood, taking the file and nodding at the officer who was standing at the back of the room. "Hook him up," he ordered.

Mac walked through a busy subway station to get home, deciding to take it for once instead of driving or taking a taxi. As he waited for the train to arrive, he took out a faded piece of paper that was so old and so read that the creases in the paper almost broke the fragile paper. Although he could barely make out the words, he knew them off by heart.

He had lied, all that time ago to that victim who had been 'locked in' by a murderer. Claire's beach ball wasn't the only thing he had kept.

He had kept this too. A little love note she had written to him three days before her death.

"Mac,

When you have a hard day, just remember…I love you. And that when it's hard for you, I'm here.

Clare."

Fondly remembering his late wife, Mac folded up the letter and put it in that inner pocket of his jacket that always held it over his heart.

A/N: Reviews are always wonderful guys. I hope you enjoyed this. It was great managing to challenge myself in this way. Until my next idea…-Myr