Valuables
By
A. Rhea King
Chapter 1
Gunfire exploded everywhere. A woman was hit and screamed as she went down. The defenders, dressed like house servants, continued firing back at their attacker – one man armed to the teeth like Rambo and twice as deadly. Bullets hit hanging pictures and expensive sculptures, showering the defenders with razor sharp shrapnel. A graying man and teenager made their way behind the defender's defense line to the stairs. The girl was unarmed and covered with blood. The man held a metal case in one hand and fired back at the assailant with a military issue semi-automatic pistol. When he ran out of bullets, he pulled her onto the stairs, out of harms way. From this position he could see that the defenders were loosing and quickly. He turned to the girl, pressing the handle of the case into her hand.
"Upstairs. Now."
"No." She shook her head. "I'm not running. I won't—"
He smiled lovingly at her, laying his hands on her cheeks. "Go, Princess. Run!"
She hesitated and then dashed up the stairs with the case. The man picked up a rifle from a fallen defender near him, a handful of shells, and joined the rest of the defenders in a losing battle.
The girl turned right and sprinted to the last bedroom, flicking on the light as she ran in. She stopped at a steel door with a plate beside it that had a red light lit at the top. She placed her hand on the plate and a turquoise light scanned her shaking palm. There was an 'error' beep and then the red light came back on. She muttered in her native tongue, pulled her hand back, and pushed it down again. The same thing happened. She froze, listening. There was no gunfire. She looked over her shoulder, staring into the hallway. A board down the hall creaked. She turned back to the plate, lifted her hand, and pressed it down firmly. A green light replaced the red one. She grabbed the door handle and pulled open the steel door, slipping into the room behind it. She turned, staring out into the hall as she pulled it closed. The door clicked shut, the only sound in the now silent mansion nestled in the Hamptons.
Night was falling quickly over New York City and its boroughs, as if fleeing from the CSI vehicle cruising through the Hamptons.
This area was old, with houses that had seen generations of the rich and powerful. Some of the behemoth domiciles were hidden behind artfully trimmed shrubbery, some sat like kings on thrones for the world to worship. Here homeowners were unconcerned with conservation and large electric bills, and the houses were lit up in the twilight of the day. CSI Danny Messner leaned over the steering wheel as he drove past one of the visible homes.
In the passenger seat beside him, Lindsay was entering phone numbers into her new slide phone. Strung on her lap, the floor and dash, was the paperwork and accessories for the small phone. She looked up as the vehicle began drifting across the center line toward the curb.
"Danny, road," Lindsay reminded him.
He looked back at the road, but his eyes were drawn to another expensive, prodigious mansion.
"Danny! Car!" Lindsay cried.
He looked ahead and quickly pulled on the wheel to avoid the oncoming car.
"Don't you ever come out here?" she asked.
He glanced at her. She was fiddling with her phone, going through the menus, personalizing settings.
"You haven't stopped playing with that since we left the station."
"I just got it."
"Just got it?"
"My other one was broken Friday. You remember."
"I do?" Danny thought for a moment. "Naw. I don't remember. What happened to it?"
She looked up at him, smiling. "You have the shortest man memory of any one I know."
"That's cold."
She chuckled.
"We should probably go where the red and blue lights are." He motioned ahead.
She looked up, watching the lights as he slowed and turned into a driveway. Neither noticed that this mansion wasn't lit up like the others around it. The iron gates that would have normally blocked their path had been bent back by something much stronger.
"We'll have to come back and look at the gates," she commented as they passed.
"You think the gate will tell us who committed a multiple murder?"
She turned her head and found him wearing a mischievous grin.
"I'm stuck with you all night, aren't I?"
He laughed. "Is it so bad?"
"More than normal tonight."
He laughed harder.
Danny parked behind a police car. The CSI climbed out, grabbed their field kits, and headed up the steps. Two police officers stood outside the door with a robust dark skinned woman. She was frantic and spoke in a foreign language that was broken by an occasional English word.
Flack came out of the house with a notepad in hand. He glanced at the woman when she tried talking to him but kept walking. He met the two in the middle of the steps.
"Either of you know what language she's speaking?" Flack asked.
"It's not French," Lindsay answered. "What little I know, I can tell that much."
"Or Spanish," Danny added.
"Or Italian, Japanese, German, Swedish, Portuguese, or Russian."
"You speak all of these?" Lindsay asked.
"No. Officer Jacobs does." Flack motioned to the officer standing with the woman. "He said her language isn't even close. Said it sounds real familiar, he's heard it somewhere before, but he can't put his finger on it.
"So she hasn't told us anything?"
"Some. She knows a little English. What we gathered is she came back from somewhere and found the house a mess. 911 could barely get that much."
Lindsay watched the woman try going back inside, but one of the officers stopped her. She started talking louder, pointing into the house.
"She really wants back in," Lindsay observed. "Any idea why?"
"We think she might work here. She has a green card, work visa, and driver's license. We don't have the homeowner's name yet. I'm going to take her to the station and see if I can find someone who understands her. This looks like a mob hit, but too soon to tell, I guess."
"Just a little," Danny said.
Flack looked at him and Danny plastered an ornery grin on his lips.
"He's in one of his ten hours of sleep moods," Lindsay explained.
Flack nodded. "Glad I'm not stuck with you. I'd have ta kill ya."
"At a murder scene? That's not very creative!"
Flack chuckled. "I feel for ya, Lindsay."
"You're feeling Lindsay? Isn't that against regulations? Don!"
"Danny!" She slugged his arm.
The three chuckled, trying to keep it stifled. This really wasn't the place for this kind of humor.
"I'm going," Flack told them, "before Danny gets me in trouble."
"You're leaving me alone with Lindsay?" Danny ribbed, "She might bite."
"Then I really don't want to be here." Flack turned and jogged up the stairs to the woman. He began explaining what was happening as he led her toward his car, not that she understood a word he was saying.
Danny and Lindsay walked to the door and stopped, staring at the blood and bodies.
"You CSI get all the fun jobs," Officer Jacobs joked.
"You're our babysitters tonight?" Danny asked as he sat his kit down and pulled out paper booties.
"Looks that way."
"Order us some pizza. Lotsa pepperoni."
"I'll think about it."
"What kinda babysitter are ya?"
"The kind that makes you get your own coffee."
Danny chuckled. "You had younger siblings, didn't you?"
"Five younger, four older."
Danny picked his flashlight out from the kit and switched it on. He gave Officer Jacobs a narrow eyed look.
"If you hear my girlish scream, send in Alice. The dead have come back to life." Danny picked up his kit and headed inside.
Officer Jacobs looked at Lindsay. "He been on his meds long?"
She hopped a couple times as she pulled on a bootie, and then picked up her kit.
"Sadly, he hasn't had any meds or coffee. Fear for you lives." She followed Danny inside, smiling when she heard the officers chuckle.
Detective Mac Taylor was ready to call it a night as he typed the closing paragraph to a case – the evidence conclusive pointed to a woman killing her boyfriend to save her marriage. Movement out of the corner of his eye made him look away from the computer monitor. A man in a black suit was talking to a lab tech in the hall. The lab tech turned and pointed right at Mac. The suit didn't look at him; he said something else to the lab tech and turned toward Mac's office. Mac minimized the case window, watching the suit enter.
"Detective Mac Taylor?" he asked.
Mac nodded. "I am."
The man produced an identification wallet, revealing he was Special Agent Tom Cusack of the Secret Service. That piqued Mac's interest.
"Working kinda late tonight, aren't you?" Mac asked with a slight smile.
Agent Cusack smiled without answering. Mac already didn't like this guy – he was evading a simple conversational question.
"You have two CSI working a crime scene at 14283 Rhianna Drive in the Hamptons. Tell me about that crime scene."
Danny and Lindsay were there and hadn't reported anything yet. Not that the conversation so far had led Mac to be willing to cooperate.
"It isn't a crime scene, yet, and how did you learn about it?"
Cusack evaded Mac's question. "It's a multiple shooting. What else could it be?"
"Until I hear back from my CSI, it's a location of interest."
Agent Cusack offered a fake, plastic smile as he sat down in a chair in front of Mac's desk. He was settling in for a long conversation, to Mac's dismay.
"For the sake of argument, let's pretend it's a crime scene. What do you know so far?"
"Why is the Secret Service interested in this alleged crime scene in the Hamptons? Who lived at the residence?"
"That's need to know, and at this time, Detective, we have decided you don't need to know."
That pushed every button Mac had and pissed him off! Clearly Agent Cusack wasn't taking over the scene – yet – but he wasn't showing any signs of helping either; which meant he was only going to get in the way and slow Mac's CSI down.
"Come back with a court order if you want me to release further information to you," Mac told him.
Agent Cusack stood. "I'll have one sent over. In the mean time, I'll have a look around your lab. Make sure everything is in order."
"Stay out of the chem lab. They're testing meth equipment. I'd hate for you to blow up my lab techs making sure things were in order."
"Duly noted." Agent Cusack left the office, pulling his cell phone out.
Mac hoped Adam wasn't playing his music at a deafening volume, or that Tina, his fingerprint genius, hadn't decided to wear her bikini under her lab coat again.
In the mean time, Mac made a phone call of his own. "Danny, I need you two to pick up the pace. We have the Secret Service asking questions about your crime scene. No." Mac looked out into the hall, right into Agent Cusack's eyes. "He didn't tell me why the Secret Service is interested; just get as much evidence as you can."
Mac hung up his phone and didn't look away until Agent Cusack turned.