Chapter One - Pain
Disclaimer:
Unfortunately, I do not own CSI (Lets face it, if I did I wouldn't be writing this for fanfiction, It would be shown on telly)
I do not own the Characters except Bertie and the Criminals/Victims in this chapter. Part of this Chapter is my interpretation of an episode that was actually shown on CSI NY (Season 8, Episode 1)
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September 11th 2001, New York
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Light spilt into the bedroom of the Taylor's apartment as the sun rose in New York, it was a beautiful start to the day, with not a cloud in the sky, it did not stir Claire but gradually Mac's eyes flickered open. Claire's face was buried into his chest as his arm circled round her and so she was shadowed from the somewhat unwelcoming light. He looked down at her, thinking that all he really wanted was to stay like this all day. Mac looked over at the alarm and contemplated calling in sick, with regret he knew that wasn't very responsible of him, especially as he'd just been promoted to assistant supervisor at the lab. Claire snuggled into Mac as she woke, wrapping her free hand around his waist and lay her head on his chest.
"Hey" She said sleepily, closing her eyes again, hoping to get another 10 minutes of shut eye before they had to get up.
"Morning sleepy head." Mac said, leaning down to her head and planting a kiss in her hair.
Claire's only response was a grumble as her head moved with the gentle rising and falling of Mac's breathing.
"Guess what?" He said with a hint seriousness in his velvet like voice.
Claire lent back on her elbow to face him, resting her hand behind her head, "What?" she questioned.
"I love you Claire Conrad Taylor."
She hit him playfully on the chest, with a wide grin, "I love you too, McKenna Boyd Taylor Jr."
Mac groaned at his lengthy name, smiled and kissed her before he rolled out of the sheets, forcing himself to get up.
He left Claire in their bedroom to get changed while he went to take a shave. He flipped the radio switch on and it played the first station that it found, he didn't care, it was just background noise. While he was still alone, he checked that the opera tickets were still where he'd left them last week, in the cotton bud pot. A smile played on his face, knowing she hadn't found them and that it was still a surprise.
Just as Mac finished shaving, he cut himself slightly with the razor causing him to bleed. A single drop of blood dripped from his the shallow wound in his left cheek into the hand basin below.
Inspecting the cut, "Dammit" he murmured to himself, although Claire had heard and seen all of it, smirking she picked up the phone from the stand and stood in the door way opposite the mirror.
"Yeah, Hi. 911. Urh, My husband seems to be performing some sort of self-mutilation ceremony…" Mac smiled to himself, seeing her in the mirror happily poking fun at him. She walked into the bathroom and continued with her phantom conversation over the phone. "Yeah, it seems to be inspired by one of those boy bands." She paused as if listening to the person on the other end of the line. "I dunno, urm hang on." She lowered the phone from her ear and whispered to Mac "She wants to know if you got a good look at 'em." To which Mac just laughed, rubbing his cheek with tissue in an attempt to make the bleeding subside. Claire put the phone back to her ear "Well 5 white guys. Urm. Questionable sexual orientation. One of them has curly hair and this impossibly high voice." Laughing herself now, she finished "Right Okay, thank you." She pressed the end button on the phone to make it beep, not that she was fooling anyone and turned to Mac. "They want you to go view a line up later on tonight." She laughed, "Move over" and with that she used her body to nudge Mac out of the way so she could use the mirror too. Mac finished drying his hands on a towel and thought to himself, I'll bite. "Ahh, tonight's no good." He told her, smiling but with a serious tone.
"Why? You have yoga tonight?" She said, teasing him some more. A smile formed on his face and with a nod, he replied to her sarcastic comment with "I'm goin' to the opera."
"Wha'du you mean, you're goin' to the opera?"
"I mean I'm going to the opera tonight. Claire would you hand me one of those things …" He raised his hand to point to the cotton bud pot where the surprise was hidden, but was cut off mid sentence.
"No. Who you goin' to the opera with" her accent became more prominent as she desperately questioned him.
Mac inwardly smiled to himself, "John from the robbery squad." He played along, as now the tables had now turned.
Claire stood there open mouthed for a few long seconds, not quite believing what she was hearing, and then she repeated what he'd said in question form. "John from the robbery squad. You're going to the opera with John from the robbery squad?" she was hurt, and shocked.
"Yeah, that's right, he's an opera buff. Claire would you hand me one of those …" Again he was cut off mid sentence as he pointed in the direction he wanted her to search. "I've been asking you to take me to the opera for…" She turned to the cotton bud pot anyway "I…I don't even know how long." She replied miserably, "and now you're telling me, that." She stopped short, realising she'd been had. Suddenly, her grin reappeared and she sighed feeling a little daft. She picked up the tickets and span around.
"Nicely Done" She told him, looking into her husband's beautiful eyes.
"John from the robbery squad is gonna be very disappointed" Mac joked and leaned into kiss her. They had been married for some time now, he was the love of her life, but they still acted like newly weds on a day-to-day basis.
Claire spotted that he'd missed washing off all the shaving foam, and there was still a white foamy blob on his ear. She wiped it off lovingly and stoked his cheek.
"What would you do without me?" She asked with a smile. It was not something that Mac particularly wanted to think about, but as she said it, he honestly did not know.
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January 30th 2002, New York
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Mac raised his hand to his forehead and rubbed his temples. He'd fallen into a restless and uncomfortable slumber at work, a new habit of his that had developed over the last four months. The 38 year old rubbed his chin wisely as he looked over the case file he'd fallen asleep on.
The homicide case detailed a woman that had presumably taken a short cut through central park and was found in the south western area, dumped in the shrubbery. However blood spatter indicated that she had been killed at the scene along the path. She had been brutally stabbed and strangled with a thin twine or wire. The intimacy of the attack suggested that this was not random and the killer knew their victim, the stabbing indicated that this murder had been a crime of passion. The clothing in which she was dressed revealed that she was most likely a prostitute and had been working the streets.
Dr. Sheldon Hawkes had examined the body in autopsy and could tell them nothing particularly distinctive about the murder weapons. He however could deduce that prior to her death she had been stabbed in the abdomen. His official Report stated that due to the severe damage to her trachea, the COD was strangulation. She had not been aloud to bleed out from her earlier injuries before the final act of violence took place. The sexual assault kit came back negative and epithelial DNA that was recovered from the scene found no match in CODIS, the killer was in the wind. Unfortunately the victim was also still unidentified, and so become just another Jane Doe despite the CSI's efforts to name her. Her Fingerprints were run through AFIS, her DNA and description were ran through the missing persons database but on every account they had come up empty handed. Nobody at the scene would admit to knowing her, it seemed she'd built up quite a reputation for herself and people tended to steer clear, distancing themselves from trouble.
At the lab it was 5am and nobody had arrived at work yet not even the boss, Detective Rick Calucci. Mac used to dream of running the lab someday, but the dreams he had were the dreams he'd once shared with Claire. Claire had gone and he was left alone with nothing except an empty void in his heart, all of his hopes and dreams had been shattered instantly the moment the towers fell.
At the thought, pain gripped his heart with a harsh, unwelcome tug causing him to jolt forward. It felt like a wrench was twisting his very soul into a dark pit of misery and depression. Sadness clenched at his chest and anguish ran through his veins. The pit of his stomach churned and he felt like he was being swallowed whole by antagonizing pain, sinking in his own miserable state, like quick sand he was disappearing. He bit his lip in an attempt to hold his emotions in, a skill that he was certainly learning although he had always been a private man.
He closed his eyes and pretended, just for a moment, that it was this time last year. He and Claire would have more than likely been in bed, possibly talking about nothing of importance or perhaps he'd be watching her sleep, perfectly moulding into his arms. He would have been able to smell her hair and feel her body heat next to him, and he would have been able to kiss her whenever he felt the need. There were many things that he missed dearly about Claire, but most of all he missed her smile. Her smile made the birds sing their beautiful song in a natural orchestra, she could make the sun shine on rainy days, and every time he saw her happiness it warmed his heart. Her smile was the reason he'd fallen in love. If he could go back, just for one day, he would whisper 'I love you' a million more times just to make sure she knew just how much he cared. Now that he knew the days they had together were numbered, he whished they'd spent every second they had together like it was their last, making the most out of the life they had together.
It saddened him greatly that he'd never been given the opportunity to say good-bye properly, they'd never found her body and she'd never been buried. She was still in limbo. A small part of Mac still clung onto the hope that she was still alive out there somewhere. Perhaps she'd been injured and couldn't remember what had happened, when the thought crawled across his mind his heart practically leapt out of his chest. But in reality he knew that this was unlikely, he'd searched for several months and he'd found nothing, no trace at all.
Images filled his mind while mixed emotions surfaced, they were happy memories and he was thankful for the time they had together, but he had been split in two the day she died. Emotional daggers tore right through his very soul, cutting him up inside. A silent tear rolled down his cheek and splashed onto the case file below.
Mac knew that he'd stayed here all night because he was too afraid to face his lonely apartment. Too many things reminded him of Claire. It was too painful. Mac often wondered why Claire? Why had she been taken from him? What had they done to deserve this? But he never found an answer. His prayers never answered.
His heart no longer felt like an organ, instead it was a ticking time bomb waiting to self-destruct. But nothing ever happened. His heartache was like a battle wound that never healed; he was bleeding out and in pain, his suffering just continued to drone on, never subsiding. What scared him the most, was that he was growing accustom to the pain.
A lot of people had died on that tragic day, many people had to suffer with the unbearable consequences at the hands of other human beings. Although, Mac doubted this fact and assumed that anyone capable of doing this was an animal with an evil, one-track mind. They were not people.
Mac jumped when his boss heavily placed a hand of his shoulder, he had not noticed him arrive.
"Taylor." Detective Calucci stated loudly in a very native New York accent. When his boss took that tone with him he always dreaded the lecture that followed.
"Mac." He continued, taking a seat opposite his co-worker. "This. Is not healthy" He declared with authority, and looked off into the distance as if he was calculating exactly how to word what he wanted to say next. Mac rolled his eyes. "I can't have you so tired you can't work, staying up all night is not doing anyone any good." The older man said, deciding it was still too early to talk to him about Claire, who he himself had been very fond of. "You need to be able to concentrate on the case." The boss lightly threw his open hand on the table and left it there, suggesting that he was frustrated and disappointed in his employee. Mac irritably looked down at the case in hand. What exactly did the boss propose he was doing?
Mac fought hard to discourage the urge to yawn. Knowing that if he so much as blinked a few to many times, Detective Calucci would send him home to his empty apartment for some rest that he'd never get. Being half dead at work was by far a better option.
"This case is a month old." Calucci observed pointing the photo on the lab desk. He screwed up his face thoughtfully, remembering the details. "Wasn't that Bonasera's case?" he shook his head disapprovingly at him. Not only was he working 24/7, but he was also picking up any case to work on just as a distraction.
"Well we originally were both assigned to work the case but then another came in and you assigned me to that." Mac took a few seconds to remember, " It was the apparent murder-suicide on 23rd park. We caught the guy responsible." Mac said, shrugging the disappointment off. He didn't think that this was a big deal and was getting increasingly agitated with his boss and they way he was being treated. "This case" Mac lifted it up, "is still unsolved." he lightly threw the folder back on the desk "I thought a fresh look at it might help."
"Have you solved it?" Calucci asked, knowing full well he hadn't.
Mac looked down dejectedly, "No." he replied, feeling bitter.
"The crime lab is not a one-man-band, Taylor. We are not super heroes. We work together, as a team."
In all honesty Mac didn't really pay a lot of attention, nor did he want to be a super hero. He was still thinking about the case and besides that, he was helping out a friend and that was teamwork in his book. He wanted to catch the criminal responsible and throw them in prison. The idea that the killer was somewhere out there and not yet behind bars sickened him; he felt the same about any unsolved case.
For the remainder of the conversation Mac aimlessly nodded along with what was being said. Out of what he heard, his boss was trying to convey that if Mac wanted to protect the city; he had to look after himself. Mac however, was in no mood to be patronized. He didn't care what other people thought of his methods of coping, he was quite capable of the tasks at hand. Sinclair wouldn't have given him a promotion 6 months ago if that hadn't been the case. He was now the second in command as the assistant supervisor at the lab. The previous older gentleman had gone into retirement and Calucci practically begged Sinclair to give Mac the promotion.
A smile shadowed over his face as he remembered telling Claire and how she'd been more excited about it that he had. A warm glow of happiness shone through his heart.
Finally Detective Calucci left, and the room returned to silence once again. The only sound was the gentle tick of a clock that was hung on the wall. Under the tension, Mac thought that soon his heart might detonate.
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Somehow three hours seemed to disappear, and another five cups of coffee later the rest of the team slowly arrived for their shift at the New York Crime Lab. Mac couldn't be totally sure whether he'd fallen into another restless state of sleep during that time or not.
Through the glass panel in the door, Mac could see that Stella had been beckoned into the boss's office. Mac watched him accuse her of letting him have the Central Park Jane Doe case file. When actually Mac had simply run out of things to do by midnight and so looked at the most recent unsolved case. Stella didn't admit the fact that Mac had picked up the file of his own accord, although she would have appreciated a heads up. Instead she shouted back, telling her superior that if that's the way Mac was dealing with the situation, then he should be left to deal with it in his own way. Mac couldn't help but smile a little when he saw his boss go purple in the face with rage as Stella stormed out. She was not in the greatest of moods and she was glad to let some of her frustration out.
The lab was silent for a few minutes and Mac could feel the uneasy rift that shadowed throughout the building, it emanated from Calucci's office where the boss was pacing to and fro across the room. Suddenly, a cheery Detective Don Flack dramatically walked through the doors. Today was his first day as a Homicide Detective and as always he was feeling confident. He had been looking forward to this promotion and working closely with the crime lab. He pulled his slightly too long hair away from his eyes and looked around. Stella had calmed a little after letting off some steam and approached him,
"Can I help you?" She asked kindly with a smile.
Don put his hand out, "Detective Don Flack" he announced proudly from which he received a wider smile.
"Detective Stella Bonasera" she replied shaking his hand. She was happy to meet him, she'd just read an upside down file that had been on The Boss' desk, from the information she'd interpreted, she was excited to work with him. Don had not been a detective long, and already he had been promoted to a lead homicide Detective. This, Stella was impressed by.
"If you'd like to follow me..." Stella said and they began walking through the old building.
"We still stop for snacks? Right?" Don looked at her with a serious expression plastered on his ridiculously handsome face, slightly concerned. A bright grin spread across her face and she nodded, it was little things like that, which made her day. Don looked genuinely relieved.
"Good." He was feeling a little dumb for having to ask the question, but he had to ask just in case.
Stella led the way to the conference room where she could leave the new detective for 10 minutes while she ran a few errands. He did feel a little embarrassed just standing there alone, but he didn't let it knock his ego, he was in a far too good mood for that.
Mac put away the evidence of the Jane Doe case and returned the file to Stella with the full intention of solving it sooner or later.
"Mac, Calucci has a point. You look exhausted." Stella admitted from which she received a slight scowl.
"I'm fine." He protested awkwardly, he knew he looked a state and really had no grounds on which to argue.
Before the two went back to the conference room, they bought coffee from the vending machines along the hallway that desperately needed to be replaced much like most of the equipment in the building. Hell, in the humble opinion of Stella, the whole building needed to be replaced!
"Two at once?" Mac asked suspiciously when Stella picked up two cups. "What? You tired too?" He joked cynically.
"No, I have a new friend." She laughed when the response she got was the raised eyebrow look.
Don introduced himself to Mac in the conference room and they shook hands. Mac was tired unlike the enthusiastic detective, however Mac didn't hold it against him and smiled politely
Don was glad of Mac's acceptance, he'd heard many different things about him and had been quite apprehensive this morning.
The team slowly but surely filtered through the doors, ready to be briefed for the day. Aiden Burn was the newest member of the forensics team; she'd started work as a CSI a month prior to the towers falling. She was eagerly sat at the table waiting for a case; she loved the job she did. Catching criminals and putting them away was her part in society, it's all she ever wanted to do, except in 3rd Grade when she'd wanted to be a lion after visiting the circus for the first time.
Other than Mac, Stella, and Aiden, there was only one other CSI sat at the table; he was bored and subsequently playing with a pen. This was 45 year old Albert Smith or to anyone that knew him 'Bertie'. He no longer enjoyed his job and was in the process of switching careers. He now wanted to be a chef with his wife in a restaurant they'd just inherited; he'd handed in his notice and was just waiting the time out. Before Calucci arrived there was one other lab employee in the room. A technician named Joseph King had also appeared; he was the link between the CSI's on the field and the technicians in the lab. Even he couldn't fathom why Calucci insisted on him being there for briefing, especially when they were starting all new cases and he had nothing to report.
The last in was head of the NYPD crime lab, Detective Calucci. Walking in, he excused himself for being late.
"Okay guys." He greeted them quickly before diving straight into business. "We have a domestic violence case in Brooklyn." He looked around the room briefly and then directly at Aiden who had grown up in the area. "Burn, you take that with Smith." 'Bertie' the whole room mentally corrected the boss in their heads. Aiden and Bertie nodded to each other agreeing that they could handle it without any problems.
"Yes Sir." Aiden said and stood up to take the case out of his hand. They then left quietly with the assignment.
"Second we have a hit and run case." He looked at Mac to see whether he was paying attention, Mac had been. Calucci rapidly decided that Mac and he still needed to talk and so looked at Stella. "Bonasera?" Stella stood up and almost snatched the file from him; she was still annoyed with him from their earlier encounter and she still did not appreciate his tone.
When Mac didn't get asked to go with her, he piped up. "I thought we had to work as a team?"
Stella raised an eyebrow to hear his response, which unfortunately was just a lame excuse. "Well I have to find another CSI," He mentally cursed Bertie. "The hit and run shouldn't be a too dangerous case and she'll be there with other officers. She should be happy I gave her a solo case." He paused and shot a puzzled look at Flack who was staring deeply into his empty cardboard cup. While Stella thought 'she' is the cat's mother.
After a few seconds of long silence Don realised they were waiting on him, "Detective Don Flack" he stepped forward and shook Calucci's hand firmly. Don was smiling as always but received a stern look from the older Detective, causing Don's smile to swiftly drop.
"Flack can go with her. I need you with me." Calucci finished, facing Mac again. Stella turned and skilfully rolled her eyes at Mac without the boss noticing.
"Sir." She said with a hint of sarcasm in her voice that only Mac picked up on. She then left along with Don and the lab technician.
"So, what have we got?" Mac asked
"A fight at a bar that ended in murder."
'Great' Mac thought sarcastically to himself. Murderers need to be behind bars not drinking at them.
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They arrived at the crime scene; it was a small bar with little advertisement, it was hidden away down a dodgy looking ally. Police officers were scattered around outside taking statements from witnesses that had been inside at the time of the shooting.
When the two detectives entered the gloomy looking place, they saw a man in his mid to late 20's lying face down in a pool of his own blood.
"They're all singing the same song." A sergeant said approaching them. "With a few variations of course." He deliberately added implying that nobody around here was trustworthy.
"What are they saying?" Calucci inquired, ignoring what the man had intended to convey.
"Self Defence" he replied with one solemn nod at the two detectives. "Looks like you got your work cut out for you here." and with that he nodded in the direction towards the body.
"Well let's see what the evidence has to say." Mac replied irritably, knowing that sometimes it was the obvious looking cases that turned out to be the most twisted or the most dangerous. Calucci shot him a look, telling him to calm down or home is where he'd be. Mac sunk slightly and knelt by the dead body.
"The Vic's name is Christopher Brown. Wallet and keys were on the bar." The police officer stated in an irritating manor again, holding up the items with one hand and pointing to where he found them with the other. 'Victim.' Already aggravated, Mac corrected the officer in his thoughts. Christopher Brown deserved some respect.
The ME cleared the body and waited patiently for evidence surrounding the body to be collected and photographs to be taken.
"Taylor," Calucci began again. Mac closed his eyes as he felt another lecture coming on. Maybe the head of the NYPD Crime lab should spend more time working and less time winging at him.
"Yeah," he answered after a few long seconds when nothing further was said.
"You are great Detective." He said looking down, and then he raised his head back up to Mac to show that he meant what he was saying. "And I only lecture you because I worry." He paused again feeling a little daft, not usually did he have heart to hearts with his employee's, and this was new for him.
"Over the past few weeks I've come to realize I'm not as young as I used to be and…" He stalled as the words got caught in his throat, slightly reluctant to say what he was about to. "And perhaps I've done my part. Done my time." This had not been what Mac was expecting.
"I want to leave the Lab to someone I know and trust, not some hot shot who doesn't know the first thing about the streets of New York." Mac could see where this was going and painfully, it dawned on him that life was continuing without Claire. He had thought that Claire was his world.
"I was thinking," Unsure of the sentence when he started, he stopped but he finished with great confidence, "you'd do the lab proud." Calucci smiled; slightly embarrassed at the way he'd dealt with the situation. Mac was in a minor state of shock, but he smiled at the compliment, it wasn't often Calucci praised his co-workers.
Mac picked up a bullet fragment with a pair of tweezers and carefully dropped it into an evidence bag. He opened his mouth to protest but Calucci interrupted.
"Just think about it." In return Mac nodded. The boss stood up and left.
"I think you'd make an absolutely superb boss" the ME said honestly, Mac tried to pay attention but his restless nights were promptly catching up with him, somehow he failed to notice her very distinct accent. He smiled at her, he would have spoken, but for the fact he couldn't remember what she'd said.
A body bag was brought to the scene where the victim was prepared for transportation.
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Mac was just finishing up, most of the police officers had departed, the ME had taken the body back to the lab and only he and Calucci were left doing any work.
"Run this through with me" Calucci said, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Okay."
"You be the perp." He said pointing directly at Mac "We are sat having a beer together." He turned and paced a few steps forward, "At seven o'clock in the morning." he judged disapprovingly, but continued nonetheless, "Why would I take a swing at you first?"
"Maybe it's something I said." Mac offered, nearly along with a yawn but he managed to contain himself. "We'll have to wait for the Toxicology report but I'm guessing they were both heavily intoxicated with alcohol."
Detective Calucci walked across the room and gestured with his hand expressing his confusion, and then he paced back to stand over the blood pool with Mac. "Why would you bring a gun?"
"Oh, so the 5-oh don't know nuffin" The two detectives both span around suddenly at the sound of an unfamiliar voice. To their horror the voice was attached to a man who had a gun aimed at them.
"And who might you be?" Calucci asked carefully. He then raised his hand, suggesting that the man should lower his weapon.
"Ryan Walters," The African American reluctantly mumbled. He then shifted from one foot to the other, obviously nervous.
"I don't want to see; you, my friend here, or I get hurt." Calucci replied calmly with caution.
"I didn't mean to!" The man wailed, took a look into the blood pool and shook his head from side to side and.
"Is this a confession?" Calucci asked, stepping towards the perpetrator and he then reached for the man's gun with his extended hand. This was a fatal mistake; Ryan shook angrily with fear and hate and the gun was fired. A hot bullet was shot into Calucci's left leg. The sound of the gunshot rang in their ears long after the weapon discharged. The boss roared out in pain as he stumbled on his way to the ground. Within a flash Mac drew his weapon and fired, killing Ryan before he hit the wooden floorboards below. Mac immediately went to Calucci, applying pressure to his wound. Looking down, Mac noticed there was an awful amount of blood; he just hoped that most of it had been from the earlier incident. By now a couple of officers had arrived from the sound of the commotion and an ambulance had been called.
"Taylor," Calucci struggled for breath.
"Hang on in there. Help is on the way," Mac replied loudly and in haste shaking him, in an attempt to keep him from falling unconscious.
"Mac." he said more sternly, forcing Mac to listen. "Make Claire proud."
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AN
Thank you for reading my first Chapter if you would be kind enough to review, you would make my day.
I have a general idea in my head to where I'd like the story to go (providing my readers like chapter one)
Unfortunately, I can not guarantee when chapters will be uploaded, I am eye ball deep in revision for exams later this month, but I am keen to write.
Please Review (: