Chapter 2: Every Care

"Freeman Lara was killed by the fall. TOD between two and four o'clock yesterday morning. His blood alcohol level was high, but none of his injuries were defensive wounds," Dr. Price said.

Horatio looked over the cadaver on the slab. "Mr. Wolfe, this is your case; what did you find in the victim's apartment?"

"There wasn't anything out of the ordinary. No suicide note, but no evidence of a struggle either. His boss said he hadn't been to work in three days, and didn't call. His family said he wasn't depressed that they knew of, but they didn't keep in close touch with him. He did have a prescription for anti-depressants." He shook his head. "The way he fell didn't indicate he was pushed. It looked like a suicide, H."

"And it still could be. The question is, how did John Doe's blood get on Mr. Lara?"

"You know," Dr. Price responded, "that doesn't make much sense. John Doe's body washed up on the beach in scuba gear, and there wasn't a scratch on him. How his blood got in the hair of another body weeks later..."

"Did the two men have anything in common?" Horatio questioned.

"They both appear to be in their late twenties, both fit and healthy. Like almost sixty percent of Miami-Dade County, they're both Hispanic. Other than that..." she shook her head. "Lara had nothing in his digestive track. He hadn't ingested anything but alcohol for at least twenty-four hours. John Doe had a protein shake within hours of death, and no drugs in his system."

"Lara had family, and a job," Ryan added, "but no one's reported John Doe missing. They don't appear to be related."

"And yet they are connected. Was there anything suspicious about either of these deaths?"

Dr. Price was thoughtful. "Nothing definitive, but Freeman Lara showed no signs of long-term alcohol abuse, and John Doe's muscular development didn't look like he was a frequent swimmer."

"Lara's apartment doesn't have a surveillance system, and none of his neighbors saw him or anyone unfamiliar around the place that night. The people in the apartment next to his said they thought he'd been gone for a few days, but it wasn't exactly a close community. The door was unlocked, but the only fingerprints on it were his."

Horatio nodded. "Mr. Wolfe, I want you and Calleigh to revisit the case. Go over every piece of evidence, interview his family, coworkers, and friends, find out everything there is to know about Freeman Lara."

"His apartment's already been released. Any evidence still there could be compromised."

"I understand, but something connects Lara with John Doe, and we're going to find it."

"Okay." Ryan took out his cellphone to call Calleigh as he left the morgue.

"Dr. Price," Horatio continued, "do we still have John Doe's body?"

"Yes." She closed the compartment containing Freeman Lara and pulled out another slab. The unidentified man had once been handsome, with thick black hair and a sharply angular jaw line. "Obviously his fingerprints aren't in the system, and his teeth suggest he grew up somewhere with less than adequate access to modern dentistry."

"If he's an illegal immigrant, it could explain why no one reported him missing," Horatio noted. "So we have an immigrant who eats health food and dies in a scuba accident, and a man who goes on a drinking binge and jumps off his balcony. It almost looks like...someone was trying to tell a story about these men. Someone who knew better than to try to fake a suicide note."

"Maybe. At any rate, the blood evidence is enough for me to rule the circs for both these deaths suspicious."

Ryan and Calleigh entered Lara's apartment.

"I bagged everything I thought might be probative," Ryan said. "There was nothing that really stood out."

Calleigh glanced around. "Was this place this clean when you first got to it?"

"Just about. There were some food wrappers and bottles in the garbage and on the coffee table. Why?"

She looked into the bathroom and the bedroom. The apartment was small and old, but relatively organized. "Looks pretty tidy for someone who supposedly went on a three-day bender."

"The thought crossed my mind too, but it wasn't enough on its own to suggest murder. But there was no blood in the apartment, so how it got in the victim's hair is beyond me."

"I probably would've come to the same conclusion," Calleigh said, examining the sparse and ordinary contents of the medicine cabinet. "It's almost like there's too little evidence to go on in this case."

"Yeah. You know, Stetler's looking over our shoulders on this one. You and Eric might want to avoid each other for a while."

She rolled her eyes. "When are you going to stop implying there's something going on between me and Eric?"

"When are you going to just accept that I know?"

Eric was examining the air hose of the John Doe's scuba gear with a magnifying glass when Natalia walked in. "Working on the Lara case?"

"Yeah. H wants me to see if there was any sign of foul play in John Doe's death."

"And?"

"No evidence of sabotage. As far as I can tell, his oxygen ran out and he just suffocated. He should have been swimming with a partner or been watched from a boat. Someone should have reported him missing."

"Maybe he did have a partner whose body just hasn't washed up yet," she suggested.

"Either way, we should ask Coast Guard if they've recovered any unoccupied boats in the last couple of weeks."

"I'll give them a call." She turned to leave only to find Stetler standing in the door. He didn't look like he'd just arrived.

"Let me guess," he said, "you still haven't found anything connecting John Doe to the other body."

"We're scientists," Eric retorted, trying not to glare. "We don't form a conclusion until all the evidence is in. You should know that."

"What I know is that this lab doesn't have a perfect record of rigidly adhering to protocol. The integrity of the evidence is exactly what I'm here to protect."

"How noble of you," Natalia said, allowing just a hint of resentment into her voice. "Now if you excuse me, we have a case to solve." She sidestepped him and left the room.

Stetler watched Eric for a moment.

"Something else you wanted to say?" Eric asked.

"Just keep in mind that every time an anomaly like this crops up, it makes the lab that much less credible. The DNA result opened the door to this investigation, but I'll be looking at every procedure, every potential conflict of interest, every dark corner of the lab for any irregularity that could potentially jeopardize the cases processed here. If something comes out implicating any individual CSI, I'd hate to see the rest of the lab suffer for it."

"Thanks for the heads up, but if anything or anyone in the lab weren't up to code, it would have come out in the FBI probe three years ago."

"A lot can change in three years," Stetler noted.

"One thing that hasn't changed is that if you're looking for someone to help you take down Horatio, you won't find them here." He stared at the IAB agent challengingly, daring him to refute his implied accusation.

"It's not like he's the only one here with a questionable record." With that, Stetler left. Eric went back to examining the scuba gear.

"You run a very efficient lab," Stetler said as Valera set up some DNA samples for sequencing.

"I have to," she said without looking at him, "considering how many cases come through here."

"You ever cut corners to catch up on the backlog?"

"Never. And if I did, why would I admit it to you?"

"Well, with everyone demanding immediate results, everyone asking you to prioritize their cases, you can't avoid getting careless every now and again. Mistakes happen. You know that as well as anyone."

"You know, I don't work as efficiently with people looking over my shoulder. Do you really want to be the cause of even more of a backlog that could delay cases getting solved and allow criminals more time to run?"

Stetler smirked. At that moment, his cellphone rang. He checked the number and answered it. "Stetler...Yeah." He suddenly frowned, turned quickly and took his phone call into the corridor. Valera watched him. His expression flickered between annoyance and confusion. "Did they say why? When should I expect him?" He flipped the phone shut and glanced back at the DNA lab, looking like a penniless kid at the window of a candy shop, looking like once again his hope of deposing Horatio as head of the crime lab was just beyond his reach. He left the building without another word to anyone.