Chapter 2: Dark Reflections
Josh Straley sighed as he put away his tiny, delicate tools and his loupe and began locking up for the night. He would be coming home late, again.
He was an artist, and he loved his job. He was the head metalworker at Kaleid, a trendy jewelry shop just off the Las Vegas Strip.
The metal bars had already been pulled across the window and door for the night. As he locked up his equipment and the pieces he was working with, he paused to admire his latest creation, a delicate platinum ring. A minute later, he opened the side door and took a step into the dark alley.
He nearly ran right in to the dark figure with a ski mask. He stumbled back when he saw the gun pointing at his head.
Josh didn't even have time to scream before the gun fired.
One second, he registered pure, blind fear. Then unendurable pain. Then he was on the floor, and the last thing he saw was the thief breaking the glass on the display cases before it all faded to black.
"Do you think they have time to feel pain when they're shot in the head like that?" Greg asked David.
"Who can say. Legend had it Antoine Lavoisier blinked out a message after being guillotined," David responded.
"Morbid contemplations," Grissom said as he ducked under the yellow crime-scene tape. "What does go through one's head in the seconds between when the heart stops beating and the lack of blood shuts off the brain?"
Detective Brass joined them. "Well I don't know what went through the vic's head, but the killer had his mind on the jewels. Only a few of the cases were broken, but the owner says it was some of the best stuff."
"Where is the owner?" Grissom asked.
Brass pointed to a tall, olive-complexioned man standing outside the crime scene, where Nick was taking his fingerprints. "Michael Ayala. He insisted on coming out here as soon as he heard. The vic worked for him. Josh Straley was the master jeweler at Kaleid. Ayala just handled the business end."
Grissom nodded vaguely, then stooped down to take a closer look at the body. "No defensive wounds. The killer didn't even give him a chance to fight back."
"That's it?" Brass asked. Grissom raised his eyebrows curiously. "No witty observation, pun, or obscure quote tonight?" the detective elaborated.
Grissom looked back at the body. He loved his job, he loved solving the puzzle, discovering the truth, the eureka moment...but it was hard for anyone to look at death every day and not let it get to them. Humor was one of the ways he coped. One of the functions of humor, perhaps its evolutionary purpose, was to allow people to distance themselves from tragedy, horror, despair, sorrow...to allow them to go on fighting in a world obviously stacked against them. Tonight, though, he didn't feel like fighting. But until he knew the truth of what happened to Sara, he didn't want anyone to suspect he had lost touch with her, so he had to keep up the front of business as usual. "The thief killed him to steal his creations, his works of art. If imitation is the highest form of flattery, then what is murder, I wonder?"