Chapter 3: Meeting
The strange young man walks in the middle of the night, seeing the sights of Las Vegas. The strange looks from the ones he is passing by do not seem to bother him. Especially with a few looks from teenage girls, who might be anime fans, and even from a few hookers on the way through. "Hey sexy, wanna rest those feet and have a good time?" one of them called out to him. He just ignores them and keeps walking onward, as though nothing ever happened. Caesar's Palace, The Rivera, The Pharaoh's Tomb…A whole bunch of casinos named after some historical places. At least the road is smooth for his feet, mainly because he has no shoes on. Despite seeing more hookers and some alley brawls and street fights, he continues walking until he is able to see a building, which happens to be the crime lab. Meanwhile inside the labs, Warrick was still examining the photo shots of the two victims, seeing if there is any connection between the two. I don't get it. It almost looks like as if there is no motive at all, but I know there is one somewhere, he thought to himself. He was still lost in thought until Grissom walks in and surprises him. "Looking deep, huh?" he said to him, which got Warrick a bit jumpy. "Whoa! Geesh…Gil, you startled me!" he says out loud a little. "Sorry to scare you, but I was wondering about something. Do you think we can trust this L guy? I mean…I know that we may need help for this, but the question is can we really trust him?" he asks. Warrick looks at him and says, "If you're asking for advice, you're talking to the wrong guy." Just as Grissom hears this, he just sighs and walks to the morgue area to see the bodies of the victims to find anything.
The security guard eats his lunch while sitting at his post. While eating his meatball sub sandwich, the strange young man walks past the guard. Just he notices that someone went pass him, he drops his lunch and heads toward the young man. "Excuse me, sir! You're not allowed to be here. Authorized personnel only!" He just ignores the guard and goes by him, despite more protests. "Sir! Stop now!" "Look, I'm here to see Grissom, so in a way, I am suppose to be here." He says to the guard as he makes his way to the lounging area.
Grissom and Sara walked to the lounging area only to see the refrigerator open and the only thing that is gone from the fridge is a slice of strawberry shortcake that was being saved. The team supervisor then turns to the left to see the strange young man, eating the piece of cake. "Excuse me, young man. This place is for authorized personnel only. I must kindly ask you to leave." He said to him sternly. The young man was eating the cake with only his two fingers using a fork and he is sitting on the chair in an unusual manner: feet on the chair, knees in front of his chest. It is almost as though he is crouching on the chair. He turns to look at Grissom and says, "Ah, I see that we finally meet, Mr. Grissom. I would like for you to gather your team up so we can have a meeting for the case we are about to do." Sara looks the strange youth and asks, "What case are you talking about?" "The case where you encountered victims who were killed but there was no trace of the killer whatsoever, am I correct?" he said to her, which really surprised her as no one but the whole team would know of that. Grissom looks at him, wondering who this person is, asks him, "Who are you exactly?" The young man stops eating the cake, stands up and uses one of his bare feet to scratch an itch on his leg while giving them a neutral stare that seems to make their hairs stand on end. "I am L." The answer seems to pierce Grissom like a bullet piercing flesh. A young kid who calls himself L and knows about the case they are undergoing…this was all completely new to him. Sara looks at him again, but not by surprise, more like anticipation. "As in L Lawliet from the anime and manga series called Death Note?" she had to ask. L looks at her and gives her a slight smile saying, "Yes, the very same. Though you may think that I'm a cosplayer, so I don't mind. In the meantime, get everyone of your team members. We are going to have a meeting."
Every member of the group came to the lab area to find Grissom, Sara, and a new visitor, L. "Everyone…this is the detective who contacted us and offered us his help." Grissom said to everyone. L looks at them, starting his introductions. "Hello to you, members of the Las Vegas Crime Scene Investigator team. I am L, but for the sake of this case I would like for you to call me Ryuuzaki." Everyone started to pull off strange looks of confusion as they hear this. "Now, according to what I heard from the news and few other sources that I will not name. Apparently there is a certain pattern that the killer is using. Despite being no motive, the killer, in truth, is a copycat. So-" That was when the detective-captain Brass decided to interrupt this little meeting. "Wait a minute. You're saying that you are going to help us with this case, yet we barely know you. For all that I know, you could be the killer in disguise."
As L hears these words, he walks closer to Brass, to the point of making eye contact with him, giving him the same stare that have scared Grissom and Sara to a certain extent. Brass can't help but shiver a little as that glare of the young detective's is still upon him. "You must be James Brass, the detective-captain and homicide captain of the Las Vegas Police Department CSI. In a way, you're the bad cop of the group, am I not correct?" L asks him. The detective-captain looks at him strangely and answers yes to his question. "How do you know about me?" the cop asks him. L just smiles and responds, "I'm not called the world's greatest detective for nothing you know." He then turns to other members and addresses them by name and place in the crime labs. "You're Dr. Albert Robbins, the chief medical examiner and coroner of the CSI here in Las Vegas. You are very well known for your findings on the bodies of the dead victims." The elder doctor didn't said anything, as he is lost for words. "David Hodges…You work with this team as a lab technician and trace technician. Am I right?" David nods nervously, as he too is lost for words when L addresses the next person. "Gregory Hojem-Sanders, also a lab technician and you work night shifts along with Grissom and some others." Greg just looks at Grissom, who gives him the "get-a-grip-on-yourself" face. "You…" He says as he points the next one. "…are Warrick Brown, the crime scene photographer. You too work on the night shift." Before Warrick could do anything, L goes the next person. "Sara Sidle…" He starts, addressing to the brown, curly haired woman. "You are a forensic scientist who works on a swing shift, both day and night, depending on your schedule. And for someone your age, you are quite an anime and manga fan, hence the fact that you know of me." Sara starts to blush a little out of embarrassment, as she never told this to many of her coworkers. L then turns to the next person to address. "You're Nicholas Stokes. You work the night shift and you specialize in hair and fiber analysis. And…." The young detective goes to the next person without a moments notice. "And you're Catherine Willows, the night shift assistant supervisor and also a forensic scientist as well. Not to mention, you also have a kid, a daughter to be exact." As Catherine hears this, she starts to flush a little and question his logic. "Tell me, Mr. L, are you a stalker?" she asks him very sternly. L just smiles a little and answers, "No, I can see that you have the glow of a mother." After saying that, he then turns to the supervisor himself. "And you are Gilbert Grissom, the night shift supervisor and a very intelligent forensic scientist in your own right. You specialize in the use of entomology, which is the study of insects and other arthropods related to legal investigations. This skill has been utilized plenty of times if I may recall." He said right front of Grissom's face, staring into his eyes. He was able to remain calm, but there was still something about that stare that L make that seems to make him feel a tingle on his spine.
After that, L then sits down on a chair in his strange manner and tells them of the situation. "If there are no more interruptions, then I shall proceed. The killer that you are looking for may be resourceful as he is able to come out clean out of the crime scenes. But I can say for sure yet. Now, is that any piece of evidence that you may have left out?" Everyone looked at each other until Dr. Robbins spoke out. "As I performed an autopsy on the victims, there was no abnormal sign of anything, not even a sign of struggle. But I did run a toxicology report on their blood samples. It turns out that they are poisoned, but by a simple cinide or an arsenic of some sort." L turns to the other and asks, "Is there anything else?" This time it was Catherine that spoke out. "I did find pieces of paper that has the victims' names on them, but they seem to be worthless at the moment." L looks at Catherine with the same neutral expression on his face. "Every piece of proof is vital, no matter how useless it seems. Oh and Brass, I suggest you turn up the volume on that T.V., it appears we may have a new victim to look at." Brass looks at the T.V., which had the news, in which the reporter made her way through.
"We bring you this late breaking to report that another person has been found dead in his own office at the very hotel he is working for. Not much is know about the victim as investigators are coming to crime scene."