OK so I threw out a triple threat for know, don't know how busy I'm going to be tomorrow so on the off chance I can't post, I'm posting now. Enjoy. Please comment because we're almost done with The Gun Show. I'm estimating about 12 chapters total and unlike the Diary, My Muse is insistent because she wants to start posting Burn. Plot and Key scenes are done but I really want to float through it like I did DOJ. As Castle said, it's no fun when you know every outcome, every detail of the characters.
Z, and mystery guest. Could you give me an idea on some fun fluff? I've been kind of off beat on that lately.
In answer to your question, TGS takes place in May of '08, DOJ starts in August of '12 and runs till January of '13. Burn will start either July or Aug '13 with two shorts to fill in. Possibly more.
CQB Control room. 1023 Hours.
"Davison to O'Malley." The radio squawked.
Colin set his coffee down and answered his radio. "Go for O'Malley."
"Sarge, we need you in 121. There's been an accident."
He scrunched his eyebrows together, "What kind of accident?"
"The kind that doesn't need an ambulance."
Colin went cold. Accidents that didn't require an ambulance were not typically reported to him. The fact that Davison had specifically reported both was not a good sign.
"Be right there, out." He said in response.
He handed the clipboard to Briggs who took it without comment having heard the radio conversation on the repeater.
As he was heading out of the observation room, he spoke to Griggs. "Slow down the resets."
"Got it." He said as the door shut.
Colin stomped across the lot and headed straight for the CQB Pavilion, where the various teams were waiting for their turn to head in to Round Three. He spied Kate and Jane sitting off to one side quietly chatting while ignoring the quiet comments and leers from several of the other teams. All chatter stopped as O'Malley walked around the covered picnic area.
"Carry on." He said to the others as he approached them.
They looked up at him as he approached. "What's up, Sarge?" Kate said.
"I need you two to come with me, no questions asked." He said quietly as he headed toward his bike.
Kate exchanged a glance with Jane and they were on their feet, marching after them. Several other LEOs watched as Colin threw a leg over the bike and fired it up. Kate jumped onto hers and repeated the action.
Colin looked at Jane, "Get on, Jane. We've got to go." He straightened the bike and leaned forward.
Jane didn't question, just climbed on and Colin kicked it into gear and hauled off with Kate right behind him.
They turned off the concrete path to the CQB hangar and onto a two track dirt path. Once there Colin gunned it and Jane had to hold on tight to avoid falling off. She turned back to see Kate with a serious look on her face as she rode on the other side of the track.
They ran hard across a small network of tracks and finally came out near a road to the barracks. Colin kicked it up another gear and roared towards the far side of the buildings. He eased off as they neared one with several of those four seater ATVs clustered near one building entrance. He pulled up onto the sidewalk and stopped near the door. He shut the bike off and Jane heard Kate pull up behind them.
Jane slid off and took a step back as Colin leaned the big bike onto the kickstand. He eased off the bike and looked at both of them.
"I got a bad feeling about something but I want your opinion before I do anything about it."
Kate nodded and Jane echoed her.
He led the way to a group of MPs blocking the door.
"Anyone make a female announcement?" he asked.
"Specialist Hill is inside now." One replied.
He nodded, "Kate Beckett, NYPD and Jane Rizzoli, Boston Police. Log them in with me as consultants."
He nodded and wrote on his clipboard. "Third floor, East washroom."
Colin led the way into the building and rushed up the stairs with NYB team right behind him.
When they entered the communal bathroom, the sight that greeted them slammed Jane into her Homicide detective mode and a glance from Kate said that she was there too.
There on the floor of the shower room was a body with a large pool of blood that ran across the cheap ceramic tile directly to the shower drain in the middle of the room. A smear of blood was also on the wall next to the entrance inside the room.
An attractive platinum Blonde dressed in a soldier's uniform was holding an ice pack to her head while sitting on a bench being looked at by another Medic.
Sergeant Davison was very tall but slender for an army cop, dressed in camouflage and wearing the leather armband of an MP. He stopped Jane from going in.
"Not a good idea," He nodded to Hill. "She fell first thing."
Jane nodded and Colin looked to Hill, "What happened?"
She looked up at him, still dazed. "Came in with Davison and saw the body. Went in to check on him and slipped on the floor. Luckily, Davison caught me before I cracked my head open."
Colin nodded and Davison pointed, "You need to see this." He said and knelt outside of the shower room, "Look at the floor."
Colin looked but all he saw was soap scum. "Maintenance didn't clean it all that well."
Jane leaned over them as did Kate. Colin touched the floor and came away with the stuff on one finger.
Jane stared at it and so did Kate.
"Gross," Kate said, "Glad I'm not sleeping here."
"Yeah." Davison said, "That was my first impression too, but look at this."
He pulled a water bottle out and poured some on the tile floor. He put the bottle down. They looked but all they saw was the water beading against the tile.
"I'm assuming something important is going on but I don't see it." Jane said.
"Touch it again." Davison said.
Colin did and his hand slipped. Kate grabbed him by the neck of his vest but He had already righted himself.
"That's not soap scum." He said sharply.
"Nope." Davison said.
"Okay." Colin said, "These two are Homicide cops and I trust them so let's let them do their thing."
Davison and Colin got up and out of the way.
Jane grabbed some blue medical gloves from the Medic and passed one set to Kate. "Okay, so let's pretend that we've done this before."
"I've never investigated a body on my vacation." Kate commented dryly as she looked at the floor near the sill.
"Neither have I." She said with a grin, "But here we go anyway."
Jane knelt on the floor and peered into the shower room. There were two shower heads protruding from three of the walls, each had its own valve and only one of them was open. Water dripped out of the head and Jane looked to Davison.
"Did you shut of the main?" She asked.
"Yes Ma'am." He said, "After Specialist Hill went down. I didn't want anyone else going in there to shut it off."
Jane nodded as she ran her hand along the wall. It gripped but not hard. She dipped her hand in the water and ran it along the wall again, she felt almost no resistance.
"So aside from Hill," Kate said, "no one else has set foot inside the shower since the body was found?"
"That's right, Ma'am."
Jane glanced at Kate, "This ma'am crap is going to get old."
Kate nodded, "It's either Detective Rizzoli and Detective Beckett or just Rizzoli and Beckett."
"Yes, Ma'.. Um. Yes, Detective." He sputtered.
Kate laughed lightly before turning back to the task. She looked around at the walls and the floor again before she checked her watch. Almost eleven AM.
"Cleaning crew." Jane said.
Kate looked back, "When was the last time the shower was cleaned?"
Davison flipped through a pocket notebook, "Maintenance scrubbed this one down yesterday afternoon about fifteen hundred."
A look passed between them.
"This isn't an accident." Jane said quietly.
"No." Kate sighed, "It's a Homicide."
"You sure?" Davison asked, "What makes you say that."
"No other victims." Kate said, "It wasn't something that the cleaning crew did because it's been almost twenty four hours since they were in here. As long as you guys can go without taking a shower, generally speaking you don't typically synchronize 'no shower day' and most men have a tendency to bathe in the morning."
Jane chuckled at her friend and added. "The morning group of guys who ran through this shower didn't slip. Which means that whatever this stuff is, it wasn't here this morning."
"Look around, it's on every piece of the tile work." Kate said waving a hand at the shower. "That kind of buildup doesn't happen in an hour or two so whatever this stuff is, it was put in there. No attention was paid to it because it looks like soap scum."
"Plus the tile work goes around the rest of the bathroom as well." Jane added. "If it was something to do with the cleaners it should be all over the outside too. If it's in the water than why aren't the sink covered in it?"
"Has anyone checked the other showers?" Kate asked.
"Their clean." Davison said. "It was one of the first things I had done once the water was shut off."
"Then you have someone who deliberately coated this shower in some pretty slick stuff and they probably knew that it would do this." Kate knelt next to Jane again and looked at the body, "This is a bit excessive to be a prank."
"I don't think it is." Jane said. "What do you have on our vic?"
Davison reached for the wallet and Jane yelled at him, "Hey!"
All eyes turned to her as she stood up sharply and scowled at them.
"This is a Crime Scene! Everybody in this room better get some gloves on right now before you touch anything else."
Kate got up next to her, "Any one not needed to investigate or tend the Specialist needs to get out now." She added.
Colin looked around and no one was moving, "Davison, Mitchum, Gloves on. All others, you heard the Detectives, clear the room."
There was some shuffling out the door and a medic started passing out surgical gloves. Davison slipped them on as did Colin before reaching for the wallet.
"Michigan Driver's license. Detroit Police Department Sergeant LeBron Ellis, 5th precinct. 37 years old."
"Sergeant, I need any info you can get for me." Kate said.
He nodded and wrote down the info before passing it on to a Marine Corporal who was standing just outside. "Pull all his info from Registrations and check with Reservations and Guest Services, find out what he was doing, his plans and itinerary."
The corporal nodded and took off.
He came back to Colin, "Next year I think we should have a CID presence just to be safe."
Kate glared at him.
"No offense Detective but the Army is the one staffing this event so they'd like to keep it in house."
Colin stopped him form saying anything more. "I trust these two more than I do anyone else. This is what they do for a living and they've been doing it for a long time now and you should remember that they don't actually have to be here, Sergeant."
Jane looked to her partner, "We've got to get in there to look at the body."
"Yep." She agreed.
"I'll get some planks brought in and we can bridge over the floor." Colin said, "You got an idea of what happened?"
Kate looked to Jane, "Before or after."
"Definitely after." Jane said and stood up.
Kate looked back at him. "We need to get a look at the vic's room first."
A few minutes later they were in the guest room of Sergeant Ellis. Gently they poked around the room, examining the various suitcases bedding and lockers.
"One man in this room," Jane said. "The other bed hasn't been slept in."
"And he still can't keep his underwear off the floor." Kate groaned as she used a pen to lift a set of BVDs off a t-shirt."
"You live alone." Jane scoffed, "Don't tell me that you don't leave them out once in a while."
Kate nodded, "Not three feet from the door to my room where anyone can see them."
She set the briefs down a foot away and picked up the grey shirt that held the silkscreen of a Detroit Police Badge. The armpits were still wet from perspiration.
"Right." Jane said as she dug through a small medicine bag, "I bet their always on the bathroom floor."
"When I wear underwear." She said deadpanned, "Most of the time I'm at home it's just sweats and a Tee. No Bra No panties."
Jane glanced at Davison who was standing by the door looking uncomfortable and trying not to look at Kate's rear as she knelt over the pants that accompanied the shirt.
Colin was unfazed at the banter as he pulled the blanket back on the bed and found the Sergeant's utility belt, holster and sidearm.
She secretly grinned at Davison's shifting stance, "I can go without a bra but pantyless?" Jane shook her head as she poked through the garbage can, "That just doesn't feel right." A quick glance at Davison again and then Colin.
"Colin" she said, "Is it different for a guy?"
He pulled the magazine out of the weapon and examined it. "It's rare for me to do it but there is some truth to what Kate's sayin'. For a guy it can feel very liberating to free-ball around the house, especially in sweats or night pants."
Jane put down the garbage can and started opening drawers on the small dresser. "PJ's are different then sweats. But flannel itches, cotton doesn't."
"Try satin or silk," Kate said as she dug into the pants pockets. "Nothing feels better against your skin than silk." She looked to Jane and their eyes met, "I have two sets of silk sheets. I love the way they glide over my body so much that whenever I'm not on call, I like to sleep in the nude between those sheets. It's like having your whole body caressed by the gentlest of hands."
Jane grinned wide and wiggled her eyebrows, "You wouldn't happen to have brought some with you that I could try?"
Colin hid his grin as Davison was beginning to turn red from embarrassment. Colin chose to be merciful, "I need an ammo case here with evidence seals."
Davison didn't even acknowledge him before rushing off to get one.
They looked at each other and Jane burst out laughing, Kate fell backwards in her amusement as Colin plopped down onto the bed.
"Caressed by the gentlest of hands?" Jane said, "God, did you read that in a sex novel or something?"
"It just came to me." She said from the floor. "I don't know where it came from but there it was."
"I don't know," Colin said, "I thought the sleeping in the nip between the sheets is what did him in."
"You should have heard my next line." Kate said, "I was going to offer to share."
"Oh, god." Jane said as she almost dropped her head in her palms but stopped herself at seeing the blue gloves, "What is it about me that everyone thinks I'm gay?"
"Not everyone does," Colin said, "Kate knows you're straight and so do I."
"I swear that Liv is trying to seduce me every time we get drunk."
"That's because she is." Kate chuckled, "Though she really doesn't mean too."
"Oh I know." She said gruffly as she dug through the drawers. "I'm the Anti-Alex."
Colin grinned at Kate just then and Kate wasn't sure she liked it. He knew something she didn't about Jane and Olivia. She was going to have to look into it when her partner wasn't around.
"Okay, so this outfit was worn recently." Kate held up the shirt. "It's not all that hot out today so whatever he was doing was pretty physical."
Jane held up a pamphlet of the games. "He circled a few of the events around post. Seems he wanted to try out something called the Gauntlet, the Shootout, and Skid Row. He marked off a few others but these three were circled more than once."
As Davison came back with the ammo box Colin nodded and un-holstered the nine millimeter Springfield. "Skid Row is a high speed obstacle course, for a patrol cop it really is a must. Its purpose is to teach you how to perform and control your car through tight areas at higher speeds. Our course is way better than the one you ladies went through at your academies."
"Damn, I want to go now." Jane said. "I love that pursuit training."
He took the ammo box and placed the pistol, all the magazines he could find, as well as the officers badge and ID inside. He continued loading the things that his department would want secured into the box as he continued, "The gauntlet is that old shooting test that cops used to take, where you walk down the street and the cardboard targets pop up and you try not to shoot the Civilians. The Shoot Out is the same kind of thing except you stand in front of the building and they just pop up. We got the inspiration from that old Nintendo game Hogan's Alley. We like the real thing here."
"Sounds like things a Patrol Cop might actually use, I hear Detroit can be pretty rough in some places."
"No more than any other Major metropolitan department." Colin said, "I'm sure both of you have places in your cities where you don't go alone." He placed the security seal on the box and passed it to Davison, "Lock that in the Provost Cage."
He nodded. "So you feel confident enough to tell me what you're thinking?"
Kate looked to Jane, "You did say after."
"I'm thinking that Ellis was out at one of the events, he got sweaty and came back here for a shower. He gets undressed, puts on his shower shoes and heads to the bathroom."
Kate nodded, "He sets the wallet and the shave kit down at the sink and goes in to the shower and turns on the water. Since he's in his robe he avoids the water and comes back out."
"Right," Jane said, "I didn't see any shavings in the sink so let's assume either he hadn't gotten there or shaving wasn't on the day's list. So he disrobes and steps into the shower. One foot into the water and he slips, hard."
"Bangs his head on the wall and falls to the floor." Kate agreed.
"But he's in the middle of the shower room." Colin countered, "More than three feet away from the wall."
"That's where that slick stuff comes in again" Jane said.
"He cracks his head on the wall and falls to the floor and skidded out to the middle." Kate sighed.
Colin nodded, "And the running water, helps wash away the blood trail from the wall to the body. But the floor is slick all over The water doesn't run that far out from the head."
"Nope," Kate said, "But hot water does steam the bathroom."
"Fogged mirror after a shower." He said. "Condensation would fog the tiles it in the shower room."
"It's a homicide." Jane said, "Maybe negligent but it doesn't feel like that."
"No it doesn't. That much of the substance says the suspect wasn't sure where Ellis was going to stand, which shower head he would use." Kate shook her head, "It's on the walls too so he didn't want Ellis to catch himself."
"It's a murder," Jane said, "Plain and simple set up for murder."
"So now what?" Colin asked, "I got more experience taking lives than I do trying to find out why one was taken."
"First is that we have to collect evidence and interview suspects so we can determine who had a motive to kill Ellis and who had opportunity to seed the shower."
"What kind of a motive could you have here?" Colin asked.
"Possible motives for murder are, to profit in some way, to act in jealousy, to prevent or conceal a crime, to avoid humiliation or disgrace, to exact revenge, or because of mental instability or impairment." Jane said without looking up, "Or Homicidal-mania."
"Right out of the book." Kate said.
"You read The General's Daughter?" Jane asked with a smirk.
"No, did you?" Kate replied straight faced.
"I think I saw the movie once." She said jokingly, "Other motives are power, control, mission oriented murder, visionary murders where the killer thinks like he's a savior or judge, and hedonistic killers that murder for lust, comfort, or just for kicks."
"That's a profiling for serial killers." Kate said, "With one body, I don't think we're at that point."
"Actually there is something else." Colin said.
Kate looked at him, "You have more than one?"
Jane stared too.
"No." he said "but there have been other incidents this year. Now I'm starting to wonder if there related."
He glanced at his watch, "Guess you better get to doin' your thing with the vic before the County Coroner shows up with the State police."
"No faith in Illinois?" Kate joked.
He shook his head with a serious frown, "No faith that I'll be kept in the loop."