Disclaimer: See Chapter 1

Chapter 14—The Uraveling

Delko walked urgently into the lab. "Cal. Got your page. What did you find out?"

Calleigh looked at him firmly. "It looks like Keith Salter was telling the truth." She stood up and drew his attention to the copper strands that had been separated into two halves. "Up here in this area is positive for Keith's fingerprints and DNA." She motioned further down the strand toward the frayed ends. "If you look here, Keith's prints were separated into two. So he did hook the whole wire up into the lower part of that generator. But then it looks like after he did his work, the killer came in behind him and bifurcated the wire, hooking it up into the upper half of the generator. Prints on the lower half of the copper wiring match the prints and DNA on the upper and lower hatches of the backup generator. There's your five hundred volts."

Delko nodded thoughtfully. "Did we get anything off the ends?"

Calleigh nodded. "Just got a positive for prints. And our killer."

"Who?"

Horatio and Delko were prepared for anything as they knocked on the front door of the Galloway residence, hands on weapons. "Mr. Galloway? Miami-Dade PD" Horatio demanded.

No answer.

"Mr. Galloway?" he repeated, more urgently this time.

Delko looked at him, motioning toward the garage around back. "You hear that, H?" he nearly whispered.

Instinctively both Horatio and Delko drew their guns. "The garage."

The two CSI's and two uniformed officers crept cautiously to a humming sound in the garage. Horatio touched his nose as he glanced at Delko. "Car exhaust" he whispered. He wasted no time in opening the side door and was nearly overpowered by the smell and the fumes.

"Open that garage door! Call rescue!" he yelled to one of the uniformed officers He and Delko covered their noses with their sleeves and ran into the dark, smoky garage.

Mr. Galloway sat motionless in the driver's seat of his red Chevy Lumina, eyes closed, his head turned away. Delko yanked the driver's side door open as Horatio quickly wrapped both arms around him and pulled his pale, limp body out to the fresh air as quickly as he could, laying him on the concrete next to the garage. His skin was a pale gray, and his lips were blue. Horatio felt his neck. Cold. Nothing.

"Anything, H?"

The Lieutenant looked up at him and shook his head. "He's gone." He got up and sighed over the general manager's lifeless body. "Tell rescue to take their time!"

Delko waited for the fumes to clear before snapping on his latex gloves and peeking inside the Lumina's dark front seat. He shone his flashlight around the dark interior and found nothing remarkable, other than a red folder with a stack of photos, notes, and printed emails peeking out. Though he couldn't be completely sure this was a suicide, his instinct told him that, if not Mr. Galloway, someone had deliberately placed this on the front seat to be found. The CSI carefully picked it up and backed out of the darkened car.

"See anything, Eric?" Horatio wanted to know, standing beside Mr. Galloway and scanning the scene a little further.

"Yeah, H. There was this." Just a quick glance through the folder was enough to tell him that Paul Galloway was also a member of the Adult Diapers Club. He nodded sadly. "Mr. Galloway definitely had some secrets of his own. And this." He showed a small red electronics textbook to the Lieutenant who glanced at it.

Horatio peered over Delko's shoulder through his sunglasses. "An electronics manual. Looks like Mr. Galloway finished what Keith started. I think Mr. Galloway was leaving us a message." He paused to gather his thoughts. "Here's what I want you to do, Eric. Take this car and every photo, every piece of paper back to the lab. Alexx will post Mr. Galloway." He hung his head slightly as a husband and father had to die.

"I wonder if Mr. Galloway finally knew we were coming." Delko said.

"Somebody did. And they wanted to make sure we knew the whole story."

Special Agent Sackheim glanced at the federal subpoena one more time as he stood at the entrance with Horatio, Tyler, and two other FBI agents. Everybody was there, and everything he needed was in place.

Horatio put his hand on the red folder as he looked at Tyler. "You ready?"

Tyler nodded with a thankful smile. This was exacting justice. The Lieutenant was sure to let Tyler take this walk with him, not only because Emmie Stockburne had been recused from the case, but also because everyone felt that Tyler deserved it. "Thanks, Horatio."

Horatio and Tyler strained to keep up with Sackheim and his suited FBI colleagues as they stepped in their authoritative march quickly through the hallways, past bystanders, past uniformed officers, slowing down at the doorway of the main conference room.

A security guard stepped in front of the door and put up his hand. "I'm sorry, you can't go—"

Agent Sackheim seem to look right through him as he immediately produced his identification. "FBI. We have a Federal subpoena for Scott O'Shay" he said in a tone that implied that there would be no argument. The security guard knew immediately to step aside and let the five gentlemen through the doorway. All five gentlemen kept their determined expressions as they stepped into the crowded conference room into the glare of studio lights.

Supervisor O'Shay whipped his head at the unwelcome disturbance, obviously annoyed. "I'm in the middle of a press conference right now, gentlemen! Can it wait?" he said rather impatiently.

Agent Sackheim stepped to the side as Lieutenant Caine locked angry eyes with the supervisor.

"Supervisor O'Shay, maybe you can tell these reporters why you paid a Miami-Dade computer tech to traffick child pornography. Or why you used a dead police officer's credit card number to sell pornographic website access to your friends in the Adult Diapers Club." Without another word he quickly tossed the red folder clear across the brown conference room table in the same manner that Rick Stetler had done to him not long ago.

The horde of reporters wasted no time in pouncing on the folder's contents like a school of sharks attacking wounded prey, grabbing whatever documents and photographs they could reach within a split second.

Horatio motioned toward Tyler as he continued to look straight into the stunned supervisor's eyes. "And you didn't care if Tyler Jensen took the fall for it. Did you?"

Scott O'Shay now looked into Tyler's eyes. Tyler now gained his confidence in confronting the man who would have been just as happy to see him take the fall for all of this. He narrowed his eyes at the blonde supervisor.

The tone of the reporters changed from bored, organized and formal to charged, chaotic and frenzied. Adrenaline shot through Scott O'Shay as he now turned toward the shouting reporters who thrust microphones and lobbed a hailstorm of questions regarding the sudden turn of events.

"Is this in any way related to the Bohannon case?"

"Supervisor, did you murder Derrick Bohannon?"

"Can you tell us more about the Adult Diapers Club?"

"Are there any more city officials involved in this, Sir?"

Gathering himself, O'Shay knew he had lost this one. He now looked at Lieutenant Caine, whose scowl had turned into a victorious smile. His breath quickened as he then forced himself to face the frenzied mob of reporters and glaring lights.

"I'll issue an official statement concerning this later. This press conference is now over!" He could barely be heard above the din, but he didn't care as he and his entourage quickly exited by way of the other door. Security guards strained to keep O'Shay and his entourage separated from the media frenzy.

Horatio then motioned toward the door. "Tyler, I think we better let the Feds do their job now."

"Thanks, Horatio."